Unilever has announced a new $120million (£99million) biotech company that could help save rainforests by creating a replacement for palm oil.
The ingredient is used in food manufacturing and beauty products, but its production is also responsible for the rapid deforestation of some of the world’s most biodiverse forests and destroying the habitat of already endangered species like the orangutan.
British consumer goods giant Unilever hopes to use cutting-edge technology to reduce its carbon footprint by up to 50 percent with palm-derived ingredients.
The alternative, plant-based ingredient – a new fatty alcohol made from fermented sugar – is set to be added to beauty and cleansing products within the next five years.
Palm oil production was responsible for about 8 percent of global deforestation between 1990 and 2008. It’s used in everything from P&G’s Tide-Pods to Ferrero’s Nutella.
Unilever has partnered with San Diego-based biotech company Genomatica as part of the new company.
Unilever has announced a new $120m (£99m) biotech company that could help save rainforests by creating a substitute for palm oil (pictured)
Using cutting-edge technology, the consumer goods giant plans to incorporate its palm oil substitute — a new fatty alcohol made from fermented sugar — into beauty and cleaning products
WHICH COMPANIES USE PALM OIL?
It hopes the investment, which represents the company’s largest collaboration on biotech alternatives to palm oil, will create a new, sustainable option for the $625 billion (£515 billion) home and personal care products market.
“The ability to offer the same great cleaning but with even less environmental impact is extremely exciting,” said Richard Slater, Unilever’s chief research and development officer. said MailOnline.
“In this pilot phase, we are using sugar from certified sustainable sources.
“Sugar is an extremely versatile and fast-growing crop that can be grown anywhere, which means that in the future we can source our raw material close to the production site.
“In this way we can also reduce the carbon footprint associated with the transport of the materials to be processed.”
He added: “Initial estimates have shown that companies could reduce the carbon footprint of palm-derived ingredients by up to 50 percent by replacing them with this alternative ingredient.
“In addition, as the technology continues to develop, we will also investigate whether we can use residual products from agriculture, such as crop stubble from agriculture, which would otherwise be wasted.”
Mr Slater told MailOnline that the replacement propellant ingredient based on palm oil and fossil fuels could be operational “very soon” – between 2026 and 2028.
“It has yet to be determined exactly which products will use the new ingredient, but it will be shared across our Home Care, Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care portfolios,” he said.
Palm oil is a versatile liquid made from an edible liquid extracted from the fruit of the African oil palm (pictured). It has a range of uses meaning it can be found in shampoo, laundry detergent, ice cream, instant noodles, lipstick, soap, bread and more
“We hope to demonstrate to industry the possibility of using bio-based ingredients to help us reduce our reliance on palm oil or fossil fuel sources.”
Currently, there are few viable alternatives to palm and fossil sources that can be manufactured at scale to lather ingredients and loosen dirt during cleaning.
Unilever, one of the world’s largest soap and detergent makers, said palm oil would still remain a key raw material in its manufacturing process.
However, alternative ingredients could play a growing role in supply chain diversification to “drive optionality, sustainability and cost management”.
“Biotechnology has the potential to revolutionize how we source our cleaning ingredients and ensure Unilever is a sustainable company – for consumers, shareholders and the planet we all share,” said Mr. Slater.
“This new company will sit at the intersection of science and sustainability, meaning we can continue to grow our business without relying solely on palm oil or fossil fuel derivatives, while making our supply chains more resilient by providing access to alternative ingredients to have. ‘
Unilever has partnered with San Diego-based biotech company Genomatica (pictured) as part of the new company
He added: “We will unite science and nature to ensure that for our consumers there is no compromise between the effectiveness and sustainability of their products.
‘We are building this innovative new company to have the scale to drive real impact and change in our industry and reinvent the chemistry of home and personal care products for the 21st century.’
Christophe Schilling, CEO of Geno, said: “We developed our technology in response to our planet’s urgent climate crisis and proved that biotechnology can replace traditional production methods to produce ingredients from bio-based sources that are both powerful and sustainable, in scale.
‘In addition to creating new transparent and responsibly sourced supply chains and materials from alternative sources, our genotechnology also offers the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 100 million tons in the years to come.’
As raw materials – from crude oil to sunflower oil – remain scarce, Unilever has already changed the ingredient composition of some of its products, such as deodorants and packaged foods, to cut costs and ease supply shortages.
The ability to switch ingredients and materials, traditionally difficult for consumer goods manufacturers, became even more valuable after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused commodity prices to hit multi-year highs.
In April, Unilever boss Alan Jope said the company had begun changing some of its recipes so it could use canola oil instead of sunflower oil, which had become scarce since the invasion.
Ukraine typically produces about half of world exports of sunflower oil.
IS THE USE OF BIOFUEL HARMFUL TO THE ENVIRONMENT?
Environmental groups have often rejected proposals to make biofuels from food sources like corn or on land that could be used for food.
While biofuel may sound good on paper, researchers have found that it recycles carbon from the atmosphere rather than using fossil fuels to inject eons-old carbon into the air.
In practice, research points to far more negative environmental impacts.
Last year, a new analysis — commissioned by NGOs BirdLife and Transport and Environment — gave support to those calling for an end to the use of food-based biofuels.
It argued that the demand for biofuels from food crops had caused global food prices to rise and harmed the environment.
Researchers found that increases in global food prices are taking a heavy toll on urban poverty in developing countries in particular.
Here, the price of basic groceries can account for a third or more of total household expenditure. Even small increases then have a significant impact on people’s well-being.
Another report last year found that biofuels made from food crops lead to more emissions than those produced by fossil fuels.
The Royal Academy of Engineering report pulls together more than 250 studies on the impact of biofuels and warns that clean biofuels like algae are still a long way off.
The most common types of biodiesel currently used are palm oil, soybeans, canola and sunflower, all of which are more polluting than diesel.