Unilever declared its readiness to partner with two leading mass movements to create awareness of sustainable development and climate change in the build up to the key UN climate meeting in Paris this year.
The consumer goods giant will support Global Citizen and Live Earth: Road to Paris to call for global action to address climate change before the COP21 conference in the French capital in December.
Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman said: “2015 is a critical moment in time, an opportunity to agree on a universal agenda that tackles poverty and inequality and to all take action to protect the one planet we have. As a business we can deploy our resources, expertise and scale to help our consumers to take action. Today, we are adding our support for the growing movement of citizens and businesses demanding change.”
Live Earth: Road to Paris is a campaign launched by former U.S. vice-president Al Gore to promote awareness leading up to COP21.
Global events will be broadcast across all major media platforms in partnership with Unilever with a target of securing public support urging world leaders to reach a strong global emissions reduction agreement.
According to Kevin Wall, executive producer and co-founder of Live Earth, “Unilever has integrated a forward-looking sustainability strategy into its core business in order to truly impact our global climate challenge. We could not be more excited to be on the ‘Road to Paris’ with partners like Unilever that literally pave the way.”
“Our partnerships with Live Earth: Road to Paris and Global Citizen reflect our commitment to help tackle social and environmental issues wherever we do business,” Unilever’s chief marketing and communications officer Keith Weed said. “To us, climate and development issues are intertwined.
“We cannot have a healthy business in an unhealthy world – these are issues that business must play a part to help solve. Unilever reaches 2 billion consumers every day through our brands which gives us a real opportunity to encourage action, empowering people to be part of the positive change they wish to see.
Global Citizen is a movement to end extreme poverty by 2030 and Hugh Evans, CEO of The Global Poverty Project, said: “[Unilever’s] commitment to encouraging people to take action to change the systems and policies that keep people poor is remarkable. Unilever is a true example of a global citizen, and we are honoured to be on this journey together.”
Unilever has outlined how its long-term success as a firm requires environmental protection and sustainable practises including sustainable sourcing, reducing waste across the supply chain. The firm announced it has achieved sending zero non-hazardous waste to landfill from its global factory network of 240 factories in 67 countries in January, saving more than €200m in waste costs, and is fast-tracking its policy to sustainably source 100% of its wood-based packaging by the end of 2015 – five years ahead of schedule.
