Matthew Vaccarino
Michael Winderman
St. John's University
Charles Wankel
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Unilever announced that they would send zero non-hazardous waste to landfill for more than 600 of their sites. This announcement was made in January 2015 and was an industry-leading achievement. For example, in China, Unilever stopped wrapping pallets with plastic and replaced it with reusable elastic fabrics. In Brazil, they installed a biomass boiler burner using recycled wood rather than oil.
Unilever is an organization that puts an emphasis on sustainability and prioritizes aligning their business objectives with environmentally friendly procedures. When analyzing Unilever, you will quickly notice that they have a number of global sustainability initiatives, and they do not segment themselves to just one environmentally friendly goal. Their goals are ambitious, and they strive to impact the lives of as many people as possible in a positive way. They note that they have three ‘big’ goals: improving the well-being for more than one billion people, reducing environmental impact by half, and enhancing livelihoods for millions. One initiative that we examined closely was their zero waste to landfill (ZWL) initiative.
Unilever aimed to eliminate (or at least minimize) the waste produced by their factories that ends up in landfills. They did this by using the four 'R' approach of reducing, reusing, recovering or recycling in over 240 factories and converting factory waste into building materials and composting food waste from the staff cafeterias. In 2014, they achieved their target by sending zero non-hazardous waste to landfill across their factory network, which consisted of two hundred and forty two factories in over sixty countries! All of the non-hazardous waste that was previously sent to landfills is now reused, recycled or recovered in one way or another.
The CEO of Unilever (Paul Polman) is a visionary and believes that "good business means you also aren't harming the planet." As CEO, he sets the tone for being conscious of the impact the company has on the environment, and he is responsible for a number of Unilever's sustainability initiatives.
Unilever’s zero waste to landfill initiative began in 2008, which at the time seemed like an overambitious idea impossible to achieve. By February, 2016 only 0.18% of Unilever’s non-hazardous waste was disposed in landfills, when prior to the initiative they would deposit one hundred and forty thousand tons (the equivalent of seventeen Eifel Towers) across their manufacturing network. The success of the ZWL initiative took the efforts of over one thousand employees, who shared a vision of eliminating waste and reducing Unilever’s negative externalities on the environment. The impact and benefits of reducing waste are a win-win for Unilever and the environment.
The less obvious (and possibly more important) benefit is the precedent Unilever has set. Unilever has positioned themselves as a major player in the consumer goods industry; their revenues year over year are in the multi-billion dollar range, and they have been growing as a company steadily. Amazingly, they have been able to align their initiatives from a sustainability perspective with their business objectives, which makes them a model company for any company that strives to be more environmentally conscious. Therefore, while the impact Unilever has on reducing waste is significant, the fact that they have raised the standard for other companies may have a more widespread impact in the long run.
This innovation benefits Unilever’s business because it aligns with their parent goal called the “Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.” The main focus of this goal is to double their business while reducing the environmental impact. As a result, Unilever is the Food Products Industry Leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and was awarded a Gold Class distinction for its excellent sustainability performance by RobecoSAM in their Sustainability Yearbook 2015. This innovation also may attract investors, customers, employees, and other stakeholders who also see corporate social responsibility as a priority.
We learned during our interview about the tremendous benefit to the environment from a large organization drastically reducing the volume of waste sent to landfills. Unilever utilized composting, anaerobic digestion (taking waste and processing without oxygen), and incineration. Landfills have a reputation of not only producing greenhouse gases but also polluting local environments (i.e. the water and soil). Furthermore, Unilever's efforts benefit local communities from both local and global impacts of waste and GHG emissions on the environment.
Unilever was one of the first large-scale organizations to launch this type of initiative. As a result, other organizations have followed in their footsteps. Unilever's example created a bullwhip effect that ignited other organizations to take similar actions to reduce waste.
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Lizzie Horvitz, Associate Manager For Unilever Sustainable Living Plan
Unilever is a Dutch transnational consumer goods company headquartered in the Netherlands. Its commodities include food, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. Unilever is one of the world's largest distributors. They own over 400 brands such as Hellmann's,Dove, and Lipton.