Unilever's Environmental Sustainability: A Case Study Analysis

This essay undertakes a comprehensive analysis of environmental sustainability, focusing on Unilever as a case study. It begins by examining the concept of environmental sustainability and then delves into Unilever's practices, particularly concerning its use of plastic in product packaging and its overall environmental impact. The essay employs the social practice theory to understand the behaviors and actions related to Unilever's practices. The core of the essay proposes a multi-pronged strategy to mitigate the environmental challenges, including reducing plastic usage, promoting biodegradable materials, and setting quantitative targets for footprint reduction. It also addresses both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of this strategy. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of these strategies in fostering environmental sustainability and emphasizes the need for businesses to operate responsibly for the betterment of society and the environment.

Running head: ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Environmental Sustainability
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
This paper tries to understand the concept of environmental sustainability by analyzing the case
study of Uniliver and the products which are being manufactured by the firm. In this regard, the
practices of the organization, the people who act as ‘carriers’ of the products being manufactured
by the firm and the impact they have on the environment has been looked in to. For the better
understanding of this, a social practice theory has been examined. Furthermore, the essay also
tries to develop certain strategies as recommendations which would aid in the changing of the
prevailing state of environmental unsustainability.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Part 1: Rational and Analysis of an ‘Unsustainable’ Practice.........................................................3
Meaning of unsustainable practice..............................................................................................3
About Unilever............................................................................................................................3
Unsustainable practice as followed by Unilever.........................................................................4
Social Practice Theory.................................................................................................................5
Part 2: Rationale for and design of a strategy for change................................................................7
Design for the strategy.................................................................................................................7
Rationale for choosing the design of the strategy........................................................................8
Strategy identified to mitigate the challenges identified.............................................................9
Significance of strategy to change the practice in question.........................................................9
Important challenges overcome by the strategy........................................................................10
Risks emerging from the implementation of the strategy and the way to overcome them.......10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References:....................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
The introduction of the process of industrialization has had many significant impacts on
the environment of the world. Industrialization was deemed to be essential as it led to the
introduction of many new goods and services within the sphere of economic market (Ortiz‐de‐
Mandojana and Bansal 2016). It led to the exponential growth of the economic aspect of the
market as people had more things to consume. Furthermore, the rise in the job opportunities led
to the increase in the purchasing power of the consumers, which, in turn, led to the rise in the
increase in the level of consumption as observed within the market place. However, an important
adverse impact of the process of industrialization was the mindless exploitation of the resources
of the Earth and the consequent generation of environmental pollution (Dyllick and Muff 2016).
During the early days of the eighteenth century, such activities were not heeded much since the
effects of the activities were not observed in the environment during those time periods.
However, with the progress of time and with the continued process of industrialization, the idea
of unsustainable practices began to emerge (Evans et al. 2017). The functionality of many
business organizations started to be criticized by many scholars and environmental activists who
believed that they engaged in those practices which are harmful for the society. In this respect, it
is important to understand that within the contemporary world order, there is a need on the part
of the business firms to pursue their functions in a sustainable manner without imposing any
harm on the environment or on the individuals of the human civilization (Baldassarre et al.
2017). This paper tries to understand the concept of environmental sustainability by analyzing
the case study of Uniliver and the products which are being manufactured by the firm. In this
regard, the practices of the organization, the people who act as ‘carriers’ of the products being
manufactured by the firm and the impact they have on the environment has been looked in to.

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For the better understanding of this, a social practice theory has been examined. Furthermore, the
essay also tries to develop certain strategies as recommendations which would aid in the
changing of the prevailing state of environmental unsustainability.
Part 1: Rational and Analysis of an ‘Unsustainable’ Practice
This segment of the research paper tries to understand the meaning of unsustainable
practices as they adversely affect the environment of the world. In this regard, the unsustainable
practice of the business firm of Unilever has been looked into as they manufacture their products
with the aid of harmful plastic substances.
Meaning of unsustainable practice
With the turn of the century, the contemporary world society now focuses on the
importance of ensuring the welfare of the individuals of the world (Shove, Pantzar and Watson
2012). The process of industrialization is still considered to be important and might have
achieved a greater significance than ever before. However, the harmful practices of
industrialization such as the exploitation of the natural resources of the Earth, are sought to be
done away with (Kurucz et al. 2017). In the recent times, the need of the hour is to formulate
certain sustainable practices which would aid in the improvement of the environment as well as
guaranteeing to the individuals a safe and secure society. In this regard all those practices of the
various business firms are termed to be unsustainable practices which harms the environment
and the health of the people (Kopnina and Blewitt 2018).
About Unilever
Unilever is stated to be one of the largest multi-national company which deals in the
selling of consumer goods such as cleaning agents, beverages and that of personal care products.

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This business organization was first established in the United Kingdom in Netherlands in the
year of 1929 (Unilever 2019). In the year 2017, the turnover of Unilever was around 53.7 billion
Euros which provides evidence to the popularity of the business organization in the entire world
(Unilever 2019).
Unsustainable practice as followed by Unilever
In the recent past, the business organization of Unilever has often been in the news due to
the presence of plastic materials within the products manufactured by the firm. This caused a
serious protests among the people purchasing the products of this company (Witjes and Lozano
2016). The firm is found to have its base in almost all the countries of the world. However, it is
within the region of Europe that the problem manifests in a significant manner. In the present
time, the annual packaging foot print of the organization in terms of using plastic material equals
to almost 7,00,000 tonnes which is significantly higher than the desired level (New
Internationalist, 2019).
This unsustainable practice followed by Unilever can be understood from the fact that its
primary business function includes the manufacturing of those products which have been used in
plastic since times immemorial (Antikainen and Valkokari 2016). For instance, the toothpaste
which is manufactured by this company, is usually packaged in a plastic material. Similarly, the
body care products such as those of lotions and body washes, are also packaged in plastic
materials, which are feasible for only one time use. This has posed a significant crisis to the
environment as virgin plastics cannot be recycled and reused. Furthermore, they do are
extremely hard to degrade and hence, are present in the environment for a considerable period of
time (Joyce and Paquin 2016).

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The use of plastic is harmful for the environment of the entire world. However, with
respect to Europe, this is a considerate problem since this region is the third most populated
continent of the world. Furthermore, the purchasing power of the people is considerably high in
this region and hence, people have the required financial resources to purchase the products as
they are manufactured by Unilever. In this context, it can be observed that the issue of use of the
products of Unilever within the region of Europe poses a challenging threat to the world as it
leads to the rise in the number of goods which have a plastic packaging (Charles Jr, Schmidheiny
and Watts 2017).
Social Practice Theory
The understanding of the behavioral characteristics of the people is made easier with the
analysis of certain theories. Theories are meant to provide the subjective frame work for
comprehending the actions and behaviors of the objects of the world (Maller 2015). Besides the
understanding of the behavior of the human beings of the society, theories also aid in providing
important guidance to the business firms for the performance of their functions and activities.
This is important in the context of the twenty first century because businesses are required to
operate for the welfare of the individuals of the community.
In this context, the social practice theory has been introduced. The epidemiological focus
and the methodological individualism which exists in the context of risk behaviors within the
sector of health research has been recognized, with particular focus being made in the issue of
health inequality (Shove, Watson and Spurling 2015). For understanding this issue of health
through the lens of social practice, the scholars have tried to implement the conceptualization of
social practice as advocated by Bourdieu and that of Giddens (Zetterberg 2018).

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In the field of sustainable consumption, the scholars have tried to utilize the idea of social
practice theory in order to understand the actions of the individuals apart from the analysis of
their behaviors. In this regard the social practice theories are found to have three important
characteristics.
The first is that the material things such as those of infrastructure and technology are
considered to be active elements of the society, capable of their own practices having their
special agencies (Nicolini 2017).
Second, the theory eliminates between the idea of social theory as a practice of entity and
the idea that social practice can be observed as performances (Spotswood et al. 2015). A practice
as entity tries to understand that the related elements does something which is stable in nature.
On the other hand, the practice as performance refers to the execution of the performance in a
repeated manner.
The third characteristics of social practice theory is that this classification allows the
scholars of social change to understand that the practice of the various business firms can be
changed and evolved in order to suit the greater interests of the human community (Spotswood
et al. 2015).
This characteristic of social practice theory is considered to be the most important one. It
helps to understand that the social practice theory includes within itself not only a theoretical
substance but also involves the element of instigating changes in the society for the better. In this
regard, the unsustainable practices as followed by the organization of Unilever should be judged
through the lens of the social practice theory which would help the managers to evaluate their
business actions and their impact on the society.

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Part 2: Rationale for and design of a strategy for change
This section of the assignment tries to formulate a design or strategy which would aid the
organization in reducing the plastic material foot print as observed in the activities of Unilever.
In this regard, this section also highlights the justification in the choosing of this strategy and the
significance of implementing it within the larger context of the society and its welfare.
Design for the strategy
The use of the plastic materials during the process of manufacturing in Unilever needs to
be reduced to a significant extent. The manufacturing of nearly 7 million tonnes of plastic proves
to extremely harmful for the people of the world. In this regard, a multi-prong approach needs to
be initiated which would aid in the reduction of the plastic materials and its use in the packaging
of the products (Aagaard 2016).
The strategy would include both qualitative and quantitative aspect. The quantitative
aspect of the strategy includes the reduction in the amount of plastic used in the process of
manufacturing. This includes the encouragement to produce and sell only those products which
contains within itself bio-degradable components which can be easily decomposed off within the
environment. Furthermore, an attempt should be made by the organization to reduce the annual
turnover of footprint with respect to plastic. In this context, not only the use of virgin plastics in
the process of packaging needs to be reduced, but the use of plastic substances in the products
also needs to be reduced.
The qualitative aspect of the multi-pronged approach includes analyzing the changes as
observed after the reduction in the use of plastic products. This can be in the form of subjectively
comprehending the annual reports released by the various non-governmental organizations of the

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world and the other interest groups of the different nation states. It would help the managers and
the executive level supervisors of the business firm to understand the extent to which they are
fulfilling their corporate social responsibility.
From this flows another qualitative criteria which is that of adhering to the corporate
social responsibility of the firm. In the twenty first century, there is a need on the part of the
various organizations of the world to ensure that they do not over exploit the various resources
which are utilized by them in the process of their functioning (Boyd et al. 2015). This also
includes using only those resources which are environmental friendly and dermatologically
beneficial to the people of the society.
Rationale for choosing the design of the strategy
The strategy which has been considered to be needful in the context of business firm of
Unilever is that of a multi-pronged approach. In this regard, it can be understood that the multi-
pronged approach or strategy which is being proposed includes elements of both quantitative and
qualitative nature. This is essential as it would provide a comprehensive outlook to the managers
of the business firm of Unilever as to the impact of their business activities. The main
requirement of the managers is to ensure the satisfaction of their customers by adhering to their
desires and wants (the Guardian 2019). It also includes the element of trying to attain a decent
level of profit margin so that the aspirations of the managers themselves can be maintained.
However, in this situation, the profit demands of the firm should not over shadow the
responsibilities the business has towards their own customers and towards the people of the
society.
In this context, there is a need on the part of the organization to be careful about the
changes which are being proposed. Such changes should be made achievable in nature such as

10ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
the reduction of the use of virgin plastics in the packaging process of the products of Unilever
within a particular period of time. Furthermore, the organization should carefully phase out the
use of those products which are dermatologically not helpful for the customers.
Strategy identified to mitigate the challenges identified: Dynamics of social change
The strategy which has been identified to migrate the challenge of the use of plastic in the
packaging process of the products of Unilever is that of using reusable and recyclable plastic
material. In this context, the strategy includes changing the packaging materials as used in the
personal health care products specifically. This is due to the fact that the use of plastic materials
in incredibly harmful for the human body. The remnants from such plastic material cause serious
issues such as that of itchiness, swelling as well as making an individual fall ill in the event that
such a material is consumed (Shove, Pantzar and Watson 2012).
Such change is meant to inspire the concerned firm of Unilever to bring about changes
in the society by the way of reducing the use of plastic materials in the society. This includes
changing the nature of the packaging materials so that no plastic would exists in the world. This
dynamic of social change needs to be looked at from the angle of the bringing about a change in
the society.
Significance of strategy to change the practice in question
The strategy is considered to be significant for the business firm as it would allow them
with the opportunity to contribute to the society in an efficient manner. The need of the hour is
the protection and the conservation of the environment (Shove, Pantzar and Watson 2012). The
decade long process of industrialization has posed an enormous burden on the human civilization
with regards to its very essence of survival (Frangoul 2019). In this context, there is a need on

11ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
the part of the business firms to evolve a system of checks and balances in the context of its own
activities and functions.
Unilever developed a strategy of taking in to consideration the quantity of plastic
materials which is used in the production of its packaging materials (Npr.org 2019).
Furthermore, it also analyzes the nature of the plastic material used which is that of virgin
plastic. In this context, with the aid of the strategy, the managers can bring in certain changes
such as the use of recyclable plastics and those which degrades in the environment in a fast
manner. Such changes would be analyzed qualitatively to understand the changes brought about
in the society through the actions of the firm.
Important challenges overcome by the strategy
The most important challenge which is sought to be overcome by this strategy is that of
reducing the amount of plastic materials which is used by the business organization of Unilever.
It has been estimated that Unilever produces over 7 million tonnes of plastic waste in a year (The
Economic Times 2019). This is extremely harmful for the environment and the people of the
society. In this context, the multi-pronged strategy as proposed in the previous section tries to
reduce the use of virgin plastic as used in the packaging process. This would aid in preventing
the presence of non-bio degradable plastic materials in the environment.
Risks emerging from the implementation of the strategy and the way to overcome
them
The risks which are considered to be emerging from the use of this strategy which
consists of both a qualitative approach as well as quantitative approach are many. One of the
main risks identified is that the strategy which be too idealistic in nature and broad based. Plastic

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materials are used in the packaging process of Unilever in almost all the countries of the world.
Thus, to bring about a change in this entire process is extremely daunting. Furthermore, many
countries of the world would not have the required technique to produce a desirable plastic
product which might be environmental friendly (Living 2019).
In order to overcome this challenge, there is a need on the part of the parent body of
Unilever in the United Kingdom to produce the required non-plastic material for packaging and
transfer them to the other countries of the world. However, at the initial stages, this change
should be tried to be brought about within the continent of Europe itself. To understand the
success in overcoming this challenge, the managers of Unilever should carefully analyze the
impacts on the environment at every step of the change proposed.
Conclusion
Thus, to conclude, it can be observed that there is a need on the part of the business
activities to ensure that their production or manufacturing functions do not pose any problem on
the people of the society. In this respect, they need to adhere to the corporate social
responsibilities which are set out by the societies around the world. The main objective of the
twenty first century state leaders is to assure a sense of welfare for the citizens of the world. This
includes granting to them a safe and secure environment which would go a long way in ensuring
the improvement in the quality of life among the people of the world. The organization of
Unilever has been alleged to adversely impact the environment of the world with the production
of plastic materials in its packaging process. This essay seeks to provide a strategy in the form of
recommendation to reduce the use of such harmful plastic materials. It suggests that Unilever
should attempt to use recyclable plastic materials instead of virgin plastic.

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