A partnership between the University and Unilever, the facility aims to accelerate research and reduce new product development times for the Unilever Home Care and Personal Care categories.
The private-public partnership is expected to open in 2017 and will provide equipment at the cutting-edge of chemistry research to facilitate the discovery of new materials which have the potential to save energy and natural resources, improve health or transform a variety of manufacturing processes.
The factory is expected to be occupied by a total of 300 researchers, including University staff, a team of Unilever scientists based at the global Research and Development (R&D) Centre for Home Care and Personal Care products in Port Sunlight, and a broad range of other industrial and academic partners.
Cameron Jones, Site Leader, Unilever Port Sunlight, said: “This represents another exciting step towards our next generation capability. Once the facility is completed it will accelerate the research and development of new materials for our Home Care and Personal Care innovations within a highly collaborative environment close to our global R&D centre in Port Sunlight.”
About Unilever:
Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. It has 172,000 employees and generated sales of €53.3 billion in 2015. Over half (57%) of the company’s footprint is in developing and emerging markets. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Persil, Dove, Knorr, Domestos, Hellmann’s, Lipton, Wall’s, PG Tips, Ben & Jerry’s, Marmite, Magnum and Lynx.
Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) commits to:
- Decoupling growth from environmental impact.
- Helping more than a billion people take action to improve their health and well-being.
- Enhancing the livelihoods of millions of people by 2020.
Unilever was ranked number one in its sector in the 2015 Dow Jones Sustainability Index. In the FTSE4Good Index, it achieved the highest environmental score of 5. It led the list of Global Corporate Sustainability Leaders in the 2015 GlobeScan/SustainAbility annual survey for the fifth year running, and in 2015 was ranked the most sustainable food and beverage company in Oxfam’s Behind the Brands Scorecard.
Unilever has been named in LinkedIn’s Top 3 most sought-after employers across all sectors.
For more information about Unilever and its brands, please visit www.unilever.com. For more information on the USLP: www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/