• Ad Age, Tuesday, November 16, 2010 10:47 AM

Unilever has released a Sustainable Living Plan that expands on a commitment it made last year to double sales while reducing overall environmental impact, Jack Neff reports. Progress on this "social mission" will be part of every Unilever launch plan alongside sales and profit targets, according to David Lewis, president of Unilever Americas.

Among the goals: encouraging people to spend less time in the shower; ensuring that Lipton Yellow Label and PG Tips tea in Western Europe are sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms; making safe drinking water available to half a billion people by extending sales of the water purifier, Pureit, and changing the hygiene habits of a billion people in Asia, Africa and Latin America so that they wash their hands with Lifebuoy soap at key times during the day.

Lewis realizes consumers aren't always buying into the green thing, Neff reports. "In times of plenty maybe," he says. "After a new recession, value equations are rewritten. We need to be bringing those benefits when they don't need to have a tradeoff in terms of value."

Read the whole story at Ad Age »