Unilever
Nutrition for Growth (N4G) commitment
Reported progress
Assessment
Nutrition policy (169,000)
Health-Improvement-Programme: We are starting a new programme and piloting in China, US, UK, Brazil, Mexico, Dubai (~5500 employees in 2021), to improve the health and wellbeing of Unilever employees, focusing on nutrition, movement, and other aspects of a healthy lifestyle. In this program the partnership with Workforce Nutrition Alliance is giving us the elements that we need to focus on to improve nutrition in the workplace. We are applying the scorecard now in 4 factories in Latin America, covering 3350 employees) and will gather learnings to form a further action plan later in 2021.
Reported progress in previous Global Nutrition Reports indicates that commitment has been achieved.
Maternal health/Breastfeeding (1,800)
We introduced our Global Maternal Well-being Standard in 2017 and rolled it out to every country in which we operate by the end of 2018. The Standard gives returning mothers access to facilities that allow them to nurse their baby and to have all the flexibility they need to return to the workplace. Among other measures, it entitles all employees to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave as a minimum. Although our previous entitlements already met local regulatory requirements, our Standard is a major advance. In 54% of the countries in which we operate, it exceeded the local regulatory requirement when we introduced it. Managing people's return to work is a priority. All mothers returning to work have access to a variety of flexible options, such as part-time or agile working and job sharing, based on the requirements of their role. We have been increasing the availability of breastfeeding facilities and ensuring nursing mothers have two 30-minute breaks in the day. And we are enabling sites with over 50 female employees to provide access to crèche services that are tailored to local needs. We are also piloting group coaching programmes for parents before and after they take parental leave. In 2019, we began piloting 'Great Expectations', a coaching session for parents transitioning to parental leave, 'Confident Comebacks', for parents returning to work, and 'Thriving Sustainably', for parents in the five years after their leave. Each programme is run by diversity experts "Talking Talent". We introduced our new Global Paternity Leave Standard in 2018. It enables new fathers to take three weeks' paid paternity leave and is available to same-sex couples and to those who choose to adopt too. Not all countries have rights or policies to ensure time off for new parents - for example just 78 out of 167 countries have a statutory right to paternity leave. This move to standardize the minimum amount of paid paternity leave we offer is part of our commitment to making Unilever a more balanced, inclusive workplace around the world. The policy applies to all 15,5000 employees.
Reported progress in previous Global Nutrition Reports indicates that commitment has been achieved.
1. Project Laser Beam was an integrated nutrition program designed to reach 500,000 children with improved nutrition; 1 million with hygiene training in schools, and 3,000 women with improved livelihoods.
2. By 2015: change the hygiene behaviour of 1 billion consumers, as well as 2.5 million people through Neo Natal hand-washing programs.
1. Project Laser Beam (PLB) in 2011, World Food Programme (WFP) and Unilever launched PLB - a major public-private partnership involving WFP, Unilever, DSM, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Mondelez - which sought to take a holistic approach to addressing the underlying causes of child undernutrition in Bangladesh and Indonesia.
PLB did this by bringing together the expertise of UN agencies, the private sector, NGOs, and governments to develop a scalable, replicable model for addressing child nutrition.
The partnership was signed at the 2011 World Economic Forum; and during its lifespan (end July 2014), PLB delivered 18 interventions reaching a total of 2.48 million people in Bangladesh and 424,000 in Indonesia through activities including school feeding, maternal/child health, female livelihood opportunities, and water and sanitation and hygiene (WASH). As of July 2014, 2.48 million people had participated in the different Project Laser BeamPLB interventions in Bangladesh and 424,0008 in Indonesia. As most of the PLB beneficiaries were involved in more than one intervention, the aggregate number of individual beneficiaries is lower.
Of the total beneficiaries reached by PLB, an estimated 1.74 million new beneficiaries (i.e. new to nutrition support) were reached by the partnership interventions.
2. As part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP), we committed to help more than a billion people to improve their health and hygiene, to help reduce child mortality and the incidence of life-threatening diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia. By the end of 2020 we had reached over 1.3 billion people, over 625 million through on-ground programmes and over 715 million through TV commercials.
Lifebuoy is by far the biggest contributor to our overall commitment and runs one of the worlD's largest behaviour-change programmes to promote handwashing. It set out to achieve its hugely ambitious goal of reaching a billion people by 2020, which it attained in 2018. By 2019, it had reached 1.07 billion people across Asia, Africa and Latin America. For further information see: https://assets.unilever.com/files/92ui5egz/production/16cb778e4d31b81509dc5937001559f1f5c863ab.pdf/USLP-summary-of-10-years-progress.pdf
Reported progress in previous Global Nutrition Reports indicates that commitment has been achieved.