Unilever
Company Score
+1.50Unilever is a British-Dutch consumer goods company with headquarters in the UK and the Netherlands. Its products include food and beverages, cleaning agents, beauty products, and personal care products. It is Europe’s seventh most valuable company. Unilever products are available in around 190 countries and it owns over 400 brands, including Axe/Lynx, Dove, Hellmann's, Knorr, Lipton, Lux, Magnum, Rexona/Degree, Sunsilk and Surf.
Read about Unilever and its impact below.
Impact notes
Unilever products are manufactured with more than 100 health threatening ingredients
Sandhyani.Borah
Wed Nov 11th, 2020 at 8:51am
According to the EPA, there are over 40,000 chemicals in consumer products and less than 1% have been studied for safety1. Many personal-use products have harmful substances, including carcinogens2. This is a major concern since personal care products are applied directly and therefore are absorbed or inhaled easily2.
Dove helps boost confidence of over 40 million women through its Self-Esteem Project
Sandhyani.Borah
Wed Nov 11th, 2020 at 8:08am
During the present era of heavy media (TV, magazines, internet, social media) consumption, body image issue, leading to low self-esteem, is an emerging concern among the youth1. Globally, over 54% of girls aged 10-17 years lack high body esteem2. On the other hand, over 69% of women suffer from appearance anxiety caused by the media-set standards of unrealistic beauty3.
Unilever sources cocoa from Ivory Coast and Ghana from suppliers who employ child labor
Pooja.Katariya1
Mon Nov 9th, 2020 at 10:52am
According to the International Labor Organization estimates, 40 million people suffer from modern slavery globally1. Out of this, 25 million are the forced labor victims1. Worldwide, 152 million children between the age of 5 and 17 are child laborers, out of which 70.9% work in the agriculture field, 17.1% in the service sector, and 11.9% in industries1.
Unilever has helped 793,000 farmers worldwide learn improved agricultural practices
Surbhi Kohli
Thu Nov 5th, 2020 at 4:35pm
Approximately a billion people worldwide worked in the agricultural sector in 20181. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), people living in rural areas are often stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty, which can be broken by supporting the development of the agricultural sector2;p3. This support can help increase the productivity and income of small-scale farmers and create better jobs for the rural poor2;p3.
Unilever failed to ensure fair wages for tea growers and plantation workers
Surbhi Kohli
Tue Nov 3rd, 2020 at 8:12am
The world produced 6.7 M tonnes of tea in 2018, wherein India had the second-highest production volume with 1.4 M tonnes1. The Indian tea industry is the source of livelihood for more than two million people2. However, the tea farmers and plantation workers in the country are often underpaid and suffer from poverty and malnutrition3.