On any given day, 2.5 billion people worldwide use Unilever products, from soaps to ice-creams, to household care. This gives Unilever a unique place in people’s lives, and a unique opportunity to make a positive impact on the world through its purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace.
Unilever want the business to grow, but growth at the expense of people or the environment is both unacceptable and commercially unsustainable. Sustainable growth is the only acceptable model for the business. The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan is central to the business model. It sets out how it will decouple its growth from its environmental impact, while at the same time increasing our positive social impact. It has four big goals:
- Help more than a billion people to improve their health and wellbeing
- Halve the environmental footprint of its products
- Source 100% of its agricultural raw materials sustainably and
- Enhance the livelihoods of people across our value chain.
It has many tools across the whole value chain to help it pursue these goals, including especially our brands themselves. Unilever knows that this also means working in close partnership with suppliers, consumers, governments, NGOs and other businesses to help create the major changes that are needed to address the biggest challenges facing our world.
About Wall’s
Wall’s is a global ice-cream brand, dedicated to spreading ‘inclusive happiness’. The portfolio includes brands such as Magnum, Solero, Cornetto, and many other UK favourites. While Unilever know that ice-creams reliably offer people small moments of happiness, it has been searching for ways in which it can make a more lasting, sustainable impact on happiness through its business and value chain.
Offering meaningful, fulfilling work and experience to those who might usually be excluded from employment is a central part of this. This means it is beginning projects to drive inclusive business practices across its entire value chain, starting with its sourcing of raw ingredients, and it's ‘I’m Wall’s’ vendor programme.
Over the long term, its ambition is transform its business and partnerships to a sustainable, fully ‘inclusive’ model at every stage.
About I'm Wall's
I’m Wall’s is Unilever’s global ice-cream vendor programme. It has reached around 40,000 people worldwide, employing them or supporting them to start their own ice-cream sales businesses as ‘micro-entrepreneurs’. Vendors are supported by Wall’s with training, equipment, products and licensing, and then trade in a given location for the duration of the ice-cream season.
I’m Wall’s was originally conceived as a commercial distribution programme, but as it has expanded, it has understood the significant positive impact it has on the lives of the vendors and those around them, and have developed specific local additions to the programme in different countries that amplify this, such as providing healthcare to the families of its vendors in India.
Today, Unilever is seeking to build on this impact, and evolve I’m Wall’s into a more focused and robust social impact programme with the power to transform the lives of its vendors.
The Vision for I'm Wall's
Unilever believes in a fully inclusive labour market, where everybody has the opportunity to participate in and contribute to society through meaningful employment.
I’m Wall’s 2.0 will support people who are excluded from the labour market by helping them gain the skills and experience they need to be more employable, with a view to supporting them into sustainable employment or further training and education.
The programme aims to bring together local cross-sectoral partnerships to refer, manage, train and support participants through the journey. This will include specialist service providers, Wall’s trade customers, local government, and specialist impact measurement agencies, among others.
The Unilever I’m Walls programme, is are looking for participants for a paid placement position starting 16 May in Hyde, please click here to download the paid placement details.
It is looking for suitable participants to attend the Recruitment Day on Monday 14 May, from any of these groups:
1) Young people not in education, employment or training 16-24yrs (NEET)
2) Complex needs to include -
- Physical Disability
- Hidden Disability
- Mental Health
3) Long term unemployed – over 6 months
4) Refugees
5) Care leavers
6) Ex – offenders - Restricted Groups – people on the sex offender register and repeat violent offender