The consumer goods giant is teaming up with Greenredeem – a UK-based firm which offers people reward points for everyday green actions such as recycling. These points can now be exchanged for Unilever products – such as Lynx, PG Tips and Ben & Jerry’s – under the new partnership. (Scroll down for more information on how Greenredeem works).

Unilever Project Sunlight marketing manager Anna Owen said: “We’re so excited to work with Greenredeem to drive recycling rates in the UK. It’s shocking how far the UK lags behind other nations and we see incentivising positive action as a key mechanic to move rates forward, to meet and hopefully smash 2020 target levels.

“To drive behaviour change we know you need to make it easy, fun and rewarding to do the right thing – and that’s just what the Greenredeem platform offers. We hope that through the partnership we can educate our consumers that they can recycle more Unilever product packaging than they may realise.”

Comic Relief

As their launch campaign, Unilever and Greenredeem are inviting Greenredeem members to donate points earned through recycling efforts to Comic Relief. Headlining the campaign will be Unilever brands Persil and PG tips which are already working closely with Comic Relief with special money-raising packs in store and are now looking to drive recycling rates at the same time.  

The deal is part of Unilever’s Project Sunlight campaign, launched last year with the aim of combating food poverty and food waste in developed markets and improving hygiene and sanitation in the developing world.

Unilever’s recent Waste Not, Want Not report revealed that 75% of people still throw away edible food, despite 42% of households in developed countries finding it difficult to live on their current income. Unilever itself announced in January that it is now sending zero non-hazardous waste to landfill from its global factory network of 240 factories in 67 countries, saving more than €200m in waste costs. 

Group CEO Paul Polman is also one of the founding member of the B-team – a group of 16 renowned CEO’s and policymakers headed up by mogul Richard Branson- – who have called on governments and businesses to commit to zero-net emissions by 2050.

 VIDEO: How Greenredeem works

Brad Allen

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