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Our Positive Beauty vision for people and planet

We believe in Positive Beauty, Healthy Lifestyles.

In brands that not only do less harm but do more good for people and the planet.

Watch: We believe in Positive Beauty, Healthy Lifestyles. In brands that not only do less harm but do more good for people and the planet.

We are a €10 billion business with hair and skin care brands including Dove, Sunsilk, Clear and Vaseline.

We are also home to our Prestige portfolio of luxury brands such as Dermalogica, Hourglass and Living Proof, and Health & Wellbeing, a carefully crafted collection of vitamins, minerals and supplements brands including Liquid I.V. and OLLY.

With more than 1 billion people using our products every day, we have an opportunity to use our scale for good. We’re embracing a new era of beauty and wellbeing. One that’s inclusive. Equitable. Regenerative. Positive. So that people and the planet can thrive together.

People Positive

We are fully committed to having a global portfolio of brands that are inclusive and care for all skin, hair and body types, championing the diversity of beauty.

We’re not afraid to take a stand. We’re using our reach and presence to defy stereotypes and our voice to help drive change, shaping a more inclusive future and a People Positive Beauty & Wellbeing business.

Three girls smiling. Dove’s Self Esteem Project empowers young people to improve their body confidence through education.

And we’ve set an ambitious goal to galvanise our efforts. Through our brands, we’re helping to improve people’s health and wellbeing and advance equity and inclusion, aiming to reach 1 billion people per year by 2030. For example, Sunsilk’s Explore More programme encourages girls to imagine new possibilities through education. Dove’s Self-Esteem Project to help instil body confidence in the next generation. And Clear’s work to help people improve mental resilience, among many other initiatives.

We are aiming to positively impact billions more lives by working with others to achieve wider systems change, shaping norms, policies and laws. The CROWN Act, supported by Dove, is one such example, seeking to end hair discrimination. The Act has already helped change legislation in many US states and we’ve launched the CROWN Fund, to help end hair discrimination in the UK.

Two children washing their hands

We’re building on our heritage with many years of delivering brand programmes such as the Vaseline Healing Project which helps to heal skin through donations of products, healing missions and training local healthcare workers.

Three people smiling at the camera

And we’re also supporting Unilever’s social commitments, announced in January 2021. These include a pledge to spend €2 billion annually with businesses and suppliers owned and led by people from under-represented groups, and to increase the diversity of the people involved in the production of our advertising – on-screen and behind the camera.

Our areas of focus and goals

  1. Ending discrimination in beauty and championing inclusion

    We are building a global portfolio of brands that are inclusive and care for all skin, hair and body types, championing the diversity of beauty.

    We’re committed to ending any digital alteration to change a person’s body shape, size, proportion or skin colour, across all advertising material, and we’re increasing the number of advertisements portraying people from diverse groups.

    We’re saying no to normal. As part of our commitment to challenging narrow beauty ideals, we’ve eliminated the use of the word ‘normal’ across all our Beauty & Wellbeing products and communications, globally.

    And we will champion true equity and inclusion in beauty, helping to drive change. Dove’s CROWN Act, which seeks to change legislation and end hair discrimination, is one of our brand-led initiatives in this area.

    These actions build on our existing commitment to evolve our skin care portfolio to embrace a more inclusive vision of beauty.

  2. Driving gender equity

    We’re continuing our work to champion gender equity through the three areas where we can have the greatest impact: our advertising, our brand programmes and brand advocacy.

    Through our advertising, we’re addressing gender bias and harmful gender stereotypes.

    In our brand-led education and behaviour-change programmes, we are addressing the challenges experienced and barriers faced by women and other under-represented groups. Such brand programmes are providing access to resources to build skills or financial support as well as building confidence.

    Sunsilk’s work to help girls to act independently and make their own free choices, for example, and Glow & Lovely’s careers initiative which supports women and girls in accessing education and professional training. Such brand programmes are providing access to resources to build skills or financial support as well as building confidence.

    In advocacy, we’re stepping up our efforts to influence progression and effect lasting change in systems, culture, and law, for example through the Dove Self-Esteem Project.

  3. Improving people’s health and wellbeing

    We’re ensuring that more people have access to our programmes and products that can help support their physical health and mental wellbeing. And we’re working with partner organisations to expand our programmes and reach.

    We’ve got strong foundations to build upon. We will continue with our long-established work in improving people’s health such as The Vaseline Healing Project, which helps heal skin through donations of Vaseline products, healing missions and training for local healthcare workers. We are also expanding our focus into new wellbeing areas with brands such as Clear focusing on improving mental health, and Liquid I.V., helping hydrate those in need.

Planet Positive

We are committed to doing less harm and more good for the natural world by protecting and regenerating 1.5 million hectares of land, forests and oceans by 2030. That’s more than we use to grow the renewable ingredients included in our beauty and personal care products.

By 2025, any plastic we use in our packaging will be recyclable, reusable or compostable across every brand worldwide.

Our Beauty & Wellbeing brands are contributing to Unilever’s €1 billion Climate & Nature Fund, through which we’re taking decisive action on issues from water preservation to reforestation, wildlife protection and more.

We’re also continuing to champion the use of science, not animals, to assure the safety of our products and ingredients, as we have for more than 40 years. And we’re sharing our research and expertise to drive change and help end animal testing for cosmetics in every part of the world.

Our areas of focus and goals

  1. Regenerating nature and tackling climate change

    As part of our aim not only to do less harm but also to do more good, we are committed to helping protect and regenerate 1.5 million hectares of land, forests and oceans by 2030. This is more land than we use to grow the renewable ingredients included across our beauty and personal care product portfolio.

    Our Beauty and Wellbeing brands are investing in Unilever’s €1 billion Climate & Nature Fund – an initiative launched in 2020 as part of company-wide actions to fight climate change and protect nature. This money will be used to take decisive, meaningful action with projects likely to include landscape restoration, reforestation, carbon sequestration, wildlife protection and water preservation.

    And business-wide, we’re committed to a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023, and to making our product formulations biodegradable by 2030, minimising their impact on water and aquatic ecosystems.

  2. Less, better, no plastic

    As part of Unilever’s global commitment to closing the loop on plastic, we’re contributing towards removing more than 100,000 tonnes of plastic from our packaging entirely by 2025 and ensuring that any plastic we do use is recyclable, reusable or compostable.

    Among the changes we made in 2020, Dove, our biggest Beauty & Wellbeing brand, switched to 100% recycled bottles across Europe and North America. Love Beauty and Planet also launched concentrated shampoos and conditioners which provide as many uses as standard bottles but require only half as much plastic packaging.

    We’re working on refillable, reusable packaging too – launching pilot programmes around the world to test viability, learn from results and refine our approach.

  3. Ending animal testing

    At Unilever, we believe in using science, not animals, to assess product safety.

    Unilever is recognised by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) as a company working for regulatory change, and we support calls for a worldwide ban on animal testing for cosmetics by 2023.

    We’re working alongside lawmakers, animal protection organisations and like-minded companies and brands to drive this change, sharing the expertise we’ve gained in more than 40 years of pioneering alternatives to animal testing.

    We believe people have a right to know how the products they choose and use are made. Over 25 of our Beauty & Wellbeing brands are now PETA-approved, including Dove, our biggest brand. Through our brands, we are raising consumer awareness and continuing to advocate for positive change and adopt approaches that provide greater transparency and deepen trust in our brands and business.

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