Social Responsibility And Performance Of Unilever Corporation Environmental Sciences Essay

Social Responsibility And Performance Of Unilever Corporation Environmental Sciences Essay Consumers today are progressively watchful and conscious of social performance undertaken by large corporations on how they conduct their business activities. As we all know, social performance of a corporation is heavily stressed upon and people in general have high expectations on of a companys corporate social performance (CSR) (Golob, Lah and Janccaroniccaron 2008). Lets not forget that whenever a business operates, it will somehow bring both positive and negative impact towards society. Unilever is an Anglo-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the worlds consumer products brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products also faces consequences for their business operation while portraying social performance in the society. This assignment will talk about the Corporate Social Responsibilities of Unilever towards the environment. Corporate social Responsibilities are the responsibilities of an organization toward the society to meet the standard of ethics towards investors, customers, employees, business partners, local communities, the environment and society at large. (Berkhout 2005) unilever-logo.jpg Unilever is the first Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Company who adopts paper sourcing policy to meet sustainability goals. This means that the company is trying to source all its products, paper and board packaging from a sustainably managed forests or recycled material within a clearly time frame. (Anne Marie Mohan 2010) Sustainable paper and board packaging sourcing policy are one of the Unilevers dedications to double the size of the business in the mean time trying to reduce the environmental impact. The policy outlines the companys goal to work with its suppliers to source 75% of its paper and board packaging from sustainably managed forests or from recycled material by 2015, increasing to 100% by 2020. (Raz Godelnik 2010) For the companys requirements for paper from virgin sources, preference will be given to supplies delivered through the Forest Stewardship Council certification scheme. Unilever also accept other national schemes under the framework of international Forest Management Certification standards, provided they comply with the Policys Implementation Guidelines. The move means the logos of the acceptable forest management certification schemes will begin to appear on the packaging of Unilevers portfolio of brands as progress is made toward reaching the target, and in order to increase consumer awareness and promote the expansion of certified forests in the world. As such it is important that Unilever promote sustainable forestry practices and help combat deforestation and climate change through the responsible sourcing of these materials. (Anne Marie Mohan 2010) Another important part which Unilever practice to protect the environment is the Unilevers water approach Sustainable Water Integrated Catchment Management (SWIM) principles. The SWIM principles is developed with the help of UK sustainability organization forum for the future. Water is vital to all sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and also human consumption. The SWIM principles include a useful approach to help Unilever and Unilevers partners to make sure that the community water partnerships they engage in are effective and successful. Unilever had adopted four villages along the Brantas River when the Clean Brantas Project was launched in July 2001. Unilever had work corporately with the NGOs and government agencies to improve the sanitation system recycling, tree replanting and environmental awareness. As a result of these initiatives, the river now can generates income for the villages through small-scale fish farming and cultivation of Java Noni fruit crops for export. (Catherine Dowdney n.d) An important part of Unilevers approach to water is our Sustainable Water Integrated Catchment Management (SWIM) principles, which were developed with the assistance of the UK sustainability organisation Forum for the Future. These recognise that competing demands for water for agriculture, manufacturing and human consumption and the need to sustain a healthy environment mean that society needs to adopt a more integrated approach to water management. The SWIM principles incorporate a practical approach to helping Unilever and our partners ensure that the community water partnerships we engage in are effective and successful. As part of the Clean Brantas Project launched in July 2001, Unilever Indonesia has adopted four villages along the Brantas River. The company works in partnership with these communities, a local university, NGOs and government agencies to improve environmental awareness, sanitation systems, waste management and recycling, tree planting and housing development along the riverbank. As a result of these initiatives, the river now generates income for the villages through small-scale fish farming and cultivation of Java Noni fruit crops for export. It is hoped that the Village Adoption Programme will be expanded by other local companies to include more villages along the river. (Catherine Dowdney n.d) A Unilever plant in Ontario, Canada, has an ongoing campaign to improve energy efficiency to help manage rising and unpredictable energy prices. This plant produces margarine and vegetable oils products which require high energy expenditure costs. In order to achieve a 6% reduction of energy consumption per year the plants energy team has implemented and invest in new technology called a reverse osmosis (RO) system that would enable an improvement in the efficiency of the steam plant operations. ((Cost savings and reduced environmental impact through lower energy and water consumption 2009) By converting to the RO system, the plant had consumed 13 million gallons less municipal water and 8% less natural gas. The plant also cut down 240,000 pound volume of chemicals into the sanitary sewer. As a result of consuming fewer chemicals, the environmental impact of producing and transporting them was reduced too. The RO system qualified the plant for a $50,000 incentive grant from the city of Toronto for decreased water consumption and a $14,000 incentive grant from the local gas utility. According to Unilever, the project has lead to the company reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1.6 million tonnes as well as cutting other greenhouse gases. (Cost savings and reduced environmental impact through lower energy and water consumption 2009) Unilever factories in South Africa had been starting to divert food waste to make compost used in community and reducing waste sent to landfill. Food-grade waste that was once sent to landfill is now helping fertilize the vegetables and provide an income for poor communities in South Africa. Under project Triple R (reduce, reuse, and recycle) that was launched in 2005, Unilever Foods factories in Pietermaritzburg and Durban (Avenue East and Fountain Park) send all their waste food material to municipal composting facilities. Between 2004 and 2006, Pietermaritzburg and Avenue East halved the amount of food waste sent to landfill, cutting waste disposal costs by a third. (Composting waste material for community gardens 2010.) In a separate initiative, Unilever Brazil has committed to recycle laminated packaging material such as toothpaste tubes. It has been working with five small companies to collect and find a use for the material. When food and drink pouches, sachets and toothpaste tubes are manufactured, small amounts of plastic are cut off and discarded. The waste material is combined with laminated consumer waste. It is mixed and ground down before being heated and compressed in special ovens. The material can be shaped in special molds or, once cooled down, cut into different sizes. It is used to make furniture and building materials that can be sold by the recycling companies involved, generating income and jobs. The first products to be made were roof tiles. Since then, the material has been used to create products such floor tiles, tables and chairs, some of which have been used by Unilever Brazil to equip other community projects. The project depends on a readily available supply of laminate ma terial. Unilever has been encouraging consumers to recycle their laminated waste packaging at the community recycling stations. (Recycling consumer waste 2010) At February 10, 2010 the California Air Resources Board penalize Unilever $1.3 million last month for illegal consumer products sales between 2006 and 2008. Conopco, Unilevers parent company, sold, supplied and offered for sale in California more than 2.8 million units of deodorant body spray that failed to meet clean air standards for aerosol deodorants. The violations resulted in significant excess emissions from volatile organic compounds. These emissions contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog.   Exposure to ozone can cause lung inflammation, impaired breathing, coughing, chest tightness, shortness of breath and worsening of asthma symptoms.   Over 90 percent of Californians still breathe unhealthy air at some time during the year. Conopco cooperated in the investigation and will make two equal payments of $650,000 into the California Air Pollution Control Fund for projects and research to improve Californias air quality. (Dimitri Stanich 2010) Surprise spot checks by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) found that multinational Unilever discharged waste containing banned chemical substances. Unilever s plan in Hefei (Anhui), which manufactures well-known household brands such as Dove, Lux, Kelloggs and Lipton, was fined 150,000 yuan and ordered to remedy the situation. The pipe suspected of carrying the substandard water was disabled, a chemical oxygen demand (COD) monitor was installed and water treatment facilities have been upgraded. The mainlands rapid industrialisation has been pressing on at a huge environmental cost, with up to 70 per cent of its waterways polluted and air quality in its biggest cities among the worlds worst. In March 2001, Greenpeace and Palni Hills Conservation Council reported that Hindustan Unilever (HUL), a subsidiary of Unilever, had allowed 7.4 tonnes of mercury contaminated glass waste from their thermometer factory to be dumped on a scrap yard about 3 km away from the factory. The exposure, which spurred 400 area residents as well as members of Greenpeace India to protest at the factory gates, marked the beginning of an ongoing saga of dishonesty and botched cover-up efforts by Unilever. They also warned that contaminated waste had been dumped behind the factory wall onto the slopes leading to Pambar Shola, an important and protected nature sanctuary. The factory was immediately shut down by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB). Data later provided by the company estimated that over 17 years a total of 1.3 tonnes of mercury had leaked into the Shola forest, a type of high-altitude stunted evergreen forest peculiar to the Western Ghats of South India. A further 366 kg wa s estimated to have contaminated the soil on the factory premises. (Indo-Asian News 2003) It is commonly known that as little as 1 gram of mercury deposited annually in a lake can, in the long term, contaminate a lake spread over 25 acres to the extent that fish from the lake are rendered unfit for human consumption. Mercury, which Unilever is accused of handling without taking environmental or worker safety precautions, is a toxic metal that converts to deadlier forms such as methyl mercury when released into the environment. Mercury accumulates in the liver, kidneys, brain and blood and can cause birth defects and serious disorders of the nervous system and kidneys. (Nityanand Jayaraman n.d.)

Presentation on DNA Vaccines Essay -- Powerpoint Presentation

Vaccines †¢ Vaccines are â€Å"one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine† †¢ In developed nations, vaccines have almost exterminated polio and smallpox and tightly controlled diseases like hepatitis A and B or typhus †¢ There are three generations of vaccinations †¢ First generation vaccines are either weakened or killed forms of whole organisms †¢ There is a problem with first-gen vaccines: the pathogens can still revert to dangerous forms and cause diseases in immunocompromised vaccine recipients. †¢ Second generation vaccines are specific protein antigens, which are safer, but cannot generate killer T cell responses DNA Vaccines †¢ Third generation of vaccines †¢ Consist of recombinant plasmids that have been transformed to produce one to two proteins form a pathogen †¢ This DNA is injected directly into somatic cells, where, through transcription and translation, the proteins are created. †¢ The proteins are recognized as foreign and processed by the cell and displayed on the cell surface by MHC markers †¢ Here, they raise helper T cell, cytotoxic T cell, and antibody immune responses. Current applications †¢ DNA vaccines have had limited success in clinical trials †¢ A veterinary DNA vaccines for use on horses to protect from West Nile virus has been approved †¢ In June 2006 and August 2007, positive results were announced for vaccines against bird flu and multiple sclerosis, respectively. †¢ The technique still needs to proven conclusively in human testing Use of Plasmid Vectors †¢ Highly active expression vectors elicit the best immune response †¢ Strong viral promoters, such as Rous Sarcoma virus (RSV) or cytomegalovirus (CMV) promoters are most commonly used †¢ The plasmids most commonly used als... ... Cited Continued †¢ Baker, Barbara, et. al. â€Å"The N gene of tobacco confers resistance to tobacco mosaic virus in transgenic tomato.†Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States93 (1996) 8776–8781. †¢ Feldstein, Paul. Personal interview. July 2008. Fig. 8 Images †¢ Fig. 1: http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bioterror/images/germ_dna.jpg †¢ Fig 2: http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/Images/summers/plasmids.jpg †¢ Fig 3:http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/kabernd/seminar/2002/method/gtwmeth/genegungtw.gif †¢ Fig 6:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Making_of_a_DNA_vaccine.jpg †¢ Fig. 4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Antibody.svg †¢ Fig. 5: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Antigen_presentation.jpg †¢ Fig. 7: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ICTVdb/ICTVdB/em_tmv.gif †¢ Fig 8: http://www.technologyreview.com/files/8829/DNAVaccineBG.jpg

Dreams of “How I Met My Husband” Essay

Dreams seem to be a part of everyday life. People wish to be someone better than themselves or wish for something that is out of their reach or beyond their control. A hired girl dreaming of the life of her employer is a perfectly normal thing. And that same girl dreaming of a love is just as normal. However, in reality of the situation, these things are not true. Whether it is a dream of love or a dream of life, it is still a dream. Working for the Peebles’ was almost like living in a dream, a new life. Edie could bathe more often once she moved in with the Peebles’. â€Å"I had a bath in there once a week. They wouldn’t have minded if I took one oftener†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (para 27). The Peebles’ also owned a washing machine. This was something new to Edie. â€Å"Mrs. Peebles had an automatic washer and dryer, the first I ever saw† (para 24). She was used to having to wring out her clothes and hang them up. These are two things that she could have dreamed about and now has the opportunity to experience them in real life. Living in a place where new technology is available is like a dream come true for Edie. One job Edie has is to clean the Peebles’ house. She goes through Mrs. Peebles’ closet, looking at all the clothes hanging there. One of Edie’s fantasies occurs while doing this. Edie was going through Mrs. Peebles’ clothes and noticed a dress hanging near the back of the closet that she had never seen Mrs. Peebles wear. Now I took note of where it hung and lifted it out. It was satin, a lovely weight on my arm, light bluish-green in color, almost silvery. It had a fitted, pointed waist and a full skirt and an off-the-shoulder fold hiding the little sleeves (para 29). Edie does not stop with trying on the dress. She continues to beautify herself. She pinned up her hair and applied some make-up. She was dressing as if she was of a wealthy family, something that was not true at all. She was trying to imagine what it would be like. While she is dressed up in Mrs. Peebles’ clothes, she is confronted by a man named Chris Watters. Chris is unaware that Edie is pretending to be someone she is not. After they begin to converse, Chris finds out that Edie is really just the hired girl. He proceeds to call her beautiful though, even after he has found out the truth. Her infatuation for Chris begins to grow during this time and the dream of an unattainable love begins to develop. When Edie is around Chris, she shows classic signs of â€Å"being in love.† â€Å"My heart was knocking away, my tongue was dried up. I had to sway something. But I couldn’t. My throat closed and I was like a deaf-and-dumb† (para 54). This quote shows that being around Chris made Edie very nervous. She could not act like her self. Chris proceeds to ask Edie a series of questions, but Edie is unable to respond. Later in the story, Edie goes to visit Chris while the Peebles’ are gone. Between this visit and their first encounter, Edie discovers that Chris has a fiancà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½e. When she asks Chris if he is going to get married, he almost avoids the question. â€Å"‘Ha ha. What time did you say they would be back?† â€Å"Five o’clock.† â€Å"Well, by that time, this place will have seen the last of me. A plane can get further than a car'† (para 136 – 138). He is refusing to acknowledge the reality of the situation about the fact that he is to be married. He instead wishes to continue to live in a dream world with no worries. He then proceeds to tell Edie that he needs a long time to say good bye to her, not thinking of his fiancà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½e at all. Chris’s fiancà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½e wants to get married and does not know how Chris feels. She chases him around as he goes from town to town giving rides in his plane. His comment to Alice, his fiancà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½e, when he sees her at the Peebles’ home is â€Å"You’re going to spend a lot on gas that way (para 114.)† Never once does the text suggest that Chris has missed her, yet Alice must miss him if she will chase after him. Despite the fact that Alice is living in a dream world in which she believes Chris wants to be with her, he leaves, running away from his reality and her dream. The scene in the text where Chris says good bye to Edie suggests that he ahs some feelings for her, but it never actually says this. He put the cake away carefully and sat beside me and started those little kisses, so soft, I can’t ever let myself think about them, such kind little kisses, all over m eyelids and neck and ears, all over, then me kissing back as well as I could†¦ and we lay on the cot pressed together, just gently, and he did some other things, not bad things or not in a bad way (para 143). Usually, one does not do these things unless they have feelings for the other person. But since we only know what Edie is thinking, we do not know whether or not Chris has any kind of feelings for her. They are both acting as if they were adults in an actual relationship, when in fact, they are not. Edie is a young teenager, while Chris is a war veteran. With the previous scene described by Edie she suggests that she has true feelings for Chris. She thinks it is real. Before Chris left on his plane, he told Edie that he was going to write to her, letting her know where he was. Edie, because she wanted it to be true, believed him. She really thought that he would be in contact with her again. It’s while she waits for Chris’s letters that Edie meets the man she marries. She always greeted the mailman with a smile, hoping that that day would be the day her letter arrives. â€Å"‘You’ve got the smile I’ve been waiting for all day!’ he used to holler out the car window† (para 196). Edie would wait by the mailbox every day for the letter that she finally realized would never come. It is at this point in the story that Edie â€Å"wakes up† and sees reality as it is. Eventually, the mailman and Edie get married. He always thought that she was waiting for him by the mailbox, not a letter, and that the smile was for him. In reality, the mailman is someone that a girl of Edie’s status is more likely to be with. Her infatuation of Chris was like a dream. Though the text never says that Edie loves the mailman, I think she does. She lets him believe that her smile was for him; she lets him believe in his dream. If she didn’t care for him, I think she would have told him the truth. This story revolves around dreams. Edie has many dreams throughout the text before she realizes the reality of life. The dreams are important to her because they help her get through life. Dreams are important in everyone’s lives because they help people realize what they want out of life. Edie dreams of love because it is something she wants. Without that dream, she would not have met her husband. Without her dreams, she would not have seen life for what it is.

African-American History Since 1877 Film Analysis

Film Analysis Gregory Hamlin HIST 222. African-American History Since 1877 Professor Alli Chambers American Military University October 14, 2012 Documentary Film Analysis Worksheet History 222 – African American History Since 1877 Instructions: †¢ You will find the list of films you can choose from in the assignment section of the course. †¢ Go to the list and pick your film. You must view the entire film. If you can’t access films because of deployment, geographic location, or other reasons, please let your instructor know so they can give you an alternate assignment. †¢ Please type you answers into this sheet. You must submit the worksheet two ways: 1) upload the worksheet as a Word document 2) cut and paste†¦show more content†¦This is important to this history class because in the lessons we learn during this class deal with Civil or Equal rights of all Americans. The film was a documentary about the lessons a classroom of children and adults learned from a teacher about discrimination. No one should be discriminated against. The only weakness I saw in this film was that the studies that were done transpired in a prominently white community where they do not deal with oth er minorities on a day to day basis. Due to this fact, the study is not as realistic as it could have been if it were to transpire in a community where there is more diversity. 5. How do you think the filmmakers want the audience to respond? Is there a social justice message? If so, what is it? I think the filmmakers wanted the audience to respond to this film positively. The documentary had to be a breath of fresh air during the time frame it was produced. It was created during a time were discrimination and prejudice was very common among whites and minorities. 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