Lifecycle assessment

Our approach to lifecycle assessment

Lifecycle assessment (LCA) is one of a number of techniques we use to help us understand our environmental impacts. We use LCA in three ways:

1. Product innovation

When designing new products we routinely use LCAs to compare new and existing products and to measure the differences in their respective environmental profiles. This information is used to help guide product developers to support the launch of new products, and to inform consumers of the environmental performance of our products.

2. Product category analysis

We conduct LCAs on product categories or portfolios to help raise environmental awareness and to identify improvement opportunities. We support our sustainable agriculture initiative activities by completing studies on key crops and products such as margarines and oils, tea and ice cream. During 2010 we published two papers in the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. One paper has estimated the greenhouse gas footprint of our Knorr brand, the other was a comparison of the environmental impact of margarine and butter. See related links for more information.

In the home and personal care categories we have continued to build on more than two decades of LCA experience with studies on laundry, deodorant and skincare products.

3. Strategic studies

We have carried out a number of strategic studies using LCAs to help us to understand our environmental impacts. These include a study based on a methodology that assesses the potential impact of our annual business activities scaled against our contribution to the world economy. We have also carried out studies on our global water footprint and greenhouse gas footprint.

Promoting eco-innovation

We recognise that many new opportunities will arise from increased consumer concern for the environment and changing environmental circumstances around the world.

We continue to promote the concept of eco-innovation, to improve the environmental performance of our brands and develop eco-efficient products and services. Activities include awareness-raising among our innovators and marketeers; integration of eco-efficiency assessments into innovation programmes; research into consumer attitudes and behaviour on the environment; and developing partnerships with industry and our customers to foster the uptake of products with lower environmental impacts.

Strengthening our approach

This long standing approach to lifecycle assessment was crucial to the work we undertook on assessing the impacts of our brands through our Brand Imprint methodology that we started in 2005, and in supporting our commitment to manage and reduce our environmental impact across our total value chain in the four areas of greenhouse gas emissions, water, waste and sustainable sourcing which led to the launch of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan in November 2010. The implementation of the lifecycle-based approach and metrics will allow us to track performance of 50 targets across our portfolio, enabling us to show consumers how their small individual actions can add up to a big difference.

With the growing interest in sustainability issues, we have also been able to share our expertise with our retail customers, such as Walmart and Tesco, as well as with governmental and industry associations.