GREENPEACE activists scaled Unilever’s London headquarters on the eve of its profit announcement today.
The activists unfurled a banner reading “Profit Warning — Plastic Polluted Money” in protest against the company’s destructive use of environmentally harmful packaging.
The protesters then set up a pollution warning zone around the entrance to the headquarters, warning passers-by about the company’s overwhelming plastic pollution problem.
A previous Greenpeace investigation revealed the consumer goods giant as the biggest seller of some of the worst polluting packaging, multilayered plastic sachets. According to the report, Unilever sells 1,700 sachets every second.
The sachets are typically used to package products such as soap, shampoo and laundry detergent, and are virtually impossible to recycle.
Greenpeace say they exacerbate devastating floods when they enter the environment as they jam local waste systems and waterways.
The activists levelled charges of hypocrisy against Unilever, pointing out that its brands like Dove claim to be “passionately committed to being one of the brands making the biggest impact against plastic waste.”
Greenpeace is demanding that Unilever halt sachet sales and phase out single-use plastic within 10 years.
The activists are also calling on the company to use its influence to advocate for these targets at the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty negotiations, where it is a co-chair of the Business Coalition.
Greenpeace UK head of plastics Nina Schrank said: “Unilever’s profits are drenched in plastic pollution.
“Brands like Dove might give them a clean public face and a healthy bank balance but the truth is the billions in profit Unilever will announce tomorrow is matched only by the billions of pieces of plastic they flood into the world.
“From devastating floods to toxic fire fumes, it’s communities far from their London HQ in places like the Philippines and Indonesia who are paying the price of plastic pollution.
“That’s why we’re here issuing Unilever with their own profit warning — profiting from plastic pollution is a dead end, they have to change.
“They must stop selling plastic sachets now, commit to phasing out single-use plastic within a decade and advocate for this same level of ambition at UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiations.”
