Unilever has a target to reduce its absolute Scope 3 energy and industrial emissions by 42% by 2030, versus 2021, and a long-term ambition to reach net zero by 2039.
To help achieve this, it has set up a new power purchase agreement (PPA) in India.
This sets a fixed competitive price for renewable electricity, and will supply 10 manufacturers, as well as Unilever factories, over the next 20 years.
Thanks to government policies and incentives that seek to support renewable energy use, a new partnership between Unilever and developer Brookfield will see electricity from the 45 megawatts (MW) off-site solar project in Rajasthan reach a total of 32 sites across 15 states.
Unilever and the ten manufacturers expect to generate cost savings of approximately 25% over the 20-year period, compared to the cost of grid electricity.
Collaborative manufacturers make products on the corporation's behalf and account for around a third of all manufacturing for Unilever in India.
Typically, many have not taken major steps to reduce their climate impact and are too small to secure competitive rates for renewable energy.
Having long-term access to fixed-priced electricity will change that – so Unilever claimed to have helped negotiate this deal on their behalf.
Alpla India is one of our collaborative manufacturers and part of Alpla Group which also supplies packaging to Unilever.
“As part of Unilever’s Supplier Climate Programme, we are fully aligned with Unilever’s climate ambition and have science-based targets in place,” said Alpla India’s Managing Director and Partner Vagish Dixit. “Partnering on this PPA will help us to lower emissions from our operations faster than we would have been able to working alone.”
"The agreement will help these collaborative manufacturers reduce their Scope 2 (our Scope 3) emissions from electricity use by over 28,000 tonnes of CO2e per year over the 20-year period. It will also enable Unilever to more directly source renewable electricity used to power its own sites, making it easily trackable from generation to consumption," said Unilever.
Unilever solar electricity deal powers renewable energy use in India
