The issue
Many of the world's fresh water systems are under intense pressure. The United Nations has predicted that more than half the people in the world could be living in severely water-stressed areas by 2030. Water is a shared resource and we all need to use it responsibly.
Unilever's impact
We have estimated our water use through the full life-cycle of our products and right across our product range, from raw material sourcing to consumer use of products. This has given us a global picture – our imprint – of the way we impact on water resources. Unilever’s manufacturing operations account for about 3% of its total water imprint.
Our main water imprint is associated with the growing of our raw materials (upstream from our factories) and with the consumer use of our products (downstream), not with our manufacturing operations.
This explains the importance we place on our sustainable agriculture initiative and on the need for us to work with consumers to foster the responsible use of water. It is clearly in our long-term interest to do so because without clean water many of our branded products would be unusable.
Understanding our imprint is enabling us to define priorities around water for our companies, product categories and brands.
