Eco-efficiency in manufacturing

Our approach

Reducing the impacts of our own manufacturing operations – eco-efficiency – is a core part of our strategy. Our long-standing work in this area has helped us improve the understanding of our impacts and underpinned our commitment to reducing our environmental footprint in areas such as water, waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

Our approach is underpinned by our environmental management system which is based on ISO 14001. An essential element is the setting and reviewing of targets for our key performance indicators (KPIs). This approach has helped us set our new target to reduce our CO₂ from energy in our manufacturing operations by 25% by 2012 (measured per tonne of production against a 2004 baseline).

Every year we collect data from each of our manufacturing sites using our web-based reporting system for key measures of environmental performance. Over the past 14 years we have continually improved the way we collect and report data.In 2007 we focused on improving reporting of our energy and CO₂ emissions to allow better reporting of data on renewable energy, biomass and resulting CO₂ emissions. This brings our reporting in line with the requirements of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Protocol. In 2008 we continued to improve our system for the reporting of monthly and quarterly environmental performance data by our sites. As a result of these improvements, eco-efficiency data for our main KPIs is now reported quarterly to the Unilever Executive rather than at year end. This enables us to monitor our performance more closely and act more quickly to make improvements, eg in order to maintain progress against our milestones.

The definitions and basis of reporting of the environmental performance indicators shown in this section of the website are described in our Basis of reporting document.

Target setting

We are reviewing our approach to short- and long-term target-setting for our eco-efficiency measures. We will continue to track internal, short-term targets to drive our performance and these targets to 2010 are presented in this online Sustainable Development Report.

Future external reporting will focus on our performance against long-term targets. This provides a more accurate reflection of our progress rather than reporting against rolling annual milestones, since most of our eco-efficiency initiatives yield results over a longer timeframe. We have already adopted this approach for CO₂ from energy and in 2009 we aim to define similar long-term targets for our other two key performance indicators of water and total waste.

Our performance

In 2008 we collected environmental performance data from 276 manufacturing sites in 69 countries (including sites that have now closed). We do not collect data from third-party companies that manufacture or pack our products.

Our data show that for our three key performance indicators of CO₂ from energy, water and total waste, we improved our eco-efficiency performance in two of them – CO₂ from energy and water. We also improved our performance for energy and boiler SOx emissions. In 2008 we met four out of our seven eco-efficiency annual milestones for our manufacturing sites worldwide.

Summary of eco-efficiency performance

Target scorecard

Progress against 2010/2012 targets

*2012 target

**Increased target for 2008 due to disposal of accumulated hazardous waste in Americas and Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Turkey

2008 data for these indicators is reported in Our performance, together with progress against targets. This data also forms part of the eight environmental performance indicators that are independently assured by Deloitte LLP; see Assurance.

Training

Unilever's Safety & Environmental Assurance Centre conducts eco-efficiency training courses throughout our business. These aim to deliver tools, techniques and awareness, and share best practice directly with the people responsible for reducing the environmental impact of our manufacturing operations. In 2008 we conducted eco-efficiency workshops in Indonesia, China, the UK, Côte d'Ivoire, Israel and South Africa.

Environmental prosecutions & fines

We always aim to maintain the highest possible standards of environmental management but occasionally we encounter setbacks. We monitor and report all occurrences of environmental prosecutions and resulting fines associated with infringements, from our manufacturing sites, corporate head offices and research laboratories. The figures shown in the table below cover the 276 manufacturing sites that reported data for 2008 and our corporate head offices and research laboratories (8). In 2008 there was one prosecution for a spillage resulting in non-compliance with liquid effluent discharge limits, resulting in a fine of €873.

Environmental prosecutions & fines 2004–2008