Unilever
Evaluation Completed:
June 22, 2026
Food & Beverage
Evaluation Summary
Company Insights
Unilever appears to own over 400 brands making it one of the biggest and most diverse portfolios of companies we’ve researched, evaluated, and rated to date. These brands span numerous product categories and are sold around the world. The company’s sustainability-related public disclosures and reporting is one of the most comprehensive and detailed sources of information we’ve found. It took days for us to review for this evaluation. We were disappointed with what we found related to their approach to ingredient safety. We would like to see the company move away from the outdated, compliance-based approach that seems to prioritize risk-based reductions in exposure to chemicals of concern instead of selecting inherently safer ingredients. It’s unfortunate because the company truly stands out on their environmental impact efforts where they achieved one of the highest scores possible. We also find that their practices across many worker fairness and corporate accountability topics are solid and in some cases best-in-class. We may consider specific brands (e.g. Seventh Generation) for our homes that appear to be more proactive on ingredient safety. But until Unilever takes a more precautionary approach they’ll continue to receive an overall rating of Avoid despite very strong performance on the other categories we evaluate.
Ingredient Safety
Foundational Gaps
Solid Baseline
Strong Performance
Hilde Likes
Reducing contamination in products
This company appears to take reasonable steps to identify and reduce sources of contamination that may impact raw materials, ingredients, and finished products
Opportunities for Improvement
Adopting ingredient safety goals & metrics
We would like to see this company develop and publicly disclose a goal and relevant metrics to help measure progress on their ingredient safety efforts
Transitioning to a more protective ingredient safety approach
This company has a framework for evaluating ingredient safety but we would like to see them move from a risk-based approach to a more precautionary one based on hazard
Utilizing a restricted substances list
We think this company should develop and disclose a comprehensive list of the ingredients or chemicals that they restrict from their products and supply chain as well as the rationale behind their list
Verification of ingredient safety efforts
We think this company should start using or expand the use of high-quality certifications that help verify their claims related to ingredient safety
Category Definition
Our ingredient safety evaluation criteria are designed to help us determine how a company measures, manages, and discloses, the use of chemicals of concern that may be present in raw materials, ingredients, manufacturing processes, and finished products.
Foundational Gaps
The company does not meet sufficient baseline criteria for this category and has many opportunities for improvement.
Solid Baseline
The company meets most of our basic criteria and sometimes demonstrates a deeper commitment than other companies on issues in this category.
Strong Performance:
The company appears to be a top performer in this evaluation category and exhibits leadership on one or more of the issues we evaluate.
Hilde Likes
Reducing contamination in products
Opportunities for Improvement
Adopting ingredient safety goals & metrics
Transitioning to a more protective ingredient safety approach
Utilizing a restricted substances list
Verification of ingredient safety efforts
Environmental Impact
Foundational Gaps
Solid Baseline
Strong Performance
Hilde Likes
Holistic approach to addressing environmental impacts
This company is a top performer in their industry when it comes to tackling the most important environmental impacts associated with their business and supply chain
Nature & biodiversity protection
This company appears to have a holistic approach to identifying and attempting to manage impacts to ecosystems that provide important raw materials for their products
Supportring regenerative agriculture
We like this company's efforts to support regenerative approaches to agricultural production which can have multiple environmental and social benefits compared to industrial methods
Taking climate action seriously
This company has a great foundation in place when it comes to climate including measuring all greenhouse gas emissions, setting some near-term targets, and reducing their emissions over time
Taking steps to reduce packaging impacts
This company is taking some good initial steps to reduce the environmental impacts of their packaging like using post-consumer recycled raw materials, offering refills, or other relevant efforts
Opportunities for Improvement
Committing to a science-based climate goal
We would love to see this company build on their existing climate efforts by publicly adopting a greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal aligned with a science-based approach
Category Definition
Our environmental impact reduction evaluation criteria are designed to help us determine how a company measures, manages, and discloses information about the impacts that their operations, products, and supply chain may have on our air, land, water, and ecosystems.
Foundational Gaps
The company does not meet sufficient baseline criteria for this category and has many opportunities for improvement.
Solid Baseline
The company meets most of our basic criteria and sometimes demonstrates a deeper commitment than other companies on issues in this category.
Strong Performance:
The company appears to be a top performer in this evaluation category and exhibits leadership on one or more of the issues we evaluate.
Hilde Likes
Holistic approach to addressing environmental impacts
Nature & biodiversity protection
Supportring regenerative agriculture
Taking climate action seriously
Taking steps to reduce packaging impacts
Opportunities for Improvement
Committing to a science-based climate goal
Worker Fairness
Foundational Gaps
Solid Baseline
Strong Performance
Hilde Likes
Commitment to living wages
We respect that this company has publicly committed to providing living wages for their employees and people who are employed by companies in their supply chain
Paid parental leave
We appreciate that this company offers this benefit for working parents in ways that appear to go beyond the minimum legal requirements
Solid responsible sourcing efforts
This company appears to identify the right priorities and have a credible approach to improving the sustainability of their supply chain.
Top performer on worker fairness
This brand goes above and beyond the status quo when it comes to treating workers fairly and ensuring they have an equitable supply chain and responsibly produced raw materials
Opportunities for Improvement
Verification of worker fairness efforts
This company should start using or expand their use of high-quality certifications related to strengthen their claims related to worker fairness
Category Definition
Our worker fairness evaluation criteria are designed to help us determine how a company measures, manages, and discloses information about the way they treat their employees, workers in their supply chain, and other stakeholders.
Foundational Gaps
The company does not meet sufficient baseline criteria for this category and has many opportunities for improvement.
Solid Baseline
The company meets most of our basic criteria and sometimes demonstrates a deeper commitment than other companies on issues in this category.
Strong Performance:
The company appears to be a top performer in this evaluation category and exhibits leadership on one or more of the issues we evaluate.
Hilde Likes
Commitment to living wages
Paid parental leave
Solid responsible sourcing efforts
Top performer on worker fairness
Opportunities for Improvement
Verification of worker fairness efforts
Accountability
Foundational Gaps
Solid Baseline
Strong Performance
Hilde Likes
Disclosing political activities
We value that this company provides meaningful public disclosure about political activities including financial contributions, lobbying activities, and trade association memberships
Linking incentives & sustainability performance
This company links incentives for key internal stakeholders to performance on sustainability goals and objectives to help drive action
Sustainability data & reporting assurance
This company has an external firm audit and assure the data and information they report related to their sustainability performance
Public disclosure and reporting
This company provides helpful disclosure on their efforts through annual reporting on sustainability or ESG topics for consumers or other stakeholders
Opportunities for Improvement
Improving CEO-worker pay equity
We think this company should disclose and/or manage executive compensation to limit inequality between what their CEO is paid and what their workers are paid
Adopting a context-based approach to sustainability
We think this company is ready to take a leadership position by measuring and managing performance against planetary boundaries and thresholds to assess true operational sustainability
Category Defition
Our corporate accountability evaluation criteria are designed to help us determine how a company integrates sustainability across their organization to help govern decision making and engage with external stakeholders in socially responsible ways.
Foundational Gaps
The company does not meet sufficient baseline criteria for this category and has many opportunities for improvement.
Solid Baseline
The company meets most of our basic criteria and sometimes demonstrates a deeper commitment than other companies on issues in this category.
Strong Performance:
The company appears to be a top performer in this evaluation category and exhibits leadership on one or more of the issues we evaluate.
Hilde Likes
Disclosing political activities
Linking incentives & sustainability performance
Sustainability data & reporting assurance
Public disclosure and reporting
Opportunities for Improvement
Improving CEO-worker pay equity
Adopting a context-based approach to sustainability