Unilever

“OUR ECOLOGICAL. FOOTPRINT HAS TO BE ALL BUT NON-EXISTENT”

Sustainability impacts our daily lives more than we may realize. From shampoo bottles to food packaging, a great deal of thought goes into figuring out how to produce every item we use as sustainably as possible. That is Unilever’s mission. Joris van der Heijden, strategy manager for the Benelux, and Thor Tummers, External Affairs, share what their company is doing to make the difference.

CLOSING THE PRODUCTION CHAIN

“The important thing is closing value chains”, Thor says. As the person in charge of relations with authorities, civil society organizations and other external bodies, he sees how vital it is to continue working towards a circular economy every day. “There’s an incredible range of different challenges to deal with. We try to use the most sustainable raw materials, to recycle all waste products, prevent litter... Basically, our objective is to bring our ecological footprint to net zero by minimizing the environmental impact of our products and operations, while having a positive climate impact by reaching ambitions as collecting more plastic than we sell and investing over 1 billion euro in climate and nature.”

COLLABORATION REMAINS ESSENTIAL

Given this mission, how does Unilever ensure that something like that familiar purple shampoo bottle is properly recycled instead of ending up in an incinerator? It all starts with product design, Joris explains, and specifically with the material chosen. “We only use one type of recyclable plastic in the bottle, not several, so the packaging is easier to process down the line. Then, through our brands we need to support consumers to dispose of packaging materials properly. After collection, packaging material goes to the sorting- and recycling centre and is transformed into a material that we can reuse.” Thanks to advancing technologies, this process is improving all the time, but extensive collaboration with other actors on all fronts remains essential. “We are not recyclers or collectors, nor are we in the plastics processing business. These are things we handle collectively with other organizations so we don’t have to do them all individually, and that cooperation in itself is making us more sustainable.”

THERE ARE STILL STRIDES TO BE MADE

Nevertheless, this system can still be enhanced in all kinds of ways, the two say, and they are working hard to optimize it, according to Thor. “Sure, compared to

Thor Tummers

other countries, the Netherlands is doing very well, at the same time we have a much higher level of ambition, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. In recycling, plastic used to be weighed and paid per kilogram, regardless of the quality, but that is changing now.” The shift in focus towards quality means recycled material will increasingly be reusable in new products. “A whole raft of new innovations will be needed”, Thor explains. “We don’t want a situation where we’re using recycled plastic but meanwhile the quality of our packaging declines. Sustainability and quality have to go hand in hand.”

GROWING AWARENESS

One of the great aspects of being part of a big company such as Unilever, both men stress, is that you have the potential to make a big impact. And where better to do that than in a city like Rotterdam? “The growing awareness here about the importance of sustainability is attracting very interesting companies with big ambitions to this area, which can be interesting for us to team up with. By leading the agenda with partners, we believe a positive impact on the environment will lead to superior business results. We continue to play a pioneering role.”

Joris van der Heijden

“The growing awareness here about the importance of sustainability is attracting very interesting companies with big ambitions to this area, which can be interesting for us to team up with”