Green Options

I started reading this piece, Unilever Sees Green With Pared Down Color Palette in Ad Age, expecting to read about natural inks. Instead I found a discussion of more or less reducing use of spot color to reduce costs.

Using a color-harmonization program called Project Rainbow, Unilever is reducing the more than 100 hues it uses on its spreads and dressings packaging in Europe to six. Unilever’s hope is to save tens or eventually even hundreds of millions of dollars a year. By some estimates, the entire industry could save $5 billion annually if it follows suit.

Most entrepreneurs, starting out, unless they are in a fashion forward field stick to 4-color process for package printing, much easier and cheaper, but as green has gone gangbusters recently, many ecopreneurs have increased their use of spot color to make their packages stand out. OK, so I buy into this strategy of color reduction as a cost savings method.

But, then I read how this also qualifies as an eco improvement

Unilever, makers of Dove, has recently released a video aimed at promoting children’s self-esteem by illuminating how the beauty industry targets girl’s body images. The goal of the Dove Self Esteem Fund is to change “the current, narrow definition of beauty.”  As much as I agree with this goal, there is a downside. Unilever imports palm oil from Indonesia, where rainforests and tropical peatlands are destroyed. 

In a bit of good news for sharks, Unilever, a global cosmetics company that makes Dove and Pond’s brands, will stop using shark liver oil, or squalene, in the making of its cosmetics. Squalene-free products that use a plant-based substitute could be on the shelves as soon as spring of 2008. The announcement heralded marine conservation group Oceana’s efforts to build awareness among cosmetics manufacturers and end the use of squalene.