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Unilever 'one year on' report presented to external stakeholders on progress of its Sustainable Living Plan

Unilever outlined the progress made in the first year of its Sustainable Living Plan to key opinion formers, media and partners at events in the UK, Netherlands, India, US and Brazil.

The company is making good progress in a number of areas. For example:

  • 24% of agricultural raw materials are now being sourced sustainably, versus 14% in 2010

  • Over 90% of Unilever's leading spreads now contain less than one-third saturated fat

  • Renewable energy now contributes 20% of total energy use

  • Pureit has given 35 million people access to safe drinking water

Events kicked off in London on 24 April with an address by CEO Paul Polman.

In his opening presentation, he highlighted the thinking behind the Plan. "Companies can no longer sit on the sidelines waiting for governments to take action on the huge environmental and social issues which face us. We have to see ourselves as part of the solution to these problems.”

Read the full external press release on this story.

The Sustainable Living Lab

The following day, an online ‘Lab’ run for 24 hours brought together a cross section of people from governments, NGOs and businesses to discuss the themes of sustainable sourcing, production and distribution, consumer behaviour change, and waste and recycling. It attracted over 2,200 registrants from 77 countries and almost 4,000 comments were posted.

One participant commented: "I found the session to be a novel approach to engage with different stakeholders. It has helped surface tough questions that are valuable to take the next leap towards sustainability,” Darrel Webber, Secretary General, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

Download the full report on the Lab and let us know what topics we should focus on for future events via the links on the right hand side of this page. 

Unilever plans to apply the learnings and feedback to its own programme and disseminate the findings to all those who took part. The Lab was facilitated by independent research consultancy GlobeScan.

(Source: Unilever)

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31 May 2012