Packaging

Our footprint

We sell around 160 million products every day. Currently we use a wide range of materials, including paper and board, plastic, glass, aluminium, steel and mixed material laminates (for sachets and pouches).

Our approach

With products on sale in over 150 countries, each with different waste collection and management infrastructure, we need a coherent and sophisticated packaging strategy.

Our approach to responsible packaging seeks to take into account environmental, social and economic considerations. In 2007 we created a Sustainable Packaging Steering Team to define a strategy. This team is building on the work already carried out over the past few years by the Unilever Packaging Group.

Achieving truly sustainable packaging is a complex challenge. Some energy is always required to make packaging and some waste is inevitable even with highly effective reuse and recycling schemes.

Our approach is based on three elements:

• consideration of the whole product, not just packaging in isolation

• assessment via our new vitality metric, which covers the waste generated – taking into account all the different kinds of packaging a product requires. It also takes into account an estimate of the recycling, reuse and recovery  rates of the materials as used in a particular region

• use of leading-edge design techniques and choice of materials to minimise impacts.

In 2008 we pilot-tested measurement of the waste impacts of selected product categories. This will enable us to identify a baseline for future improvements.

Guiding principles

Underlying this strategy are five guiding principles that we seek to apply: remove, reduce, reuse, renew and recycle. Our Sustainable Packaging Steering Team implements this approach across Unilever.

More on the five guiding principles:

• Remove: to eliminate, where possible, unnecessary layers of packaging such as outer cartons and shrink-wrap film.

• Reduce: to reduce the material we use in our packages and ensure they are the optimal size and weight for their contents.

• Reuse: to reuse packaging from the materials we receive at our factories.

• Renew: to maximise the proportion of packaging from recycled and renewable resources and to investigate the technical feasibility of biodegradable and compostable materials

• Recycle: to increase the use of recyclable and single-material components in packaging for easy sorting and recycling at the end of its use.
  

Enhancing design

Innovative packaging design can minimise the environmental impact of packaging itself. But it can also enhance a product's lifecycle impacts. For example, effective packaging can reduce product leakage and consequent waste during transportation.

Raising awareness among our designers helps us drive change and we have long been reducing the amount of packaging in our products through leading-edge design technology. During 2008, we developed sustainable packaging guidelines and introduced training for our packaging teams so that we can further embed sustainability thinking into the design stage of our business. In 2008, 120 people participated.

Addressing key issues

Alongside this work, through engagement with stakeholders, we have identified three priority issues: sustainable sourcing of paper, tackling the litter that results from sachets and minimising the use of PVC.

Sustainable paper sourcing

A significant proportion of our packaging relies on paper. We estimate that most of the paper we purchase for our European business comes either from recycled material or sustainably managed forests. While this is an encouraging picture for Europe, the situation in other regions can be very different as sustainable forestry practices differ greatly. We are working with the Rainforest Alliance to develop a sustainable sourcing policy for paper.

Litter in the developing world

A particular concern is the volume of sachets we use to package single-use products, especially in developing and emerging markets. These may end up as litter where there are no appropriate disposal facilities.

Our approach is to:

• implement design improvements to create sachets that use less material or material with less environmental impact

• support litter awareness programmes

• work with others to explore economic models which create incentives for collection and reuse of our packaging. 

If we can help create a value for this waste product, there is an incentive for people to collect it. This has potential social and economic benefits too, through job creation and alternative sources of income for poor communities.

Minimising the use of PVC

Given the concern around the disposal of PVC, we are working to minimise its use in our packaging. Our PVC policy commits us to replace PVC in all our packaging by the end of 2010, where there are viable alternatives. There are some specialised uses for which there are currently no alternatives available and we are focusing our research on these areas.

Reducing waste in manufacturing

We have been measuring waste from manufacturing processes as part of our eco-efficiency programme for many years. Total waste sent for disposal has been reduced by 67% per tonne of production since 1995. During 2008 we saw an increase of 4.6% in total waste compared to 2007. This increase, from 7.56 kg/tonne to 7.91 kg/tonne, has been driven by three factors: legislative changes which require different methods of disposal for non-hazardous waste; under-capacity in effluent treatment; and the planned disposal of accumulated and inherited hazardous waste.

For more detail on hazardous and non-hazardous waste, see Our performance.

Working with others

Effective solutions require a partnership approach. Unilever is a founding member of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, which has over 160 members, including packaging producers, users and retailers. We are also members of EUROPEN (the European Organisation for Packaging and the Environment).

We work in partnership with retailers and NGOs to explore ways to improve recycling infrastructure. For example, we have supported the CEMPRE waste management and recycling initiative in Brazil since 2001.