Our Mission - Cut Water Use in Half

With the demand for water already exceeding supply in many parts of the world, Unilever and its partners have come together with one common purpose: to increase awareness about the growing pressure on Canada’s fresh water supply and encourage Canadians to use less of it, so we can ensure that this essential resource will be available both now and in the future.

At Unilever, our goal is to add vitality to life by meeting everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life.

Unilever. Bringing Go Blue to Life

Water is at the heart of Unilever’s business. Almost all of our products use this precious resource in not only the growth of the very ingredients they are made from, but also their manufacture and usage. Since 1995, we’ve reduced our water use in our manufacturing process by over 50% worldwide and continue to strive to improve. Now, our goal is to encourage everyone to do the same.

Unilever takes pride in the recognition we’ve received for addressing social and environmental challenges and our contribution to sustainable development:

• #1 on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (Food & Beverage sector) for the 8th year running;
• Innovest’s Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World;
• Two Green Toronto Awards for our achievements in reducing water and energy use
• #1 in Canadian Report on Business Magazine’s Corporate Social Responsibility survey (Food Production sector), 2005.

Unilever is committed to playing an active role in protecting Canada’s rivers, lakes and wetlands. Some of the community initiatives we support include:

• Western Canada’s Wildsight and their efforts to protect the Columbia River Wetlands;
• EcoVoyageurs, an education program delivered free of charge to students across Canada;
• A scholarship program at York University for students in the faculty of Environmental Studies;
• Toronto’s Task Force to Bring Back the Don, a citizens’ group that works to “bring back” a clean, green and accessible Don River watershed.

In 1995, Unilever’s manufacturing sites around the world began measuring our environmental impact and setting targets for improvement. Since then, we have reduced our water use by 60% per tonne of product manufactured, energy use by 38% and CO2 emissions by 33%.

After more than a decade of action, Unilever continues to make progress on managing the environmental impacts of our business. In addition to maximizing the eco-efficiency of our manufacturing sites, we are committed to further lowering our CO2 emissions by 20% by 2012, for a total reduction of approximately 43% since 1996. Learn More