Unilever has credited the Australian dairy industry with meeting its Sustainable Agriculture Code (SAC). So now all Australian-produced milk helps the company meet its ‘sustainable sourcing’ goal.
“Dairy Australia is delighted to be the first dairy industry in the world recognised as meeting Unilever’s sustainability standards,” said Ian Halliday, managing director of Dairy Australia. “All credit to [Unilever] for taking an industry-wide approach.”
Dairy companies Murray Goulburn and Fonterra were among those that prompted Unilever to work with Dairy Australia to see whether the industry’s production standards met Unilever’s worldwide SAC requirements.
“We took an industry-level approach to avoid duplicative efforts across dairy companies’ milk suppliers and, once the results were in, to provide broader assurances about all Australian milk production,” says Halliday.
Unilever owns Streets Ice Cream in Australia and New Zealand. Its brands include Magnum, Paddle Pop, Blue Ribbon and Cornetto.
The company has ambitious sustainability targets and has set a target of 100% sustainably sourced materials by 2020. To meet this goal Unilever must accelerate through partnerships, e.g. the work with Dairy Australia.
“We have worked hard with Dairy Australia in the past year to benchmark the Australian dairy industry’s milk production standards against our SAC standards,” says Dirk Jan deWith, Unilever spokesman. The industry was found 100% compliant.
Three specific gaps – in soils, biodiversity and waste – were identified, and to remedy this Dairy Australia, Murray Goulburn, Fonterra and several other dairy companies will work with 100 farms in eight dairy regions, “to show continuous improvement in gap areas,” says Halliday.
“[We aim] to ensure Australian dairy’s sustainability standards evolve and improve,” he says.
