Health & hygiene

Our commitment

By 2020, we will help more than a billion people to improve their hygiene habits and we will bring safe drinking water to 500 million people. This will help reduce the incidence of life-threatening diseases like diarrhoea.

Our performance

By end 2011, we had reached over 135 million people – 48 million with Lifebuoy, 44 million with our toothpaste brands, 8.5 million through the Dove Self-Esteem Fund and 35 million people with safe drinking water from Pureit. 

What matters most

Changing hygiene behaviour with Lifebuoy soap and making safe drinking water available through Pureit.

  • 0 achieved
  • 4 on-plan
  • 0 off-plan
  • 0 missed target

Our approach

Poor hygiene and sanitation remain the cause of millions of preventable deaths.

In developing countries around 80% of diseases are water borne. According to UN estimates, over 2 billion people have limited access to safe drinking water. Of these, nearly 800 million lack even the most basic supply of clean water. This is a major public health issue.

Many Unilever brands offer hygiene benefits but none more so than our toilet soaps. Every year, diarrhoea and pneumonia claim the lives of over 2 million children under five. Yet studies show that washing hands with soap can significantly reduce the incidence of these diseases.

Our toothpastes also play an important role in helping to prevent tooth decay which is one of the world’s most common diseases and can lead to more serious health conditions. The simple practice of brushing twice a day can make a big difference to oral health.

Finally Pureit, our in-home water purifier, provides water ‘as safe as boiled’ without needing electricity and at a price that is more affordable than boiling water.

To make a lasting impact on health we need to encourage people to make changes to their everyday habits, like washing hands with soap before eating and after going to the toilet.

We have used our knowledge of consumers to understand what triggers such changes and have devised programmes that drive sustained behaviour change.

For oral health and handwashing we have focused on children so that we can instil habits that last a lifetime.

Reduce diarrhoeal and respiratory disease through handwashing

1.1By 2015, our Lifebuoy brand aims to change the hygiene behaviour of 1 billion consumers across Asia, Africa and Latin America by promoting the benefits of handwashing with soap at key times.

  • 48 million people reached since 2010, of which 34.5 million people were reached in 2011.

More on reducing diarrhoeal and respiratory disease through handwashing

Our Lifebuoy brand has devised a new methodology to drive sustained behaviour change. The new approach ensures that people not only understand why washing hands with soap is important, but also rewards them for practising the new habit over 21 days.

The programme is being taken to children through schools and to mothers through health clinics and women’s groups.

Our experience shows that the individuals reached will influence up to five others in their household.

During 2011 the new methodology was deployed in seven countries: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Pakistan and Vietnam.

On this target we are behind where we would ideally like to be. However, our new approach, together with new partnerships, convince us that we still have a chance of reaching our 2015 goal.

In India, as part of a new rural outreach programme, Khushia Ki Doli (‘Caravan of Happiness’), Lifebuoy took handwashing messages to remote areas, reaching around 30 million people directly in 2010–11. This has the potential to reach 150 million people, based on an average household of five.

Extending our impact: Working with schools in Indonesia

In Indonesia we have pioneered a cost effective and scalable model for rolling out handwashing education programmes in schools. The new model is based on a partnership between Lifebuoy, the Indonesian government and NGOs.

Lifebuoy trains teachers to deliver the handwashing behaviour change programme. We also provide the materials and toolkits they need. Each teacher then cascades the programme to a further three schools, through a ‘train the trainer’ model to create a multiplier effect.

Lifebuoy enlisted the help of NGO partners to provide monitoring and evaluation.

This partnership approach, involving the government, schools, teachers and NGOs, has enabled Lifebuoy to reduce the overall cost of the programme, thereby increasing our ability to take it to scale.

Lifebuoy handwashing programmes in Indonesia reached over 800,000 children during 2011. In 2012, we are working with partners to integrate handwashing with soap into the schools’ curriculum. We aim to reach 4.5 million children.

We are now looking to extend the approach to other countries.

Improve oral health

1.2We will use our toothpaste and toothbrush brands and oral health improvement programmes to encourage children and their parents to brush day and night. We aim to change the behaviour of 50 million people by 2020.

  • Around 44 million people reached since 2010: 31 million in 2010* and 13 million in 2011.

More on improving oral health

Brushing habits that last are best forged during childhood, so our campaigns seek to instil good habits from an early age. The Brush Day and Night message targets the single change that the FDI World Dental Federation agrees will do most to improve oral health. Clinical data has shown that brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste can reduce tooth decay in children by up to 50% compared to brushing once.

We have made good progress as a result of running the campaign in more countries than we had originally anticipated – a total of 12 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America in 2011.

Brushing teeth day and night

Night and Day 2007 Report 206x171We are using Unilever’s Five Levers for Change model to encourage better oral hygiene. Our research revealed that we needed to make sure parents understood the importance of brushing at bedtime. We offered games to make it easy and prizes as a reward for keeping going.

The real breakthrough came from making it desirable. We did this by featuring dads in the communication. We recognised the role fathers can play in passing on good habits to children and how this appeals to their desire to become a good parent.

Along with stickers to encourage children to practise the new habit over several weeks, we explored new ways of reinforcing the habit by sending parents mobile alerts at children’s bedtime.

Results are encouraging with increased brushing frequency in countries running the programme. This is a win-win: improving children’s oral health and helping us grow our business.

*Our previously reported figure of 10 million people reached in 2010 has been restated to 31 million. When we published our online report in March 2011 we included 2010 data from two countries running the Brush Day & Night campaign, rather than all countries where the campaign was active. We are reviewing the timelines and accuracy of our data collection processes.

Improve self-esteem

With our Dove brand we are helping millions of young people improve their self-esteem through educational programmes.

1.3By 2015 we aim to have helped 15 million young people.

  • Over 8.5 million young people have received our help since 2005. Over 1 million participated in the programme in 16 countries in 2011.

More on improving self-esteem

Dove is one of our biggest brands with revenues in excess of €3 billion. Its Self-Esteem Fund is educating girls to overcome anxieties about their physical appearance and raise their self-esteem.

In 2011, the programme covered 16 countries including Australia, France, Mexico, Taiwan, the UK and the United States.

Building a movement for self-esteem

0106 DSEF-blue-300dpi-218Dove’s Self-Esteem Fund promotes the development of body confidence among girls. It provides tools and resources to build their self-esteem, using the support of their families and communities.

The Fund also runs events, such as the Dove Self- Esteem weekend in the United States which attracted over 23,000 girls in 2011.

Provide safe drinking water

1.4We aim to make safe drinking water available and affordable to 500 million people through our Pureit in-home water purifier by 2020.

  • 35 million people in total have gained access to safe drinking water from Pureit since its launch in 2005.

More on providing safe drinking water

Pureit is an in-home water purifier that provides water ‘as safe as boiled’ without needing electricity or pressurised tap water. It removes harmful viruses, bacteria and parasites. An independent study has shown that Pureit can reduce the incidence of diarrhoeal disease by up to 50%.*

Following a successful launch in India the brand has been rolled out to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.

The most affordable model costs €18 in India (1,200 rupees) with an ongoing running cost of just one euro cent for about 2 litres of safe drinking water. This is lower than the cost of boiling water and significantly less than buying bottled water.

We are working with a range of microfinance and NGO partners in India to improve the affordability of the purifier for those for whom the price is a barrier to purchase.

Bringing safe drinking water to low-income families

pureit-lady-218We have designed various models of Pureit to appeal to consumers at different income levels. All models meet the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency standards for safety from germs but vary in terms of price.

* Randomised trial by the National Institute of Epidemiology, based on 430 children in Chennai, India, 2005-2006.

Future challenges

The challenge of reaching a billion consumers with Lifebuoy is daunting. Given that our new, more rigorous methodology only reached 48 million at the end of 2011, there must be some doubt that we will reach a billion people by our target date of 2015.

However we remain committed to the goal. Our confidence is borne of a number of factors:

  • we have now tested and piloted interventions that are effective, scalable and economically viable

  • we know from our clinical data that when we get it right our impact is effective

  • we also know that the business case is strong. In Pakistan, Lifebuoy soap consumption has increased by 8%.

We have also made progress in finding the right partners to support us. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has long provided the scientific underpinning for our work and in 2012 we will start working with PSI and the Millennium Villages programme. These, and others, will help us with funding, expertise and distribution reach.