Biography
Eric Soubeiran
Eric is VP of Business Operations Sustainability and Managing Director of Unilever’s Climate & Nature Fund. He is also a non-executive director of the Carbon Trust.
Originally published in Industry Insight from Ethical Corporation Magazine, a part of Thomson Reuters.
Working out how to get your company to its net-zero target isn’t easy, but it’s the most important thing you’ll do this decade. The truth is this: decarbonisation is not a hard science, and all of us are learning on the job. What’s clear is that we exist in a complicated web of interdependencies that requires careful navigation and collaboration with partners along the way. It makes sense to find the intersection of what’s material to your business and where you can have the most impact.
According to CDP, emissions in supply chains are on average 11.4 times greater than in company operations, and at Unilever it’s greater still, with just 2% of our estimated total footprint coming from our factories and workplaces. The rest is from how we source our materials and package our products through to their storage and disposal. These Scope 3 emissions are the hardest to address, because it’s where we don’t have direct control.
In my view, any strong sustainability strategy starts with a look at your business as it is, and not as you would like it to be. It’s worth seeking out what I call your ‘transparency shock’ sooner rather than later. By this I mean doing the necessary research to estimate and understand your Scope 3 footprint, how much resource will be needed to reduce it, and, crucially, which emissions reduction levers will unlock the most progress.
It’s the role of the sustainability team to explain this complexity to the board, and to do that the evidence really matters. At Unilever, data collection from our value chain partners is of paramount importance to understanding what it will take to deliver net zero by 2039. We’ve still got further to go, but it’s helping us work out what’s in our power to change – why, and how.
Related articles
Ten ways we’re tackling emissions across our value chain
Innovation and collaboration will be essential for Unilever to reach net zero by 2039. Read on to meet the experts helping to tackle emissions across the business, from sustainable sourcing of our ingredients to changing formulations and optimising manufacturing and distribution.
“What on Earth does your Climate & Nature Fund do?”
Research shows over 60% of people believe companies’ greatest responsibility is action on climate. For Earth Day, activist and biologist Swetha Stotra Bhashyam asks Eric Soubeiran, MD of our €1bn Climate & Nature Fund, what and how it will deliver.
Impact results from Unilever’s first set of regenerative agriculture projects
The 2022 results of our regenerative agriculture projects are in and it is good news, with progress made across the field. As Unilever continues to add and scale up projects in 2023 and beyond, we take a closer look at the environmental impact these first programmes are making.