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We’re reimagining the future of cleaning and it starts with reinventing a century-old history of chemistry.
Watch: We’re reimagining the future of cleaning
Billions of people around the world are asking for products that are tough on germs and stains, and ever more convenient to use. But now, people also want these products to be kinder to the planet.
The science and technology now exist to make this possible.
For generations, we’ve helped remove the dirt and stains that are all part of people living healthier, more enjoyable lives.
While our efforts to reduce the environmental impact of our products have been considerable and sometimes ground-breaking, we know we need to do more. On an even bigger scale. Quickly.
This starts with the ingredients we use. These are responsible for the biggest share of greenhouse gas emissions across the lifecycle of our Home Care brands.
So, we’ve come up with a new strategy: Clean Future.
This is how we will transform some of the most popular cleaning and laundry brands in the world to become lower carbon and lower waste, with the same or even better performance.
We will use renewable or recycled carbon sources above the ground to end our dependence on non-replaceable fossil fuels from under the ground.
That, combined with embracing exciting advances in low-carbon chemistry, means we can play our part in the fight against climate change and help to preserve, restore and regenerate the earth’s natural resources.
From what goes into our cleaning and laundry products to the way we package them, we’re changing it all.
Through Clean Future, we aim to replace 100% of the carbon derived from fossil fuels in our Home Care formulations with renewable or recycled carbon by 2030. But that’s not all. Across Unilever, we’ve already committed to:
As we pave the way to de-carbonise our product formulations, we must diversify the carbon sources we use – such as taking carbon from plants (green carbon), the atmosphere (purple carbon), marine sources such as algae (blue carbon), and waste materials like plastic (grey carbon). We call this the Carbon Rainbow.
Unilever is a founding Advisory Board member of the Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI). This is an emerging coalition from the Nova Institute that aims to bring renewable carbon to the political stage and to develop and implement a sustainable future for the chemical and plastics industry.
We’re working with our innovation partners to create an entire new generation of cleaning polymers and fragrance that do not persist in the environment. In other words, we are working hard to ensure our products leave no trace behind. And we’re making good progress.
To reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from our Home Care products, we’re designing them with radically fewer, but higher performing ingredients. Highly convenient formats such as laundry capsules. Refill and dilutable systems that are more affordable, cut plastic waste and GHG emissions. And superior performing concentrated liquids and powders. Doing so, we have been able to reduce the carbon footprint of some of our cleaning products by over 66%.
We can eliminate plastic waste by acting fast and taking radical action at all points in the cycle. This demands a fundamental rethink in our approach to our packaging and products. It requires us to introduce new and innovative materials, and scale up new business models, like reuse and refill formats, at an unprecedented speed and intensity.
While we’re working hard to reduce the energy and water needed to create our packaging and ingredients, when our products are used in people’s homes – particularly for washing clothes – this also has a significant environmental impact. So, we’re developing new products and formulations that work well even at low temperatures, require less water for rinsing or even no water at all. With our pack, we are also encouraging people to choose quick wash cycle to save on water and energy.
Here we imagine some of the possibilities that could, one day, become reality.
Many brands make their packaging from recycled plastic. But what about making the ingredients from waste too? A product with the same great performance, but with fewer, more powerful ingredients. Many of which are from recycled sources. All of which are biodegradable. And bottles that are unique.
It might be going a bit far to suggest these will become collectable, but they are ‘beautifully ugly’, so you never know.
Imagine a laundry capsule that’s so ultra-concentrated it can be made super small but still pack a mighty punch. With fewer chemicals, it would be lower carbon and therefore better for the environment.
Being more compact and lighter means less CO2 emitted and less packaging needed to transport it from factory to store to home. And all the ingredients are 100% biodegradable of course.
Cleaning toilets properly is important, but probably not a job that most people look forward to. So we thought… how about a toilet that does it for you? Technology could give us a product with a coating that’s resistant to germs and stains, so the treated surfaces continue to clean themselves.
That means greater convenience because you need to clean less often. It also means longer-lasting protection, made possible by natural ingredients. And a refillable pack means less plastic waste.
Washing machines – like lots of home appliances – are getting smart. But what if they could be even smarter? For instance, a high-tech dispensing system which contains all the detergent ingredients, then mixes them in exactly the right way for the fabrics and stains in that particular load of laundry.
A built-in microfibre filter captures particles from entering the environment. And when empty, the cartridges can be returned to be cleaned, refilled and reused. Truly circular by design.
New technologies, like carbon capture, offer huge potential as a source of renewable or recycled carbon for ingredient production. Take soda ash as an example – it’s a key ingredient in laundry detergents due to its ability to help cut through grease and soften water.
Cif ecorefill is a great example. Its clever ‘click and fill’ system means the original container effectively becomes reusable for life. The pods are entirely recyclable once their wrapper is removed, and they need 75% less plastic to make than the full-size bottles. Three sustainable hits in one.
We’ve relaunched our biggest Home Care brand – Dirt is Good – to be tough on stains and kinder to our planet. Whether you know it as Omo, Persil, Skip, Breeze, Ala, Surf Excel or Rinso in your part of the world, it now has a new formulation made with plant-based stain removers and comes in bottles made with recycled plastic.
When it comes to surfactants – the compounds that create foam and allow cleaning products to work by breaking down oil, grease and soil – there are few sustainable alternatives out there. But we’ve made a breakthrough with one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies – Evonik Industries. They’re producing Rhamnolipids – a biosurfactant made from naturally occurring fermentation and which is 100% biodegradable and renewable. It gives superior cleaning performance and is ultra-mild on skin. We are pioneering large-scale production of this ingredient, and it’s already in some of our dishwashing products in Chile and Vietnam.
Around 40% of clothes are washed unnecessarily. They aren’t actually dirty; they just look used because they’re creased. That means water and energy are being wasted, and the fabric wears out quicker. In 2018, we launched a drywash spray – Day2 – that allows you to freshen up clothes without putting them through a wash cycle. The products contain malodour control technology and clean clothes fragrance, and help to dewrinkle clothes.
Using concentrated formulas allows people that use our products to reduce their own carbon footprint. Our Seventh Generation ultra-concentrated EasyDose™ measures out the exact amount of detergent so that you never use more than you need. Better still, since it’s eight-times concentrated, it uses 50% less water and comes in a smaller pack for the same number of washes. Smaller packs mean fewer trucks. And that ultimately means a lot less pollution reaching our atmosphere.
Our Clean Future Awards recognise our supply partners who have made the biggest contribution to our Clean Future agenda. They consist of the ‘Brilliance Award’ winners and one overall ‘Excellence Award’, recognising the outstanding work that meets all three parts of our strategy – superior, sustainable, affordable.
This year’s top award goes to Takasago, whose deep market insights and fresh perspective have helped Unilever deliver truly superior, cost-effective and sustainable new fragrances for our consumers. Takasago is exemplary in its commitment to help create #OurCleanFuture.
LanzaTech and India Glycols are recognised for their role in creating a 3-way collaboration that enabled Unilever to launch the world’s first laundry and hand-dishwash products made with recycled carbon captured from industrial emissions. Embodying the essence of our Clean Future strategy and using the Carbon Rainbow, this next-generation innovation has been piloted in China, South Africa and Germany.
Sasol is celebrated for unlocking critical material capacity and pledging to deliver a service that will help us fulfil our Clean Future commitments. Working on both the long and short term, our partner has set an ambitious, forward-looking sustainable roadmap, while unlocking specific short-term opportunities.
This year's top award, the Clean Future Excellence Award, goes to the fragrance house MANE who have raised the bar for the fragrance industry with a winning biodegradable, renewable fragrance.
KLK are recognised for building a verifiable and traceable no deforestation, no peat conversion and exploitation free palm oil supply for the production of their surfactants – a key cleaning ingredient.
Croda are recognised for pioneering the next generation of polymers – a key ingredient in modern cleaning products – and making them biodegradable and from renewable sources while delivering new care benefits.
University of Liverpool and University of Oxford are recognised for coming together to unlock new areas of materials science such as breakthrough catalysts to convert CO2 into chemicals. It’s truly state of the art science, which shows our Carbon Rainbow model in action.
