Working with suppliers to beat the clock on climate change

If the planet continues to warm, the impacts on business - and global supply chains - will be catastrophic. Climate change is also, without question, a socio-economic crisis affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions of people today. It wreaks havoc on harvests and the availability of clean water and is contributing to an increase in life-threatening extreme weather events. Decisive action on a global scale is needed now.

In 2020, we set out a range of ambitious commitments and actions to fight climate change, protect and regenerate nature, and preserve resources for future generations. At the heart of these is our goal to achieve zero emissions across our own operations by 2030, and net zero across our value chain by 2039.

We've made significant progress, with all Unilever factories, offices, R&D facilities, data centres, warehouses and distribution centres around the world now powered by 100% renewable grid electricity.

But a net zero value chain is not something we can achieve alone. We want to empower every one of our 56,000 suppliers to join our climate journey.

To do this, we've launched the Unilever Climate Promise - an invitation for our suppliers to position themselves on the leading edge of our planet goals and to demonstrate their shared values and commitment to reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of their value chains.

Suppliers willing to commit to the Climate Promise are asked to set a public target to halve absolute GHG emissions by 2030, report openly on their progress, and share their emissions and footprint data with us.

As Dave Ingram, our Chief Procurement Officer, says: "More and more climate-conscious companies are recognising that the majority of GHG emissions in their value chains come from outside their own operations. Through our Climate Promise, we're finding new ways to support our partners to measure, reduce and report on emissions in their own value chains, so that together, we may scale and accelerate our progress for the climate and help make sustainable living commonplace."