Energy efficiency projects saved Unilever over €1 bn since 2008

27 / 05 / 2024

By Marwa Nassar - -

Energy efficiency projects have saved Unilever well over €1 billion since 2008, and in recent years the company’s regenerative agriculture projects have helped to build more resilient supply chains, reducing emissions and costs in the process.

Over the next three years, Unilever will invest €150 million in our manufacturing decarbonization program, focusing on the decarbonization of its thermal and electrical energy, increasing its use of renewable power, and reducing emissions from refrigeration.

Unilever is also investing in protecting nature, putting €325 million into its oleochemicals facility in Indonesia, which will help it meet current and future demand for deforestation-free commodities.

The company is continuing to invest €1 billion in climate, nature and waste reduction projects by 2030 – of which Unilever had already spent and committed €300 million by the end of 2023.

Unilever’s updated Climate Transition Action Plan (CTAP), which was supported by 97.5% of its shareholders at its 2024 AGM, outlines the company’s strategy for reducing emissions in the short term, while Unilever also puts in place the building blocks to deliver in the long term. It includes new stretching near-term science-based targets for lowering our GHG emissions by 2030, approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, as well as ten action areas across our value chain.

“CTAP is really important, because it enables the company to understand where its emissions sit across its business and its value chain. We’ve now got time-bound costed roadmaps that enable us to take action in each of the business groups. That means less exposure to volatility in the energy markets and more security of supply in key crops and commodities,” said Rebecca Marmot, Chief Sustainability Officer at Unilever.

To accelerate our delivery, we want to make Unilever’s CTAP integral to how the company assesses its business performance, setting key short-term deliverables, and hard-wiring the steps it needs to take to reduce its emissions into its strategic planning and budget cycles.

The company has worked with each of our business groups to develop time-bound costed roadmaps, so that their targets and actions are embedded in their respective financial growth plans and, as extra incentive, we’re also linking rewards to the delivery of sustainability performance.

Sustainability has been important to Unilever for many years and responding to climate change has been a key part of this. Unilever has reduced its operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 74% since 2015, largely through its transition to renewable electricity, and it has also lowered the climate impact of its products.

But as the company looks to its long-term ambition of reaching net zero across its value chain, the challenges it is facing are changing and its solutions need to change too.

It is entering an era which rightfully places more scrutiny on how and when corporate climate action happens and it needed to evolve its strategy so that by 2030 Unilever can achieve deep cuts in the emissions outside its direct control, while simultaneously growing its business.