Under its Sustainable Living Plan, Unilever announced that by 2020, total waste sent for disposal will be at or below 2008 levels, despite producing significantly higher volumes.

The company says it is progressing well with packaging reductions, increases to recycled content, increases to recycling and recovery rates, and reductions in office waste, but is off-target in packaging reuse.  

Water

Similar to its GHG results, Unilever says it is off-track for water reductions from skin and hair washing, but on-track in providing easy-rinse products and products that require less water; and on-track with cutting water use in manufacturing and agriculture.

It says its water impact per consumer use has remained broadly unchanged since 2010.

Unilever, a 173,000-employee company, generated €51.3 billion($66.6 billion) in sales in 2012. The firm is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and FTSE4Good Index series, and in 2012 it topped both the Climate Counts Company Scorecard and GlobeScan/SustainAbility ranking of corporate sustainability leaders.