While most cleaning and laundry products available today contain chemicals made from fossil fuel feedstocks, a non-renewable source of carbon. Unilever has decided to replace these chemicals by renewable or recycled sources of carbon.

In September, Unilever announced it will replace 100% of the carbon derived from fossil fuels in its cleaning and laundry product formulations with renewable or recycled carbon. This is a deliberate shift away from the fossil fuel economy.

Accordingly, Unilever will invest €1 billion in Clean Future campaign that drives a complete transition away from fossil fuel derived chemicals in Unilever’s cleaning and laundry products by 2030. By transitioning away from fossil fuel - derived chemicals in product formulations, the company will unlock novel ways of reducing the carbon footprint of some of the world’s biggest cleaning and laundry brands. The first initiative of its scale, Clean Future is a critical step towards Unilever’s pledge of net zero emissions from its products by 2039.

Specifically, the Campaign will finance biotechnology research, CO2 and waste utilisation, and low carbon chemistry - which will drive the transition away from fossil fuel derived chemicals. This investment will also be used to create biodegradable and water-efficient product formulations, to halve the use of virgin plastic by 2025, and support the development of brand communications that make these technologies appealing to consumers. Clean Future already supports industry-leading projects around the world to transform how the chemicals in Unilever’s cleaning and laundry products are made. For instance, developing the production of rhamnolipids, a renewable and biodegradable surfactant which is already used in its Sunlight dishwashing liquid in Chile and Vietnam, or sourcing soda ash - an ingredient in laundry powders - made with the CO2 emissions from the energy used in the production process.

Central to Clean Future is Unilever’s ‘Carbon Rainbow’, a novel approach to diversify the carbon used in its product formulations. Non-renewable, fossil sources of carbon (identified in the Carbon Rainbow as black carbon) will be replaced using captured CO2 (purple carbon), plants and biological sources (green carbon), marine sources such as algae (blue carbon), and carbon recovered from waste materials (grey carbon). The sourcing of carbon under the Carbon Rainbow will be governed and informed by environmental impact assessments and work with Unilever’s industry-leading sustainable sourcing programmes to prevent unintended pressures on land-use.

Unilever calls on other businesses to adopt new ‘Carbon Rainbow’ approach to transition to renewable and recycled carbon sources from plant, air, marine sources, and waste. Unilever is a founding Advisory Board member of the Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI), an emerging coalition from the Nova Institute, which aims to bring renewable carbon to the political stage and to develop and implement a sustainable future for the chemical and plastics industry. Peter ter Kulve, Unilever’s President of Home Care, says: ““Diversifying sources of carbon is essential to grow within the limits of our planet. Our suppliers and innovation partners play a critical role through this transition. By sharing our Carbon Rainbow model, we are calling on an economy-wide transformation in how we all use carbon”.