Unilever updates plastic goals

Unilever has revised its approach to the plastics used in its packaging to focus on better allocating its resources to drive its actions and be more systemic in its advocacy to address “the enablers and blockers of progress outside our direct control,” writes Pablo Costa, global head of packaging at Unilever, in an April 30 post on the company’s website.

“What we know for sure is we can’t do this alone,” he writes. “Voluntary goals and industry initiatives can only go so far and, too often, they reduce the competitiveness of those taking action.”

He calls for “more interventions” across the entire plastics value chain. “We need stronger, harmonised regulations to get everyone on track to eliminate plastic waste and pollution and to level the playing field for all businesses. That’s why we’re calling on governments to support industry in three key areas.”

As co-chair of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, Costa says Unilever is advocating for a “high-ambition outcome” of a legally binding treaty that sets global, harmonized rules. “Global action that covers the full life cycle of plastic will help reduce complexity for businesses like ours, accelerate investment in proven solutions and create the systems-level change we need to scale new solutions. It will also help ensure all businesses play by the same rules.”

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By implementing mandatory and well-designed extended producer responsibility, or EPR, programs, governments can help improve recycling systems by ensuring money is invested back into waste management and packaging innovation, he says. “This in turn drives up recycling rates and the supply of recycled plastic.”

Well-designed reuse policies, tailored to markets and categories, also are needed, he says. “That includes setting harmonised standards, definitions, metrics and incentives to help create the right enabling environment for reuse and refill to scale while encouraging precompetitive collaboration to help industry players overcome shared barriers.”

Costa writes that reducing virgin plastic use and developing alternatives for hard-to-recycle flexible plastic packaging materials, such as plastic sachets, are now the company’s priorities.

Unilever’s new goals are more realistic while also “stretching” the company, he says. They involve reducing virgin plastic use by 30 percent in 2026 and by 40 percent in 2028, Costa says. “We’ve now set a clear, interim goal to help build on our progress, improve transparency and strengthen accountability. Here, we’ll focus on increasing our use of recycled plastic, making our packaging lighter and scaling alternative formats, materials and business models.”

The company also is working to ensure all its plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2030 for rigid plastic, which makes up 70 percent of its plastics portfolio by weight, and by 2035 for flexibles. Costa says roughly 87 percent of its rigid plastic packaging has been designed for recycling. “We’ll now focus on the more challenging nonrecyclable components such as caps, aerosol actuators and bottle pumps," he says.

In the flexibles area, Unilever is working on a "range of solutions" to reduce its use and replace them with alternative materials, formats and models, including developing “next-generation” flexible packaging materials.

“Our third goal is to use 25 percent recycled plastic in our packaging by 2025," Costa says, adding that these goals are fully integrated into Unilever's business groups' targets and plans. "Our fourth is to collect and process more plastic packaging than we sell by 2025.”

He says Unilever has reduced its virgin plastic use by 18 percent compared with a 2019 baseline in addition to introducing product formats and packaging solutions including laundry sheets and capsules in cardboard boxes to reduce or remove plastic entirely. “We trialled over 50 reusable and refillable packaging models globally and even managed to scale some at-home refill solutions. And we redesigned packaging to be lighter, which can reduce both plastic and transport emissions,” Costa writes.

Unilever also has increased its recycled plastic use to 22 percent of its global plastic packaging portfolio, with Costa saying the company is firmly on track to meet our 25 percent goal by 2025, helping create global demand for high-quality recycled plastic, or PCR.

“Our number of PCR suppliers has increased from just two in 2016 to over 60 today. And many of our biggest brands—like Hellmann’s, Dove and Sunlight—use 100 percent PCR in their bottles, where technically feasible," he says.

In 2017, Unilever signed the Global Commitment, an initiative by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the United Nations Environment Programme, pledging to make its plastic packaging 100 percent reusable, recyclable or compostable. It also created and implemented the Golden Design Rules for optimal plastic packaging design, production and recycling. “Today, 72 percent of our plastic packaging portfolio is technically recyclable using existing technology,” Costa writes.

Despite this progress, he says Unilever has fallen short of some of its most ambitious goals.

“When we first set our goals, we used the best information available at the time to develop a credible but stretching plan,” Costa writes. “It was intentionally ambitious, given the scale of the problem we were trying to tackle. For example, we didn’t just aim to reduce our use of virgin plastic, we wanted to halve it.”

However, he says, this was more challenging than anticipated. “Assumptions made on the development of new technologies and infrastructure have simply not materialised as they are not fully in our control. For example, a gap remains between the ‘technical’ recyclability rate (72 percent) of our plastic packaging portfolio versus the ‘actual’ recyclability rate (53 percent),” Costa writes. “Designing our packaging for recycling is only the first step. There also need to be systems in place to recycle it, in practice and at scale. Finally, external factors, like the pandemic, also created significant headwinds.”

He says Unilever has a better understanding of the challenges involved in scaling alternative business models such as refill stations and the role cross-industry collaboration plays.

“There’s a lot of work still to be done, but our focused approach--rooted in reduction, circulation and collaboration—will help deliver better short- and long-term outcomes, alongside more focused resource allocation and more systemic interventions.”