Both companies are installing combined heat and power plants as a means of reducing energy usage and reduce green house gas emissions.
Unilever reports its progress against targets via its annual Sustainability report whilst Nestle does this through its Creating Shared Value report. Both Nosetle and Unilever make extensive use of their websites to give data on how they are tackling Green house Gas emissions, Minimising Water Usage, Reducing Packaging and waste in general.
Both Nestle and Unilever is engaging with its partners, suppliers and customers to reduce transport miles. Both participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) which shares strategies and results from initiatives to benchmark performance and to drive further improvements.
Reduction in carbon footprint by employees and Tesco
Employees – travel reduction, green house gas reduction through reduced energy usage. Reduce, reuse, recyle.
Tesco are currently one of the main market leaders within the distribution of foods and general products. They have a well established and consistent strategy for growth which makes them perfect for Unilever to tackle their objective in reducing Carbon Footprint. This is due to the fact that due to constant growth Tesco will be able to inject more money into them becoming a lot greener especially with their travel expenses as well. Their core UK business strategy and drive expansion has leaded them into many new markets.
Retailers have also had high impact on reducing the carbon footprint within Unilever. Tesco one of the leading supermarkets’ united with Unilever and co-chaired the haulage element of the industry. They have devised plans to greatly reduce transport impacts. The way Tesco and Unilever have gone about this is to share vehicles. With the process of sharing vehicles it means that the amount of travelling done between both companies greatly reduces. They are also implementing more efficient warehousing between both companies, again saving more miles for transport but also being much more efficient in their storing of goods. Research shows that the implemented plans between Unilever and Tesco have saved almost 53 million miles of travel. Certainly a great improvement to reduce their carbon footprint. The equivalent to removing 900 Lorries from Britain’s roads. The way that Unilever has implemented these plans with Tesco have created media coverage, also gaining stronger relationships with their pressure groups i.e. Greenpeace.
The role of marketing in encouraging interaction and dialogue between Greenpeace and Unilever
Greenpeace is a pressure group and they are described as an organized group that doesn’t put any candidates for election. Pressure groups normally seek to influence the government policy or legislation which is already in place. Pressure groups are also known as “interest groups” or “lobby groups”.
There are some main objectives in which Greenpeace plan to do in the next couple of years. The main aim for Greenpeace being a pressure group is to influence the SMD’s (Senior Managing Directors) and Managers, those which have power in the organization to change their decisions linked in with becoming greener (Reducing carbon footprint). These pressure groups are constantly being mislead in looking for power of political office for themselves, but their main aim is only to influence the way that decisions are made by those who hold the power in that organization.
Unilever markets many products ranging from many different markets. Due to marketing being such a competitive atmosphere other organisations like Nestle their direct competitors and pressure groups like Greenpeace can always have a keen understanding of what the organisation is marketing. With promotional activities which ASDA which currently Unilever hold due to increased relationships with both organisations the pressure group Greenpeace can research the relationship between the two organisations and see if they have a small impact on carbon emissions with this promotional activity. Marketing can draw in many ideas and many opinions especially with pressure groups.
One marketing strategy a lot of the company uses is to display current green policies on their websites to show that the organisation do look out for employee health and trying to reduce the organisation carbon footprint. Greenpeace had an appeal against Unilever for the wasteful production of excess palm oil. With current strategies in place Unilever had placed a large proportion of the new and current policies in which they have undertaken in order to make them look at greener company. Greenpeace wouldn’t pick up upon problem if Unilever didn’t reduce their palm oil prices down during 2007. Due to the supply and demand rule, the demand was constant but the supply was high meaning they could drop the price of palm oil. Obviously though more buyers meant more of the natural resource was being used. This led to massive deforestation and alerted Greenpeace. The marketing strategies that Unilever in placed for Palm oil like adverts on “Five” had notified Greenpeace that their supply was high.
The relationship with the interaction of organisation and pressure groups through marketing fluctuates. Certain promotional activity can obviously affect the way that relationships can occur. For example big retailers like ASDA and Tesco are reviewing whose baskets are cheaper in the week constantly creating a competitive background between each organisation. The same occurs with Unilever and Greenpeace. With many marketing strategies that Unilever undergoes it doesn’t come apparent that Greenpeace would apply pressure onto them for the overproduction of palm oil. It also shows that marketing can release a lot not only about the product which the organisation is trying to promote but also the organisation itself. For example some of the PG Tips adverts shows some of the general working conditions and weather conditions in which the tea is grown.
Recommendations for future changes to the aspects of the coordinated marketing mix as a result of improved relationships with this pressure group.
Certain products within Unilever will have to change the way that they are produced. Looking back into the Greenpeace appeal again the production of palm oil, Unilever had to undergo many legislative factors to improve relationships with the pressure group. The product itself with palm oil had to change due to the fact that too much deforestation was taking place. Less palm oil was being produced but also many factors such as the replanting of new tree’s had also taken place. This changed the product not only physically but economically as well. Palm oil greatly used all over the world, had a price increase in 2008 due to the fact that less deforestation due to the policies of sustainability that Unilever had implemented meant that the supply and demand rule changed. The demand for palm oil kept at the same level but for the supply due to the slow running of deforestation gradually lowered shooting the price up. Greenpeace seeing the price of the palm oil rise greatly meant that the relationship between Unilever and the pressure group was also gained. Unilever took the considerations in which Greenpeace had put forward. These improved relationships meant the Unilever and Greenpeace have now been working in close conjunction with each other since the appeal rose. The product will now contact promotion material such as Greener labelling to show the appreciation of which Unilever undertook from the appeal from Greenpeace.
Unilever is located globally all over the world. Pressure groups at current time have no appeals against current locations where Unilever are placed. Promotion will also have to change due to pressure groups. Some promotional material will need to emphasize the fact that special greener ways in which that product was produced was implemented onto it. This shows us that the pressure group is working in close areas with Unilever. The price of certain products will have to go up due to the increased demand of these products. With the large amount of products moving around Unilever will be spending more on transport which in effect will stir the relationships between the organisation and the pressure groups. Using the palm oil example we saw that the pressure group Greenpeace had used media strategies to create coverage of the massive deforestation that Unilever had been doing for the extraction of palm oil. After the appeal Unilever bought policies in covering them from another appeal which the pressure group could imply on them.
Appendix 1
Unilever a brief background to its products/ services customer base and position in market.
Unilever is currently one of the world’s largest consumer product organizations. The current sale of $52 billion with its wide range of foods, home and personal care products, Unilever is a well known globalized organization. Currently Unilever employ’s over 300,000 people which and is operating in 88 different countries world wide. Some of their products range within the Ice Cream Market to the Tea and Coffee market.
“Everyday 150 million times somebody reaches for a Unilever product.”
(07-05-09, )
Knorr is currently their biggest food brand with a product range covering soups to complete meals. Unilever constantly meets the consumer demands for reliable and healthy foods by launching a new objective called pro-active. Pro-active helps reduce cholesterol levels making it more appealing to those who are wanting to become healthier. They are market leaders in branded Olive Oil category with the most important brand being Bertolli. Also being the world’s leading ice cream producer with brands like Wall’s and Ben & Jerry’s. This is in direct relationship with their tea brands as well, also being market leader and largest selling organization for packet tea through the world.
Appendix 2
Study Centre: Bedford College
CIM Membership Number: 12694911
Assignment: Stakeholder Marketing (Reducing Organisational Carbon Footprint)
Word Count:
Stakeholder Audit -
1.0 Background Research
It is inevitable that a fast moving consumer goods company like Unilever has many stakeholders. As such it needs to take a proactive approach and to build good relationships with a broad range of organizations and groups of people who have a role in its business. With some stakeholders the relationship is based on a number of contacts. Direct contacts, financial involvement and product development are just some of the ways that customers, employees, suppliers and investors are involved with Unilever. There are also government and regulations via civil society organizations and local communities which Unilever take wider interest within these stakeholders. Some of these groups engage directly with
Unilever’s main objective with stakeholders is to create activity and to engage with external and internal stakeholders to help identify the issues of concern and provide feedback with specific areas of activity. Generally Unilever finds that constructive dialogue, including with those who may hold critical views, helps understanding of the dilemmas they face in running a business that is seeking to be more sustainable.
Its mission Statement regarding Stakeholders is stated as - “Listening to others and learning from our stakeholders informs our decision-making, strengthens our relationships and helps us succeed as a business.” (, 7-05-09)
The purpose of this report is to undertake an audit of Unilever’s stakeholders, analyzing them and mapping them into a Power to Interest plot justifying their position and their impact on Unilever’s carbon footprint. Finally the influence of one of the major pressure stakeholders will be assessed e.g. Greenpeace on the Food Industry.
1.1 Stakeholders
Unilever have implemented strategies to try and educate employees further in the way that Unilever can reduce their carbon footprint. In Australia “Project Blue Water” educated employees about new water management and how to conserve un-used water. Encouraging them to volunteer 3,500 hours of their time to mostly environmental improvements, whilst in Canada Unilever had been running an Eco-Voyageurs schools program for over 10 years to make the younger generation aware of their footprint.
Unilever have established intranet sites for the standards/occupational health and safety for their employee’s. One example of this is a searchable web portal that has been developed with over 350 examples of good practice covering water, waste, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and general environmental issues. As seen from the diagram above we can see the reduction in waste by -68%. It just shows that mainly from educating employee’s to recycle and re-educate ways in which to reduce the carbon footprint. Employees have a massive influence and the impact on the organizations carbon footprint is also large. The reason behind the way that employee’s are having such a great effect on the footprint is due to the size of the organisation. Unilever employing thousands of workers have tackled the problem of reducing their carbon footprint by the source. Employee’s had a large stake in Unilever and was the correct way in tackling the footprint problem.
Tesco are currently one of the main market leaders within the distribution of foods and general products. They have a well established and consistent strategy for growth which makes them perfect for Unilever to tackle their objective in reducing Carbon Footprint. This is due to the fact that due to constant growth Tesco will be able to inject more money into them becoming a lot greener especially with their travel expenses as well. Their core UK business strategy and drive expansion has leaded them into many new markets.
Retailers have also had high impact on reducing the carbon footprint within Unilever. Tesco one of the leading supermarkets’ united with Unilever and co-chaired the haulage element of the industry. They have devised plans to greatly reduce transport impacts. The way Tesco and Unilever have gone about this is to share vehicles. With the process of sharing vehicles it means that the amount of travelling done between both companies greatly reduces. They are also implementing more efficient warehousing between both companies, again saving more miles for transport but also being much more efficient in their storing of goods. Research shows that the implemented plans between Unilever and Tesco have saved almost 53 million miles of travel. Certainly a great improvement to reduce their carbon footprint. The equivalent to removing 900 Lorries from Britain’s roads. The way that Unilever has implemented these plans with Tesco have created media coverage, also gaining stronger relationships with their pressure groups i.e. Greenpeace.
Closely linked in was the partnership between Wall-mart ASDA and Unilever in promoting customers to wash at 30°C. This did have direct affect on Unilever’s Carbon Footprint model due to the fact that they have bought out a new product which can wash clothes at a lower temperature just as well. This lead to great relationship with ASDA and Unilever and as a part of the activity ASDA ran a promotion on selected Unilever brands. We can tell that ASDA had a great part in reducing the Carbon Footprint of Unilever due to the sales figures of Unilever products like Persil which were promoting customers to wash with their new formula at a lower temperature. Obviously not as much heat is needed for the water making a much greener solution to washing. The market which Persil had implanted their new product in has lead to a large amount of growth with also government backing to try and get customers now to wash at 30°C. If the market carries on growing more and more customers will be using the new formula to wash at a lower temperature gradually reducing the amount of electricity used therefore reducing the amount of footprint implemented on Unilever.
The correlation with the direct relationship between Tesco/ASDA and Unilever is that all the organization’s being very high powered stakeholders to Unilever all share similar ideas on their carbon footprint. This makes the processes and implementing plans to each other much easier than if organizations didn’t have the relationships that these hold.
1.2 Stakeholder Mapping
Below is a simple Power/Interest Stakeholder mapping technique regarding some of the stakeholders within Unilever.
The power/interest stakeholder mapping technique segments the organization’s into different categories. We can see one of the main stakeholders Employee’s have high amount of power within the way Unilever operates. Also with Greenpeace which Unilever had complaints filled against them seems to have a massive influence in which Unilever is run. This correlation links greatly in the way of reducing the organizational carbon footprint. If an organization like Greenpeace who has great power/interest within Unilever they have some control on how Unilever operates through media channels.
Suggesting that Employee’s have the great influence on the objective to reducing the Carbon Footprint correlates in which segment of the power/interest graph they are in. The local community has low power and low interest in the way Unilever operates. This is apparent due to size of the local community but also power and media interest they can create which is low.
1.2 – Pressure Group Greenpeace
Greenpeace a non-profit organization stands for positive change through action. They appeal to defend the natural world and to promote peace within the nation. Investigating, exposing and confronting organizations which are emitting environmental abuse by governments and corporations around the world are some of the plans which GP unraveled. Their mission statement is “To ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity”
Greenpeace has been a pressure group to Unilever for many years. Recently in May 2008 Greenpeace publically challenged Unilever about the ways on which they have been working on Palm Oil products.
Unilever have been working to promote a sustainability plan in palm oil cultivation. During the 1990’s they started developing a policy “Good Agricultural Practice Guidelines for Palm Oil. Massive deforestation lead to a huge amount of greenhouse gases as the carbon in sequestered in the trees. Being generally challenged by Greenpeace Unilever became threatened by outrage from the non-profit organization. This had great impact on Unilever and their policies to try and reduce the amount of deforestation which was occurring at the time. The influence which Greenpeace can create on an organization using media to manipulate companies into looking wasteful is high. Unilever devised a plan to create a body called “The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)”. Towards the end of 2007 RSPO launched this new certification programme, making it possible to grow sustainable palm oil.
Unilever had devised goals to tackle the growing problem on not be sustainable within the Palm Oil industry.
“First, we have assembled a large international coalition of some 50 companies, banks and NGOs who share the same goals as us. The purpose of the coalition is to campaign for change among palm oil growers.”
“Secondly, we are working within the institutional framework of the RSPO to effect this change. At the November 2008 meeting of the RSPO, we supported resolutions from WWF and Oxfam which put pressure on suppliers and users of palm oil to change their ways.”
“Thirdly, we are conducting an independent audit of our own suppliers to ensure that all of them are respecting the principles and criteria of the RSPO.”
“Finally, we are working closely and productively with Greenpeace and other NGOs to promote change within the industry.”
Objectives gathered from: (, 7-05-09)
The reason why Unilever had created this new Body was due to the influence Greenpeace had given on Unilever making them look bad to consumers.
Stakeholder Marketing