Sustainable Tea at Unilever
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9-712-438
REV: DECEMBER 21, 2011
REBECCA M. HENDERSON
FREDERIK NELLEMANN
Sustainable Tea at Unilever
op yo To survive and prosper over the long term, learn how to adapt your business model by making it servant to society and the environment. Not the other way around.
— Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever
In 2010 Unilever announced its commitment to a new “Sustainable Living Plan”, a document that set wide-ranging company-wide goals for improving the health and well-being of consumers, reducing environmental impact, and, perhaps most ambitiously, sourcing 100% of agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020. Such a goal implied a massive transformation of a supply chain that sourced close to 8 million tons of commodities across 50 different crops. Unilever CEO Paul Polman believed that the company’s ambitious goals could drive savings, product innovation, and differentiation across the company’s portfolio of products. But more importantly, it would create a company better suited to survive in the future which Polman envisaged:
tC
This is a world that is challenged. When you look at the interdependent challenges that we face on food security, poverty reduction, sustainability of resources, climate change, and social, economic, environmental development, these challenges have never been greater. And I believe that these pressures will only increase as 2 billion more people enter this world and many aspire to increase their living standards. 1
No
The changes happening at Lipton, Unilever’s €3.5 billion tea brand, were an important cornerstone of Unilever’s plan. For over five years, Michiel Leijnse, the global brand director for
Lipton Tea, and the Unilever Procurement team had led the transformation of the Lipton brand and its supply chain towards a goal of 100% sustainable sourcing. Approximately 25% of all Unilever tea now came from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms and real gains had been made in the social,
9-712-438
REV: DECEMBER 21, 2011
REBECCA M. HENDERSON
FREDERIK NELLEMANN
Sustainable Tea at Unilever
op yo To survive and prosper over the long term, learn how to adapt your business model by making it servant to society and the environment. Not the other way around.
— Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever
In 2010 Unilever announced its commitment to a new “Sustainable Living Plan”, a document that set wide-ranging company-wide goals for improving the health and well-being of consumers, reducing environmental impact, and, perhaps most ambitiously, sourcing 100% of agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020. Such a goal implied a massive transformation of a supply chain that sourced close to 8 million tons of commodities across 50 different crops. Unilever CEO Paul Polman believed that the company’s ambitious goals could drive savings, product innovation, and differentiation across the company’s portfolio of products. But more importantly, it would create a company better suited to survive in the future which Polman envisaged:
tC
This is a world that is challenged. When you look at the interdependent challenges that we face on food security, poverty reduction, sustainability of resources, climate change, and social, economic, environmental development, these challenges have never been greater. And I believe that these pressures will only increase as 2 billion more people enter this world and many aspire to increase their living standards. 1
No
The changes happening at Lipton, Unilever’s €3.5 billion tea brand, were an important cornerstone of Unilever’s plan. For over five years, Michiel Leijnse, the global brand director for
Lipton Tea, and the Unilever Procurement team had led the transformation of the Lipton brand and its supply chain towards a goal of 100% sustainable sourcing. Approximately 25% of all Unilever tea now came from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms and real gains had been made in the social,