Unilever aims for sustainability through package innovation

Packaging Digest: Your title is “Packaging Manager for Environmental Sustainability.” What does your job entail?
Garcia: My job is to coordinate the issues around responsible packaging, environmental issues and sustainability for packaging across Unilever's Foods, Ice Cream, and Home and Personal Care categories in North America. Unilever has a long history of corporate and social responsibility and we have always maintained strict standards in regard to environmental issues. Our mission is to bring vitality to life, by meeting everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene and personal care with brands that make people feel good, look good and get more out of life. We need packaging to fulfill our mission, and we put emphasis on packaging reduction and material selection, but our approach is to minimize the environmental impact of our products - packaging is only one component of the whole product system.

One important function of packaging is to protect the product, and protect all the resources that go into that product because reducing packaging to the point where there is product damage has a big environmental impact. Within that framework, we are making progress in packaging reduction through the use of world class technologies. For example, our new global packaging for roll-on deodorant is 15% lighter, 10 times stronger, and uses 40% less energy in manufacturing, saving 1260 metric tons of resin and 6MM kWh annually, and at the same time we have a consumer preferred design.

Article courtesy Packaging Digest

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