Our sustainability journey

Committed to source all our palm oil from certified sustainable sources by 2015

Purchased first batch of certified sustainable palm oil in November

Around 50% of the tea for Lipton Yellow Label and PG Tips tea bags in Western Europe was sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms

Lifebuoy co-founded the first-ever Global Handwashing Day

Lifebuoy’s Swasthya Chetna hygiene education campaign reached 120 million people in nearly 51 000 villages in India over the period 2002–2008

43% of our food products are in line with internationally accepted guidelines for saturated and trans fat, sugar and salt

Signal/Pepsodent/Close Up toothpaste brands reached more than 44 million children in school-based oral hygiene programmes over the period 1996–2008

Named food industry category leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Indexes for the tenth year running – the only company ever to have achieved this

Nutrition Enhancement Programme completed

Lipton sustainable tea partnership with Rainforest Alliance launched

Independent study on the impacts of our South Africa business completed

PROGRESS, a foods sector industry partnership on supplier standards, launched with Unilever as a founding member

Brand Imprint methodology piloted

Choices nutrition labelling launched

Shakti – our rural sales initiative in India – reaches 100 000 villages through 30 000 entrepreneurs

Roundtable on Responsible Soy established

Nutrition Enhancement Programme begins

56% of our fish used in Europe from sustainable sources

Joint research published with Oxfam on the links between wealth creation and poverty reduction

Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil established

Business Partner Code introduced

Good Agricultural Practice Guidelines published for all key crops

Code of Business Principles revised

Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna handwashing campaign launched in India

Sustainable Agriculture Advisory Board established

Project Shakti launched in India to increase rural distribution and help create woman entrepreneurs

First social report published

First agricultural pilot project begins

Fish sustainability initiative sets long-term goal of sustainable sourcing

Marine Stewardship Council co-founded with WWF

First environmental report published containing eco-efficiency indicators

Sustainable Agriculture Initiative begins

Unilever starts to focus on Foods and Home and Personal Care products

Unilever acquires Lipton tea, making it a leading beverages company

Fish fingers introduced in response to the need for nutritious food appealing to children following post-war food rationing

Lifebuoy soap sponsors mobile bath units during the London blitz for people whose houses had been bombed

Lever Brothers launches its clean hands campaign to educate children about dirt and germs and to encourage them to wash their hands 'before breakfast, before dinner and after school'

Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie join to create Unilever