Sustainable sourcing

We accelerated sourcing of physically certified palm oil to 19% (up from 8% in 2014). Our remaining 81% is covered by GreenPalm certificates. We will phase out GreenPalm as we progress towards 100% physically certified oil. In 2016 we brought forward our 2020 target to achieve palm oil from certified, traceable sources by 2019. 

In 2015 we inaugurated our palm oil facility in Sei Mangkei, North Sumatra to support a more traceable, certified supply chain. Through a partnership with our supplier PTPN III, RSPO and IDH, we are engaging 600 independent smallholder farmers in a sustainability programme. The next phase is scaling this up to benefit up to 25,000 farmers.

Robust traceability is a crucial first step in protecting peat lands and forests. We are partnering with World Resources Institute, Proforest and Daemeter to assess risks and opportunities associated with the locations of mills in our supply chain. At end 2015, 73% of the palm oil reported in our supply chain was traceable to known mills.

** Actual split at end 2012: 97%‡ via GreenPalm certificates; and 3%‡ from certified, traceable sources (through a segregated supply)

*Definitions

2015 has been a challenging year as we have pushed hard to accelerate our target to reach 100%, whilst ensuring the robustness of our reporting process. 49%^† of our total volume was received with a third party certification claim and full chain of custody and has been independently assured by PwC for the first time in 2015. 

However, there are challenges for our suppliers in providing verifiable evidence to support the make-up of uncertified products, which we will need to address. To this end, we will continue to increase the volume of certified recycled products we purchase. 

We are confident that this degree of rigour is necessary, and have learned a great deal from this process. For example, an audit conducted by Proforest flagged particular issues with gathering sufficient evidence in Asia, which we will work to address. However, for the rest of our global supply we see high levels of reliability.

† Independently assured by PwC.

We achieved our target to source 100% of our soy beans sustainably by 2014 (through the physical purchase of RTRS certified beans for our AdeS brand, expressed against our AdeS soy beans only baseline). 

Our US pilot grew from just 44,000 acres under cultivation in 2013, to 100,000 acres in 2014 to over 400,000 acres in 2015. Unilever US announced it would source all its soy sustainably by 2017 – this represents 1 million acres.

43% of the soy oil we purchased was from sustainable sources (expressed against our soy oil only baseline). This includes Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS) certificates purchased to cover 100% of our Latin American soy oil and self-verified soy oil in the US. 

In Brazil in 2015 we started a partnership with Santander, Yara Fertilizers, Bayer CropScience and Aliança da Terra to develop 100,000 acres of RTRS certified soy bean production.

We buy around 10% of the world’s black tea and in 2007 we were the first major tea company to commit to sustainable sourcing of tea on a large scale. By the end of 2015, 100% of the tea in our Lipton tea bag blends and 66% of our volumes overall came from sustainable sources. Our continuous efforts to encourage our suppliers and farmers to produce sustainably mean we are on track to achieve our 2020 target for all our tea. 

We continue to partner with suppliers such as McLeod Russel, Camellia and the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA). In 2014 the KTDA achieved a significant milestone when all its factories completed the Rainforest Alliance certification process. 

Today around 20% of the world’s tea production is Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM. That’s over 900,000 tonnes of tea from around 900 estates and more than 740,000 smallholders.

We bought our first sustainable fruit in 2012. Progress has been slower than we would have liked and we have had some setbacks towards our 2015 target. 

We have exceeded our interim milestone of 50% by 2012 (reaching 59%), but fruit and vegetables is a complex portfolio of materials with a very large and diverse supply base. These supply chain complexities made it difficult to achieve our 100% target across the entire portfolio by 2015. 

Nonetheless we continue to work toward 100%, working in partnership with peers across the industry to cover the entirety of our supply base.

† Independently assured by PwC.

Magnum is our biggest ice cream and is on sale in 52 countries, with all but two of them now sourcing Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM

At 98%, we were very close to reaching our interim milestone for Magnum by the end of 2015. We are working hard to complete the final 2% conversion to Rainforest Alliance Certified^TM cocoa.

We remain on track towards our 2020 target of sourcing all our cocoa sustainably, increasing from 46% in 2014 to 60% in 2015.

We verify sugar beet against our Sustainable Agriculture Code and use Bonsucro certification for sugar cane. In 2015 our sustainably sourced sugar volumes reduced to 60%^†, down from 64% in 2014. 

In Europe we continued to make good progress on sugar beet, partially driven by a trial of the SAI Platform’s Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA), a common code for the industry. Significant volumes in Germany, Sweden and Poland have been successfully incorporated into the FSA. 

On cane sugar we continue our dual strategy of creating more physical capacity on the ground whilst continuing to purchase credits. 

While acting individually we have been struggling to create momentum and capacity on the ground. To unlock this, we continue as an active member of Bonsucro and are looking for potential partners who can support our sustainability objectives. We are convinced that we remain on track and will see more momentum in 2016.

† Independently assured by PwC.

We have made good progress in sustainably sourcing our sunflower oil. We have increased our volume from 37% in 2014 to 45% in 2015 by rolling out our practices with our partners Cargill and ADM. 

Our sustainable sourcing strategy is continuously evolving. For example, we set ourselves the ambition of achieving 100% sustainable sunflower oil from our supply base in Russia by 2015. However, as we took on more suppliers during the year - giving us the opportunity to include a larger group of farmers and suppliers in our sustainable sourcing programme – this also meant that we did not reach our 2015 ambition.

In 2015, the vast majority of our European rapeseed volumes were sourced sustainably. This includes the oil for our German Rama spreads (via self-assessment), and Hellmann’s mayonnaise in the UK. It also covers all our Flora range in the UK. The majority of these volumes are being sourced locally from growers located near our manufacturing plants.

Increasingly brands such as Rama and Flora are telling consumers about the benefits of these changes, through factory open days, publicising healthy recipes and linking up with popular TV shows.

We made good progress, increasing from 51% in 2014 to 59% in 2015, thanks to purchases from a number of suppliers across the Nordics, the UK and improved results of our suppliers in the US. 

In 2015 we initiated a pilot in India with World Animal Protection, looking initially at the animal welfare, feed and water practices of smallholders. 

We continued our efforts to convert industry sectors towards sustainable sourcing, building on our success in Australia and Ireland – where since 2013 and 2015 respectively, the dairy sector has programmes that are equivalent to our Sustainable Agriculture Code (SAC). In Europe, we have benchmarked sustainability programmes with some of our larger suppliers, showing that they are equivalent to our SAC - which has enabled significant growth in our sourcing of sustainable dairy. 

We are looking next at what we can achieve in Turkey and Russia.

Ben & Jerry’s ice creams were the first to use Fairtrade (FT) ingredients in 2005. By the end of 2011 in Europe, we achieved Fairtrade certification for all our products produced and distributed in Europe. 

In 2012, due to issues around quality and availability, we found we could not source all the FT-certified ingredients we needed for a global conversion. So we revised our target from our previous ‘all ingredients’ to ‘all flavours’ certified. 

We identified that by using FT ingredients for the five major commodities in all our base mixes and for our chunks and swirls, and following proper Fairtrade derogation procedures, all our ice cream flavours would qualify for Fairtrade certification by 2013. We reached 77% in 2013.

In 2013 we also decided to source only non-GMO ingredients by seed source. As this added complexity to our conversion programmes, we delayed our plans, achieving FT-certification for all our flavours in 2014.

Our research shows that consumers prefer products made with cage-free eggs. We use eggs in mayonnaises, dressings, sauces and ice cream. However, the conditions in which eggs are produced vary widely around the world. We take animal welfare seriously as a social and ethical concern. 

In Western Europe, Hellmann’s, Amora and Calvé have been 100% cage-free since 2009, and once we completed the conversion of our supply chain in Eastern Europe, all of our European products were able to use cage-fee eggs by 2014. 

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream has used only cage-free eggs in Europe since 2004; by the end of 2011, 99% of all eggs used in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream mix worldwide were cage-free too.

We continue to make good progress with our North American supply base - reaching over 60% of our egg requirements originating from cage-free sources by the end of 2015.

Our commitment covers office paper products such as printer paper, note books and envelopes. By using paper from sustainable or recycled sources, we avoid using wood from non-sustainable sources, helping our aim to end deforestation. 

We achieved our target in 2013, when 100% of our paper-based office materials for our top 21 countries came from either certified, sustainable forests or recycled sources. All our suppliers sign a certificate of compliance, and we monitor compliance via quarterly reporting. Where necessary, we have changed from non-sustainable products to sustainable products. 

We then extended our ambition from the top 21 countries to all other countries in Europe and Latin America, with the aim of reaching 100% compliance by the end of 2015, which we achieved.

We are reviewing the global supply market during 2016 and will decide if we can further extend our commitment to cover countries in Africa and Asia during 2016-2017.