Unilever pushes trade associations to speak up on climate policy

Key takeaways:

• The success of Unilever’s climate transition action plan depends on stricter regulations for high-emitting sectors.
• The company will quit trade groups that remain misaligned 12 months after being put on notice.
• Unilever’s annual assessment of industry association is rare.

Unilever has distanced itself from two trade associations because their lobbying activities are misaligned with the consumer products company’s climate policy agenda.

In one instance, the company requested that the German Chemical Industry Association stop using Unilever’s name and logo in marketing materials because the organization is out of step with Unilever’s advocacy positions on renewable energy and carbon pricing. 

Unilever is also distancing itself from the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry, which represents the interests of an ice-cream manufacturing plant in Covington. That relationship will be reviewed in late 2025, along with several others, after Unilever divests its ice cream business.

The actions were outlined in Unilever’s annual assessment of the lobbying and political advocacy positions of more than two dozen key industry organizations in which it has a membership interest. 

The company belongs to more than 600 trade groups. Those assessed — including the Consumer Goods Forum and the Personal Care Products Council — represent sectors where more stringent regulations and policies are needed to drive climate progress.

“Unilever is already making progress toward our climate goals, but enabling government policies will help us go further, faster,” said Rebecca Marmot, chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer at Unilever. “We’ve increased our direct advocacy on climate issues to reflect that. We need trade associations to do the same, bringing their considerable influence to the table, and growing climate engagement amongst their members.”

As a matter of course, Unilever would rather stay engaged with trade organizations, to create constructive change. If a misalignment lingers for longer than a year, the issue is taken up by the Unilever division that owns the relationship. “At this point, we will determine whether to withdraw our membership and make our withdrawal public,” Unilever said in its assessment. “In some instances, there may be a disagreement regarding positions taken, but Unilever may decide that its interests are best served by retaining membership.”

Fewer trade groups misaligned with decarbonization goals 

Unilever’s most recent analysis, released April 7, uses publicly available information from research firm InfluenceMap. It found that 18 of the 26 evaluated organizations have no “misalignment” with Unilever’s climate policy positions. That’s up from 13 of the 27 organizations considered in the 2024 edition. 

But only five organizations are actively engaged in supporting climate policies, while 50 percent are “passive” — meaning they don’t speak out either way. Unilever wants those organizations to do more.

With one exception, the same organizations were evaluated in the two assessments.

“After last year’s [report], Unilever outlined additional actions for trade associations to take,” the company said in its analysis. “Many were responsive to requests, but more work is needed to make sure these actions lead to policy changes, especially since the last review was recent.”

5 cross-cutting political priorities

Unilever’s climate transition action plan calls for the company to actively engage on the following policies:

• Convince countries to adopt national emissions reduction plans that will hold global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius
• Advocate appropriate carbon pricing levels
• Scale up renewable energy capacity, while phasing out fossil fuels
• Support forest protection and nature restoration
• Encourage the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to evolve carbon accounting standards to reward emissions reductions across corporate value chains

Unilever ranks as a leader among the limited group of corporations that actively engage on climate policy, and it was highlighted in 2024 by InfluenceMap for its influence on trade groups. 

“The review continues to raise the bar in driving best practices around how companies should be asking for stronger climate change policies while strategically engaging with their trade associations,” said Deborah McNamara, executive director of advocacy nonprofit ClimateVoice. 

Unilever is a bright spot at a time when many companies in the U.S. have “stagnated or gone silent,” she said. “I think companies need to be asking over and over again if enough is being done, and the answer is definitively no. This review however sets the path and shows what is possible.”