Unilever Shapes Sustainability Roadmap Together with Stakeholders

Unilever continues to implement initiatives that set an example for global business and the industry in the seventh year of its Sustainable Living Plan. Within the framework of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, launched in 2010, the company has realized approximately 80 percent of its commitments to decouple its growth from environmental impact and increase the company's positive social impact. Among these commitments are improving health and wellbeing for 1 billion people, halving environmental impact, and improving livelihoods for millions of employees, suppliers and retailers.

Sustainable Living Brands Grew Faster Again in 2017

Unilever's Sustainable Living Brands, which integrate sustainability as a business model across all operations, delivered better performance than the company's average growth rate in 2017, as they have over the past three years. In 2017, the Sustainable Living Brands grew 46 percent faster than the rest of the business and accounted for 70 percent of Unilever's growth revenue. In Turkey as well, Sustainable Living Brands such as OMO, Dove, Lipton, Knorr, Domestos, Signal, Algida and Elidor grew by 44 percent, realizing 72 percent of Unilever Turkey's total growth.

Unilever Kept Its Finger on the Pulse of Stakeholders in Sustainability

Harm Goossens, Chairman of Unilever Turkey, Central Asia and Iran, stressed that sustainable living brands are the engine of growth in Turkey as well, and in his opening remarks at the Stakeholder Workshop held at the company's head office in Istanbul, stated that global climate change issues continue to hold their place on the world agenda. Noting that Unilever, which touches 2.5 billion people daily through its products, has worked along the lines of the Sustainable Living Plan since 2010 to be part of the solution to these problems, Goossens said that the company has conducted the largest 'listening research' to date in order to hear and understand the views of key stakeholders worldwide, starting with its employees, regarding sustainability targets beyond current goals. The research, called 'Have Your Say', involved 276 key stakeholders in Unilever's value chain, including investors, suppliers, customers, creative agencies, thought leaders, civil society organizations and academics, as well as over 40,000 employees from all functions and geographies across 21,000 production facilities worldwide. The research, which lasted more than three months, asked participants for their views on priorities they wanted Unilever to focus on. In the research aimed at understanding how the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan will evolve in the future, the top 10 priorities that employees wanted Unilever to focus on were listed as follows: 1- Access to water, 2- Health, hygiene and nutrition, 3- Clean air, 4- Climate change, 5- Access to education, training and skills, 6- Zero food and packaging waste, 7- Mental health and wellbeing, 8- Protection of natural life, 9- Better job opportunities, 10- Human and labor rights for all. Stakeholder responses were also found to be largely similar to those of employees.