Protecting nature at scale: Unilever’s progress on implementing regenerative agriculture

Implementing regenerative agriculture practices is a pivotal part of our efforts to protect nature and support more resilient global supply chains. It’s a strategic imperative for our Foods business group, which in the 2024 financial year had a combined turnover of €13.4 billion, and includes leading brands like Hellmann’s and Knorr.

The worsening impacts of climate change are already being felt by business. Severe weather events threaten to lower crop yields, damage farmers’ livelihoods, and raise food prices. At Unilever, we’ve seen tomato crops in Spain impacted by cumulative years of drought. But by working with our suppliers and farmers, we’ve found ways to improve water management in the region.

Changing the way our ingredients are grown to increase sustainability is helping to build our resilience to climate change impacts. That’s why we’re now working to implement regenerative agriculture practices across 1 million hectares of agricultural land by 2030.

Implementing regenerative agriculture on the ground

Our projects aim to improve soil health, sequester carbon and reduce water use, while enhancing biodiversity. We’re targeting the crops that have the biggest land footprint in our supply chain, from soybean and rapeseed oil for Hellmann’s, to vegetables and rice for Knorr.

“We have a lot of ground to cover to reach our goal, so we’re centring our energy on key crops and shifting from lots of small pilots to fewer larger projects where we know the benefit will be greater. We’re also accelerating our efforts by working with partners who share our values on nature and climate. So, although there is still a long way to go, we’re proud of the progress we’re making,” says Erin Hermsen, Sustainability Manager, Business Operations, at Unilever.

By the end of 2024, we had 23 active projects covering 130,000 hectares, with plans in place to increase this to more than 200,000 hectares during 2025. Our Foods business aims to cover 650,000 hectares by 2027, representing approximately 50% of its land footprint.

Working in partnership to drive progress

Every project we undertake begins with a context analysis of the local environment. This is carried out by expert partners who can help tailor the methods implemented to suit specific local challenges. These experts consult with participating farmers and suppliers during the design process to ensure that together we’re maximising our efforts.

Pur is one of the partners we’re working with to implement projects around the world. In France, they connected us with Ardo, a company that has used regenerative agriculture to grow peas for Knorr. Together, we designed tailored solutions including crop rotation and planting flower strips alongside fields to enhance biodiversity. Pur is now working with us to support garlic farmers in China who are creating fertilisation plans that will reduce synthetic fertiliser use and aim to increase organic soil matter.

“What you want is to have a business case for impact,” says Anne-Sophie. “If you want scale, you have to be efficient from an economic perspective, but also from an operational perspective, because you need to make it easy and accessible. With regenerative agriculture, we know there is a return on investment for the farmer – soil is one of their biggest capitals.”

Investing in nature: supporting farmers with the transition

The financial support Unilever offers is helping us bring farmers on board. We’re contributing to their investment costs to help ensure a smooth transition to regenerative agriculture. Reducing financial uncertainty encourages experimentation, enabling farmers to test regenerative practices and see the benefits before committing to adopting them at scale.

We finance our projects with our suppliers through our Climate & Nature Fund, a commitment to invest €1 billion by 2030 to accelerate delivery of our sustainability goals. This allows us to secure co-financing solutions with financial institutions including AXA and Tikehau Capital.

To have impact beyond our own supply chain, we also want to see systemic change to incentivise a faster uptake of regenerative agriculture globally. For farmers, this means better access to finance and innovative technologies, as well as large-scale capacity-building programmes. That’s why we’re working as part of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative to encourage aligned industry adoption of regenerative practices that will support resilient supply chains.

“The transition to regenerative agriculture has the power to transform the global food system and is critical for food security,” says Erin. “We need collective action across the food value chain to enable this transition at scale.”