The Scoop: Unilever walks back ESG promises to cut costs

Massive consumer goods company Unilever, maker of products ranging from Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to Dove beauty products, has taken a big step back from many of its promises to reduce plastics, pay a living wage to suppliers and more.

As The Guardian reported:

Unilever, one of the largest users of plastic packaging in the world, had previously promised to halve its use of virgin plastics by 2025. Instead, it will now aim for a reduction of a third by 2026, Bloomberg reported. The less ambitious target equates to about 100,000 tonnes more fresh plastic every year.

The company is also abandoning a pledge to pay direct suppliers a living wage by 2030, instead proposing fair pay for suppliers accounting for half its annual spend on goods and services by 2026. It is also dropping a promise to spend €2bn (£1.7bn) a year with diverse businesses by 2025 and a commitment that 5% of its workforce will be made up of people with disabilities by the same year.

 CEO Hein Schumacher said that interest in ESG issues is “cyclical,” with a past interest in climate issues now being replaced with a focus on global conflict.

“I’m not going to shout that we’re saving the world, but I want to make sure that in everything that we do, that it is indeed better,” Schumacher said.

Why it matters: Unilever is just the latest company to find itself caught between customers who demand green initiatives, anti-ESG backlash and the real costs of being environmentally and socially responsible.

The Guardian said that Unilever specifically is pulling back on its promises due to shareholder pressure to focus on profits over the planet.

They aren’t alone in this. It’s all part of a larger movement that is deemphasizing ESG pledges after several years of big promises supported by splashy PR campaigns. It’s also a trend spurred, in part, by the SEC’s decreased emissions reporting requirements

This now puts the PR department in the unenviable position of walking back the vows they helped make just a short time ago.

When making a large social pledge, it’s also wise to also, quietly and in the hopes it will never be needed, begin to workbegin working on strategies in case the plan can’t be carried out. How will you address the shift? How will you highlight the good work that has been done, even if the overall plan falls short?

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Allison Carter is editor-in-chief of PR Daily. Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.