The Sustainability Pillar is one of the five strategic pillars of The Consumer Goods Forum. It will help drive and communicate sustainability improvements throughout the value chain of the consumer goods industry by:

• Addressing sustainability challenges that impact the industry
• Bringing global alignment and voluntary standards to non-competitive areas such as ethical sourcing
• Developing and agreeing methodologies and metrics that measure sustainability improvements in the industry

Leadership

Philip Clarke, Group Chief Executive of Tesco, and Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer of Unilever, are the Board co-sponsors of the activities within the Sustainability pillar. As Board sponsors they will actively drive and support of the work of the Sustainability Steering Committee and presenting their work with their peers during the CGF Board meetings.

Steering Group

The role of the Sustainability Steering Group, led by Tesco and Unilever, is to identify priority issues for the sustainability pillar and recommend corresponding actions to the CGF Board. It steers the existing and new projects of the pillar, keeps the CGF Board informed on major sustainability developments impacting the consumer goods industry, acts as champions of the CGF sustainability projects within their own companies, and encourage broader implementation across the industry.

Focus

The initial focus was on activities which would address climate change. Climate change is a major strategic threat, potentially affecting our customers, our businesses and the wider economy and society. The Board of Directors of the Forum has decided a work programme comprising five key elements, of which the Global Packaging Project and the Glossary have been finalized.

A sixth workstream Solid Waste has been openend up. A scoping study under the joint leadership of Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson has been initiated and the working group is now looking into projects that will help catalyze the development of waste and resources management.

Resolutions

In November 2010, the Board has approved two resolutions on deforestation and refrigeration, followed by a press release:

1. As the Board of the Consumer Goods Forum we pledge to mobilise resources within our respective businesses to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020. We will develop specific, time bound, and cost effective action plans for the different challenges in sourcing commodities like palm oil, soy, beef, paper and board in a sustainable fashion.
   
   
2. As the Board of the Consumer Goods Forum, we recognise the major and increasing contribution to total greenhouse gas emissions of HFCs and derivative chemical refrigerants. We are therefore taking action to mobilize resources within our respective businesses to begin phasing-out HFC refrigerants as of 2015 and replace them with non-HFC refrigerants (natural refrigerant alternatives) where these are legally allowed and available for new purchases of point-of-sale units and large refrigeration installations.