Unilever has recently announced that they will be making a $120 million dollar investment to help scale up plant based ingredients within their product range. These plant-based alternatives will be used as an alternative to palm oil and fossil-fuel derived ingredients, which are often found in a large number of cleaning and personal care products.
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To scale the process, biotechnology innovators will use their biotechnology platform to produce the ingredients. It is hoped that the use of this new biotechnology could help to reduce the carbon footprint of palm-derived ingredients by up to 50%.
“Biotechnology has the potential to revolutionise the sourcing of our cleansing ingredients and ensure Unilever is a future-fit business – for consumers, shareholders and the planet we all share” said Unilever’s Chief R&D Officer Richard Slater.
They hope that this will offer a more sustainable alternative for many of their products on offer, as well as meeting growing demand.