Consumer products company Unilever South Africa has become the first manufacturer in the world to introduce purple carbon into its range of homecare products.
For the entire month, Sunlight Dishwashing Liquid with purple carbon was used as a demonstrator product, a pioneer in its category.
Purple carbon is carbon that has been drawn from industrial emissions and processed for use in products that currently depend on fossil fuel-based inputs. Its name derives from Unilever’s ‘Carbon Rainbow’ concept, which is at the heart of its worldwide Clean Future initiative, the company points out.
Giving graphic expression to its aim of diversifying production inputs, non-renewable and fossil fuel-based sources of carbon are identified in the rainbow as ‘black carbon’.
Unilever is on a journey to eliminate black carbon from its manufacturing processes altogether, which is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
It aims to replace these with four renewable carbon inputs – purple carbon, which is developed from carbon dioxide drawn from industrial emissions; green carbon, which is developed from plants and other biological sources; blue carbon, which is derived from marine sources such as algae; and grey carbon, which is recovered from waste materials.
Sourcing of these various types of carbon input will be done under the auspices of Unilever’s sustainable sourcing programme, which aims to eliminate black carbon as an input without placing unintended pressure on land use.
Replacing black carbon with purple carbon in the product formulation will reduce the carbon footprint of the company’s product formulations by up to 20%.