Greenhouse gases

Greenhouse gases

The potential threats posed by climate change are significant and urgent. But while tackling climate change presents serious challenges, it also offers significant opportunities.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face as a society. Of the environmental risks identified by the World Economic Forum in its annual Global Risk Report, four can be linked to climate change: extreme weather events, failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation, natural disasters and biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. The risks presented by climate change cross the boundaries between nations, continents, industries and societies, such as food and water crises, and large-scale involuntary migration.

Consensus was reached to take action in 2015 when the Paris Agreement was signed. World leaders agreed to limit global temperature increase to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. In 2018, the IPCC published a report calling to limit global temperature increase to 2°C or the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty will worsen significantly for hundreds of millions of people.

We advocate for policies that advance the goal of the Paris Agreement – limiting global temperature rises to no more than 2°C, and ideally 2°C, by the end of the century. We’re doing this through an ambitious target within our own operation to become carbon positive by 2030, and through our target to halve greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain by 2030. We are also working in partnership with others to scale up action around the world through multiple private sector groups and coalitions.

Taking action against the risks of climate change is a necessity. But it’s also a chance to grow our business by responding to opportunities from the low-carbon economy. Through the USLP, we are directly responding to a number of macro forces that are both risks and opportunities in our markets, such as strains on the global food system, climate and the environment.

The Greenhouse gases (GHG) pillar of our USLP contributes to a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), primarily: Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7); Climate Action (SDG 13) and Life on Land (SDG 15).

Our strategy

We’re taking action to reduce GHG emissions throughout our value chain.

Eliminating fossil fuels in manufacturing

Responding to risks and opportunities across our value chain

We are taking action to address our climate change risks, as well as working to create the opportunities these changes could present across our value chain. We combine actions to change our own business and value chain, with collective efforts and advocacy to help achieve the wider systems changes needed to create a low-carbon world. Our climate strategy is focused in a number of areas.

Reducing emissions in our supply chain

Around 27% of our GHG footprint comes from raw materials for ingredients and packaging. Mitigating the physical impacts of climate change is critical because we depend on raw materials sourced from countries that are particularly vulnerable to rising sea temperatures and changing weather patterns. An important step in mitigating this risk was the launch in 2018 of the renewed Sustainable Agriculture Code (PDF | 8MB) (SAC 2017), which has guidance on all aspects of Climate Smart Agriculture.

Our commitment to source 100% of our palm oil from sustainable sources is helping to avoid emissions from deforestation from agricultural commodity supply chains. We’re also encouraging the entire industry, including growers, traders, manufacturers and retailers to set and meet high standards of palm oil production, extending beyond current certification schemes.

In particular, we are focused on helping catalyse transformative change at the landscape or jurisdictional level in key regions of South-East Asia, South America, and West and Central Africa; and on ensuring – through our networks and relationships – that large-scale, performance-based payments for emissions reductions from forests are available to tropical forest countries. Find out more in protecting our forests.

Reducing emissions in our operations

Our own factories and sites are the parts of our value chain over which we have the greatest control. We've committed to becoming carbon positive in our operations by 2030. That means 100% of our energy will come from renewable sources – and we intend to directly support the generation of more renewable energy than we need for our own operations, making the surplus available to the markets and communities in which we operate.

Our Foods & Refreshment Division has prioritised reducing greenhouse gas emissions from ice cream freezers since 2008. As the world’s largest producer of ice cream, we have committed to accelerating the roll-out of freezer cabinets that use more climate-friendly natural (hydrocarbon) refrigerants.

Reducing emissions through product innovation

Over 60% of our GHG footprint occurs when consumers use our products. We’re using our knowledge and resources in innovation and R&D to bring people the products they enjoy but which also respond to the challenge of climate change, while creating business growth opportunities. For example, our concentrated liquid laundry detergents, such as Persil and Omo enable people to wash their clothes at lower temperatures, reducing GHG emissions by up to 50% per load.

Alongside our work on liquid detergents, we continue to lead the industry in developing lower-impact powders by removing or reducing phosphate – a key component with high GHG impact. We have eliminated phosphates in our machine dishwash products and reached a 95% reduction in the global use of phosphates across our laundry powders, resulting in lower CO2 emissions of up to 50% per single consumer use.

A shift to vegetarian and vegan diets is also helping to reduce emissions. The business opportunity for natural and plant-based foods and beverages is significant as consumer demand grows. We have a range of vegan and vegetarian variants such as Hellmann’s vegan mayonnaise, Ben & Jerry’s non-dairy ice creams, Magnum vegan and other options. Two new brands – Love Home and Planet, a range of plant-based, home-cleaning products and Love Beauty and Planet, a natural hair and skincare product range – respond to the demand for vegan products. Find out more in innovating to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Advocacy and partnerships to drive systems change

Tackling climate change requires transformational changes to the broader systems in which we operate. For this, we need ambitious government policy that creates the right context for change and business action. It’s critical that organisations from all sectors work in collaboration, partnering on projects and initiatives to take action. Find out more about our external engagement on climate-related issues in global climate action.

We support the advocacy work of the We Mean Business and are actively involved in a number of other business-led initiatives such as WBCSD’s Low Carbon Technology Partnership Initiatives, RE100 which campaigns for renewable energy, the HRH The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and the B Team. We have publicly supported calls for carbon pricing and are a member of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, hosted by the World Bank.

We are signatories of the Caring for Climate initiative, led by the UN Global Compact together with UNEP and the Secretariat of the UNFCCC, which aims to shape the engagement of businesses with climate change. We are committed to engaging responsibly to help shape climate policy through positive lobbying and regularly review our trade association memberships to ensure alignment with our internal policy positions on climate change. In the last few years, incompatible trade association positions on climate change has been a factor in our decision to revoke membership of at least one trade association.

Understanding the impacts of climate change on our business

We recognise the importance of disclosing climate-related risks to, and opportunities for, our business. We have, therefore, adopted the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), of which our Chief Financial Officer, Graeme Pitkethly was the Vice-Chair, to aid understanding of the impacts of climate change on our business.

To understand these impacts, we performed a high-level assessment of the impact of 2°C and 4°C global warming scenarios in 2030. For more details on our scenario analysis, see pages 33–34 of our 2018 Annual Report & Accounts. We analysed the potential material impacts on Unilever’s business arising from each of these scenarios based on existing internal and external data. The impacts were assessed without considering any actions that Unilever might take to mitigate or adapt to the adverse impacts, or to introduce new products which might offer new sources of revenue as consumers adjust to the changing circumstances.

Our analysis shows that, without action, both scenarios present financial risks to Unilever by 2030, predominantly due to increased costs. However, while there are financial risks which would need to be managed, we would not have to materially change our business model.

The most significant impacts of both scenarios are on our supply chain where costs of raw materials and packaging rise, due to carbon pricing and rapid shift to sustainable agriculture in a 2°C scenario and due to chronic water stress and extreme weather in a 4°C scenario. The impacts on sales and our own manufacturing operations are relatively small.

The results of this analysis confirm the importance of doing further work to ensure we understand the critical dependencies of climate change on our business, and to ensure we have action plans in place to help mitigate these risks and thus prepare the business for the future environment in which we will operate.

During 2018, we developed and piloted an approach to assess the impact of climate change on our key commodities. We selected soy for this pilot based on its importance to Unilever (large purchased volume), with it being a high-profile crop in the countries where it is grown, and the availability of good historical price data and suitable climate models. Further details of this work can be found in our 2018 Annual Report & Accounts.

CDP is the world’s largest disclosure platform of environmental data for investors. We have been recognised by CDP for our efforts on climate change and supply chain – making the A List for CDP Climate and the Supplier Engagement Leader board. For CDP Forests, we achieved an A in Timber, Palm oil and Cattle and B in Soy. In CDP's recent Fast Moving Consumers report, we ranked first in the Household and Personal Care sub-sector.

Our GHG pillar commitment

We will halve the greenhouse gas impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2030.*

Incorporated into this target is our commitment to become carbon positive in own operations by 2030, by eliminating fossil fuels from our energy mix and switching to 100% renewable energy. We also intend to directly support the generation of more renewable energy than we consume, making the surplus available to the markets and communities where we operate.

Two of our GHG reduction targets are recognised as science-based by the Science Based Targets Initiative**:

  • Halve the greenhouse gas impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2030 (this target covers all the phases across the lifecycle of our products: ingredients/raw materials, manufacturing, distribution, retail, packaging, consumer use and disposal).
  • Reduce scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 100% from our own operations by 2030 (this is part of our ambition to become carbon positive in our manufacturing by 2030).
Progress to date

We have continued to develop products with a lower GHG impact, however the GHG impact of our products across their full lifecycle has increased by around 6% since 2010.* ∞ This is a slight improvement from 2017, when our GHG impact per consumer use was up 9% compared to 2010.

The increase in GHG emissions per consumer use is mainly because we have expanded our portfolio of hair and shower products via acquisitions. Our turnover has increased at a higher rate than our GHG emissions have grown, which is an indication of decoupling. As we make progress towards our 2030 GHG reduction target, we expect the extent of decoupling to accelerate.

We are having more success in areas that we can directly control. Although our factory sites achieved our CO2 reduction from energy target in 2016 – four years ahead of schedule – they are continuing to cut CO2 emissions from energy. Compared to 2008, CO2 emissions from energy in our factories have fallen by 52%† per tonne of production. In 2018, 67% of all grid electricity used in our manufacturing operations was generated from renewable resources.

We continue to reduce GHG emissions from refrigeration through the ongoing roll-out of climate-friendly ice cream freezer cabinets, which use hydrocarbon refrigerants rather than hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants. By 2018, we had rolled out around 2.9 million climate-friendly ice cream freezer cabinets. Finally, CO2 emissions intensity from transport has improved by 38% since 2010.

We’ve created a detailed plan to annually assess the feasibility for Unilever to reach our target to halve the GHG impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2030. This takes into account both external transitions towards a low-carbon economy as well as the latest available data and assumptions about our GHG footprint.

Future challenges

To reach our 2030 commitment of halving the GHG impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2030, we’re dependent on a wide range of external factors, such as the energy efficiency of consumer appliances, and the carbon intensity of the energy supplied to people’s homes – as well as consumer behaviour.

The amount of available renewable energy is increasing and the costs are falling rapidly. But, much of the world's infrastructure remains reliant on fossil fuels. For example, that means the electricity used to heat water, including the hot water used by our consumers, significantly contributes to GHG emissions.

We have a role to play to help advocate for policy and legislation which accelerates the transition to a low-carbon economy. Strong policy measures and carbon pricing – applying a cost to each tonne of carbon emitted is one of the most effective ways to encourage investment in low-carbon solutions – are needed to accelerate the transition. The removal of fossil fuel subsidies is also essential, as subsidies act as negative carbon prices.

* Our environmental targets are expressed against a baseline of 2010 and on a 'per consumer use' basis. This means a single use, portion or serving of a product.

** Two of our targets were approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in 2017. We set our first science-based target in 2010, to halve the greenhouse gas impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2030. The second science-based target was introduced in 2015, aiming to source 100% of our energy across our operations from renewable sources by 2030.

∞ The spreads business was sold in mid-2018 and is excluded from the performance measure (including the baseline) to ensure alignment with the existing business structure.

†Independently assured by PwC

Expand for more on Greenhouse gases

Targets & performance

We have an ambitious commitment to halve the greenhouse gases (GHG) associated with the consumer use of our products in our value chain.
Greenhouse gases
Our commitment
Halve the greenhouse gas impact of our products across the lifecycle by 2030.*
Our performance

In 2018, our greenhouse gas impact per consumer use increased by around 6% since 2010.*∞

Our perspective

Our pillar commitment of halving the GHG impact of our products across their lifecycle by 2030 is one of our science-based targets. Science-based targets are defined as "in line with the level of decarbonisation required to keep the global temperature increase below 2°C compared to pre-industrial temperatures"** - which underpins the Paris Agreement. Our turnover has increased at a higher rate than our GHG emissions have grown, which is an indication of decoupling. As we make progress towards our 2030 GHG reduction commitment, we expect the extent of decoupling to accelerate.

We have set targets to become ‘carbon positive’ in our operations by 2030. In 2018, our factory sites reduced CO2 emissions from energy by 52%† per tonne of production compared to 2008. We have increased our use of energy in our manufacturing operations that is generated from renewable sources; in 2018 this increased to 36.7% compared to 15.8% in 2008. In 2018, we also purchased 67% of all grid electricity used in our manufacturing operations from renewable resources.

The GHG impact of our products has risen by 6% since 2010, although this is an improvement from 9% in 2017.*∞ The increase in GHG emissions per consumer use is mainly driven by our Beauty & Personal Care division which has expanded in hair and skin cleansing products via acquisitions. Over 60% of our value chain GHG footprint comes from consumer use, primarily from heated water for showering, which is more difficult to influence.

Since we launched the USLP in 2010, we have learned a lot about the areas we can influence and those we cannot, and which areas need wider action from other players. For example, this includes the shift in the energy grids towards more renewable sources, which will contribute positively to halving the GHG impact of our products by 2030.

Technology and innovation play a critical part in addressing climate change - and in opening up the business opportunities that a low-carbon economy will bring. We’re using our knowledge and resources in innovation, and Research and Development, to bring people the products they enjoy but which respond to the challenge of climate change, while creating business growth opportunities. For example, our concentrated liquid laundry detergents, such as Persil and Omo, enable people to wash their clothes at lower temperatures, reducing GHG emissions by up to 50% per load.

*Our environmental targets are expressed against a baseline of 2010 and on a 'per consumer use' basis. This means a single use, portion or serving of a product.

**As described in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5).

∞ The spreads business was sold in mid-2018 and is excluded from the performance measure (including the baseline) to ensure alignment with the existing business structure.

†Independently assured by PwC

  • Achieved 4

  • On-Plan 6

  • Off-Plan 1

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    Of target achieved 0

Key to our performance

  • Achieved

    This is the number of targets we have achieved

  • On-Plan

    This is the number of targets we are on track to achieve

  • Off-Plan

    This is the number of targets we are currently not on track

  • %

    Of target achieved

    This is the percentage of the target we are on track to achieve

Our targets

Please see Independent Assurance for more details of our assurance programme across the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.

Become carbon positive in manufacturing

  • By 2020 CO2 emissions from energy from our factories will be at or below 2008 levels despite significantly higher volumes.

Measured against a baseline of 145.92 kg of CO2 emissions from energy use per tonne of production in 2008.

This represents a reduction of around 40% per tonne of production.

Versus a 1995 baseline, this represents a 63% reduction per tonne of production and a 43% absolute reduction.

1,347,840† fewer tonnes of CO2 from energy in 2018 than in 2008 (a reduction of 52%† of CO2 from energy per tonne of production compared to 2008). This is an absolute reduction of 75.46 kg of CO2 emissions from energy use per tonne of production.

Compared to 1995, this represents a 71.7% reduction in absolute terms.

We will become carbon positive in our manufacturing by 2030:

  • We will source 100% of our energy across our operations** from renewable sources by 2030.

In 2018, 36.7% of our total energy use in our manufacturing operations was generated from renewable resources, compared to 15.8% in 2008.

  • We will source all our electricity purchased from the grid from renewable sources by 2020.

In 2018, 67% of all grid electricity used in our manufacturing operations was generated from renewable resources.

  • We will eliminate coal from our energy mix by 2020.

In 2018, 1.0 million GJ of the energy used in our manufacturing was generated from coal. During the year, 12 of our manufacturing sites used energy generated from coal.

  • In order to achieve our target of carbon positive by 2030, we intend to directly support the generation of more renewable energy than we consume and make the surplus available to the markets and communities in which we operate.

In 2018 we continued to develop our methodology and will report on our target progress in our 2019 Sustainable Living Report.

Our Perspective

In 2018, our factory sites reduced CO2 emissions from energy by 8.2% per tonne of production compared to 2017 and 52%† per tonne of production compared to 2008, despite having already achieved our target in 2016, four years ahead of schedule. 1,347,840† fewer tonnes of CO2 from energy were produced in 2018 compared to our 2008 baseline. We continued to reduce energy use by a further 2.2% per tonne of production in 2018, following 2.8% per tonne of production in 2017. We have reduced our energy use by 28% since 2008.

In 2015 we announced our carbon positive ambition. This supersedes our previous target of sourcing 40% of our energy across our operations from renewable sources by 2020. By the end of 2018, 111 manufacturing sites in 36 countries across all continents purchased 100% of their grid electricity from verified renewable sources. In 2018 we met 36.7% of our global energy needs from renewable sources.

†Independently assured by PwC

How we’re becoming carbon positive in our operations

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from washing clothes

Reformulating our products to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2012.

Over 95% (by volume) of our laundry powders in our top 14 countries have been reformulated, achieving a reduction of 15% in greenhouse gas emissions by end 2012.

We continue to reformulate by optimising raw material usage in powders and capsules and optimising our manufacturing.

Our Perspective

Liquid laundry detergents have a lower greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint than powders. We are driving market development through liquids: we grow faster in liquids wherever powders, bars and liquids are present.

Many of our liquids are now sold in concentrated form which reduces GHG emissions. They also provide great cleaning performance at lower temperatures. We are also increasing the number of unit dose washes so consumers cannot over or under dose.

We continue to lead the industry in developing lower impact powders by removing or reducing phosphate – a key component with high GHG impact. We have eliminated phosphates in our machine dishwash products and reached a 95% reduction in the global use of phosphates across our laundry powders, resulting in lower CO2 emissions of up to 50% per single consumer use. We’re continuing to investigate technologies that could lead to zero-phosphate products in the future.

Innovating to reduce greenhouse gases

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport

By 2020, CO2 emissions from our global logistics network will be at or below 2010 levels despite significantly higher volumes. This will represent a 40% improvement in CO2 efficiency.

We will achieve this by reducing truck mileage; using lower emission vehicles; employing alternative transport such as rail or ship; and improving the energy efficiency of our warehouses.

38% improvement in CO2 efficiency since 2010. 5% improvement in CO2 efficiency and a 7% decrease in absolute terms in 2018 compared to 2017.1

Our Perspective

In 2018, we achieved a 38% improvement in CO2 efficiency since 2010. We have made steady progress, with some of our market clusters achieving their highest ever improvement in CO2 efficiency.

Meeting our 2020 target remains ambitious, but we are determined to achieve it by continuing to build on the strong foundations we have in place. Through innovation and developing bottom-up carbon reduction projects, we will share best practices to ensure we build efficiency into our transportation logistics.

We are increasingly using non-road forms of transport such as rail and sea to move goods. For journeys still undertaken by road, we are exploring technologies such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), compressed natural gas (CNG) and biofuels as an alternative fuels, electric vehicles, thermal blanket technology for temperature controlled trucks and hydrogen technologies. We are working with our partners to accelerate the adoption of the above technologies.

1 Cumulative improvement since 2010 and annual improvement is measured across more than 50 countries.

Reducing transport emissions

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from refrigeration

As the world’s largest producer of ice cream, we will accelerate our roll-out of freezer cabinets that use climate-friendly natural (hydrocarbon) refrigerants. When we launched our Plan in November 2010 we had already purchased 450,000 units with the new refrigerant.


  • We will purchase a further 850,000 units by 2015.

In 2013 we exceeded our target of purchasing 850,000 climate-friendly freezers, reaching a total of around 1.5 million.

In 2018 our total increased to around 2.9 million hydrocarbon freezers.

Our Perspective

The climate-friendly hydrocarbon (HC) refrigerants we use in our freezers have a substantially lower global warming potential compared to previously used hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which have a global warming impact thousands of times greater than the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide. The refrigerant change alone makes our freezers around 10% more energy efficient. By the end of 2018, we had purchased around 2.9 million freezers using natural refrigerants.

We are continuing to roll out climate-friendly HC freezers and make our freezers more energy efficient. In 2018, our purchased freezers were 50% more energy efficient compared to our 2008 baseline, with the most energy efficient models going even further. We are working on innovations to make more improvements in freezer energy efficiency, including piloting the use solar panels to power our cabinets.

Climate-friendly freezers

Reduce energy consumption in our offices

By 2020 we will halve the energy (kWh) purchased per occupant for the offices in our top 21 countries versus 2010.

34% reduction in energy (kWh) purchased per occupant since 2010.

Our Perspective

We have set a challenging 2020 target to reduce energy purchased per occupant at our in-scope sites. In 2018 we saw a 6% decrease in the absolute amount of energy purchased compared to 2017 and a 1.5% decrease in the number of occupants at our in-scope sites. This represents an improvement on our 2017 performance, but is not sufficient to bring us back on track to achieve our target of a 50% reduction in energy (kWh) purchased per occupant since 2010.

We have further energy reduction plans in place for 2019 and are in the process of identifying more ways through which we can bring our performance back on track. We have continued to make progress on our energy efficiency programmes at many of our sites. However, the energy demand at some sites has increased, for example through operations transfers and the opening of our new Advanced Manufacturing Centre.

We are continuing to make savings through our real estate programme with office relocations to more energy efficient facilities and have continued to save energy through using our PC power management tool. We’re continuing to focus on the optimisation of our building management systems and the roll out of LED lighting across a number of our offices, to reduce our energy consumption.

We’re also looking at the carbon impact of our energy purchasing decisions. In 2018, 50% of our in-scope sites purchased certified renewable electricity. Additionally, our offices in central London and Surrey became carbon neutral through the purchase of certified renewable gas. Although it’s challenging to reduce energy purchased per occupant, we’re continuing to reduce the GHG impact of our offices.

Reducing office impacts

Reduce employee travel

We are investing in advanced video conferencing facilities to make communication easier while reducing travel for our employees. By 2011 this network will cover more than 30 countries.

54 countries were covered by end 2011.

Our Perspective

We have continued to invest in implementing Skype for Business as well as advanced video facilities to reduce our travel footprint.

This is substantially reducing our need to travel to meetings, and our carbon emissions. It delivers clear benefits such as cost and time savings for the business and cuts down on tiring travel for our employees.

To further reduce our GHG employee travel impacts, we have introduced messages on the benefits of using Skype for Business when employees use our travel booking system to book flights. This encourages employees to travel only when necessary.