Biodiversity

Unilever's impact

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity – which aims to preserve biodiversity – has been signed by over 160 countries.

Human activity can reduce biodiversity through, for example, intensive agriculture, destructive fishing practices or over-exploitation of natural resources such as forests and water. This is an issue for Unilever. Agriculture provides more than two-thirds of the raw materials for our branded goods. We are among the world's largest users of agricultural raw materials such as tea, vegetables and vegetable oils. Growing our business – while conserving biodiversity – is a substantial challenge.

Agriculture

Protecting biodiversity is central to our sustainable agriculture initiative. Sustainable agriculture is ultimately about sustainable use of biological resources. One of four principles in Unilever's sustainable agriculture programme is: "Ensuring any adverse effects on… biodiversity from agricultural activities are minimised and positive contributions are made where possible". Biodiversity is one of the 11 core indicators used to manage our programmes covering our key crops.

We have developed biodiversity action plans (BAPs) for Unilever tea estates in Tanzania and Kenya, our farm research site at Colworth in the UK, Unilever palm oil plantations in Ghana, and our suppliers' tomato farms. See case studies for more information.

Biodiversity impact studies have also been carried out in Ghana and Tanzania where we are working with local smallholder farmers on the cultivation of allanblackia, a crop which provides a new type of oil that can be used to make margarines and spreads with lower saturated fat content. On the basis of this, and in collaboration with the IUCN World Conservation Organisation, we have developed and are implementing landscape restoration programmes.

Analysts' view

Evaluating how well a company manages its dependence and impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services has been addressed with the publication of an analysis of companies in the food, beverage and tobacco sectors. A new tool - the Natural Value Initiative’s (NVI) Ecosystem Services Benchmark - will enable investors to assess the level of risk of investing in companies that rely heavily on certain ecosystem services to carry out their business.

The benchmark was published in October 2009 and presented to the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative Roundtable in South Africa. Unilever topped more than 30 companies scoring 78% overall while the sector average was 48%. Unilever’s agricultural sourcing was found to be ‘best in class’ over competitors within the foods, beverage and tobacco industries in the UK, Brazil, the USA, Australia, Switzerland, Malaysia, the Netherlands and France.

The benchmark methodology considers five performance categories: competitive advantage, governance, policy and strategy, management and implementation, and reporting. Unilever was deemed to be most strong in the categories of competitive advantage and policy and strategy.

Ecosystem services are the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, such as freshwater and timber. The NVI states that over 60% of these services worldwide are being degraded or used up faster than they can be replenished.

The NVI is funded by the Dutch government and made up of three organisations: the world’s first international conservation body Fauna & Flora; the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Finance Initiative (a strategic public-private partnership between the UNEP and the global financial sector); and finally the Fundação Getulio Vargas, a business school in Brazil.