Inside Unilever’s R&D efforts to reduce plastics use

Earlier this year, Unilever pulled back on its ambitious goals to reduce its use of plastics. Even so, operating with more realistic targets, the company says it still has more than quadrupled its investment in materials science over the past three years to curb its use of virgin plastic. 

While the $65 billion consumer products company declined to disclose the amount of that investment through a spokesperson, Unilever describes it as significant in an Oct. 9 corporate blog. It employs 650 packaging experts across its business units and brands and 60 materials scientists in packaging research and development centers in the U.K. and India, according to an Oct. 8 media briefing.

Unilever relied almost completely on external partners for packaging innovation until three years ago, but it was not advancing solutions at the rate needed to address this challenge, said Pablo Costa, global head of packaging at Unilever, during that discussion. 

“Our aim is to optimize what we can do in-house, while working with our partners and peers to bring these solutions to market,” he said.

Among Unilever’s myriad brands are Dove soap, TRESemme hair products, Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Vaseline petroleum jelly.

Unilever’s first priority is to eliminate non-essential plastic packaging where possible by creating new product formats such as shampoo bars or laundry detergent sheets, Costa said. 

Another focus of Unilever’s packaging research center is development of “barrier” materials that can be combined with paper to provide a viable, scalable alternative to plastic. “Paper is the key material,” Costa said. “It is the only material that is collected at scale that is also compostable.” Challenges with paper are that it tears easily, doesn’t melt (which makes it tough to seal) and doesn’t hold liquids or foods effectively on its own.

Revised plastic commitments

Unilever drew criticism in April when it revised its plastic goals, backing away from commitments to cut virgin plastic use in half and to make all packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.  

Unilever’s new targets are more realistic, given the systemic nature of the problem and slow progress being made on improving plastic recycling rates and scaling viable alternatives, Costa said during the media briefing. They include:

• Cut virgin plastic use 30 percent by 2026 and 40 percent by 2028. 
• Ensure 100 percent of rigid plastic packages are reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2030, with flexible plastics to follow by 2035; 72 percent of Unilever’s plastic packaging is already designed for recycling.
• Use 25 percent recycled plastic by 2025, compared with 22 percent as of 2023. Some of its brands such as Hellmann’s, Dove and Sunlight have bottles completely made from post-consumer recycled plastic, or PCR. (The average reported by most fast-moving consumer goods companies is 13 percent.) 

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It’s easier for large consumer companies to control materials reduction efforts such as shrinking the size and removing windows or labels with internal experts, said John Blake, senior director and analyst with research firm Gartner’s supply chain advisory team.

“The best practice is to have this embedded into the culture, especially for any new products that are developed,” he said.

Unilever’s transparency and overall investment plans stand out among corporations working on this problem, Blake said. “Most companies, the vast majority, are struggling,” he said, adding that many corporate pledges made in the 2017-2018 timeframe proved not to be feasible for a range of reasons. “Only a few have come forward to reset and say why.”

Inside Unilever’s packaging lab

The 650 packaging experts embedded within Unilever are tasked with brand-specific decisions, including how well a new format protects a given product, consumer-facing aesthetics and economics, said Costa. The 60 scientists in its labs centralize other tasks, including:

• The creation of a digital tool that includes information about 160 grades of recycled plastic content, notably color characteristics, so designers can predict what a package might look like. This has already cut development times by 25 percent.
• An expansion of PCR suppliers from 2 in 2016 to more than 60. Among other things, they test for structural integrity, odor, color and functional qualities that could allow for expanded applications.
• Evaluations for more than 3,000 emerging materials and technologies that aren’t currently used for packaging applications, especially those that could become barrier options that make paper a more viable option for certain food and personal care products. The company is currently considering at least 20 biodegradable polymers that could be options.
• Digital prototyping of designs that reduce the need for physical tests and factor trials.
• Life-cycle assessments that consider the potential emissions tradeoffs of transitioning away from plastics, which are sourced from fossil fuels, to other materials, such as paper, that might have negative land-use implications.
• Pilot tests for reusable and refillable containers. More than 50 initiatives have been initiated, particularly in Indonesia where Unilever is allowing consumers to refill packages at more than 1,000 convenience stores and waste collection centers. The aim is to replace small sachets that are made of plastic film.

Unilever’s experts collaborate with academia, suppliers and external subject matter experts to brainstorm new applications and share information that isn’t considered proprietary. Companies aren’t the only piece of the puzzle, and partnership across industry and civil society will be crucial for solving the plastic pollution problem, said Benjamin Elizalde, project manager and sustainability consultant at circular economy advisory firm Metabolic. 

“There are only a very few polymers that are technically and economically feasible to recycle,” he said. “This is quite a hard problem to solve.”

Unilever co-chairs the 240-company Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, which supports the development of a binding United Nations treaty for plastic regulation, and is a member of the Consumer Goods Forum’s Plastic Waste Coalition.

 “We don’t need packaging material to be another area where we have to compete,” Costa said.