Sustainable Living Plan

Unilever launched its ambitious Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) in November 2010, which sets out its blueprint for a sustainable business by decoupling the company’s growth from its environmental impact while increasing its positive social impact. The goal of the plan is to double turnover by 2020 while improving the health and well-being of a billion people, halving the company’s environmental impact, and enhancing the livelihoods of people across the value chain.

Supporting the global delivery of the USLP has become the core focus of Forum for the Future’s (Forum) long-standing partnership with Unilever.

Forum’s Founder Director, Jonathon Porritt, sits on the Unilever Sustainable Development Group and provides high-level strategic advice to the organisation on all aspects of the USLP.

Forum provides advice and support on key challenges from a tactical and operational perspective to teams across the organisation; for example, by helping the global packaging team to prioritise activities to meet their USLP goals.

Forum has also worked closely with Unilever to identify the mega trends and major issues facing the business, and to map the areas where Unilever can drive the most change.

At the halfway mark to its 2020 goals, Unilever has made a lot of progress; for example:

• 55% of raw materials were sustainably sourced in 2015, on track for 100% by 2020;

• All palm oil was Green Palm certified by 2012 and 58% traceable back to mills;

• Zero waste was sent to landfill across all manufacturing sites;

• Soap brand Lifebuoy’s social mission has brought health and hygiene to tens of millions of people;

• All US operations now purchase their energy from certified, renewable sources.

These milestones were achieved while turnover grew 20% from €40bn when the USLP was launched to €48bn in 2014.

In November 2015, Unilever announced ground-breaking commitments to sustainability that were developed with Forum’s support.

“Forum have played a key role in shaping the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. As independent outsiders, they bring in new thinking and help keep us honest. Forum brings not only its intellectual power but also… the right coalitions to achieve our targets; helping us move further and faster.”

Paul PolmanCEO

Unilever

These included sourcing all grid electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and becoming “carbon positive” by 2030, making any surplus energy available to the local community. Forum is now working with Unilever on implementing these commitments.

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