The Anglo-Dutch consumer group said the chemicals used in its cleaning and laundry products make up 46% – the greatest proportion –  of its carbon footprint across their lifecycle. “By transitioning away from fossil-fuel-derived chemicals in product formulations, the company will unlock novel ways of reducing the carbon footprint of some of the world’s biggest cleaning and laundry brands,” the company said, adding that this initiative alone will cut the carbon footprint of product formulations by up to 20%.

The move is part of Unilever’s Clean Future program, designed by its Home Care division to fundamentally change the way that its cleaning and laundry products are created, manufactured and packaged. The initiative intends to imbed circular economy principles into both packaging and product formulations across its global brands and, said Unilever, is a “critical” step toward its pledge of net zero emissions from its products by 2039.

“Clean Future is our vision to radically overhaul our business,” said Peter ter Kulve, Home Care president. “As an industry, we must break our dependence on fossil fuels, including as a raw material for our products. We must stop pumping carbon from under the ground when there is ample carbon on and above the ground if we can learn to utilize it at scale.”

Unilever is ring-fencing €1 billion for Clean Future to fund biotechnology research, CO₂ and waste utilization, and low carbon chemistry, to drive the transition away from fossil-based chemicals. The money will also be used to create biodegradable and water-efficient product formulations, to halve the use of virgin plastic by 2025 and support the development of brand communications that make the technologies appealing to consumers.

Clean Future projects are already underway. In Slovakia, Unilever is collaborating with Evonik Industries to develop the production of rhamnolipids, a renewable and biodegradable surfactant that is already used in its Sunlight dishwashing liquid in Chile and Vietnam. In Tuticorin, India, Unilever is sourcing soda ash derived from CO₂. The laundry powder ingredient is made with the CO₂ emissions from the energy used in the production process.

Unilever said it hopes to “significantly” scale both technologies under the Clean Future program. 

The company added that it uses a novel rainbow system to diversify the carbon used in its product formulations. Using its Carbon Rainbow approach, non-renewable fossil sources (identified as black carbon) will be replaced using captured CO₂ (purple carbon); plants and biological sources (green carbon); marine sources such as algae (blue carbon); and carbon recovered from waste materials (gray).

Author: Elaine Burridge, Freelance Journalist