Bharti

HUL and Bharti Retail partner to promote consumer awareness on plastic recycling

Launch a 3-month consumer promotion in 'easyday Market' & 'easyday' stores in NCR

New Delhi, July 12, 2011: Hindustan Unilever Limited, India’s Largest FMCG Company and Bharti Retail's 'easyday Market' and 'easyday' stores, today announced a joint initiative to promote plastic recycling among consumers in National Capital Region (NCR).

This programme launched jointly by Hindustan Unilever Limited and Bharti Retail is called “Go Recycle.” It will run for three months in all the 31 easyday and easyday Market stores across National Capital Region (NCR). This is a first-of-its kind initiative in India and is targeted to help reduce packaging waste and also inform and educate consumers to practice responsible consumption.

The “Go Recycle” will be promoted to consumers through in-store displays, leaflets and mailers. The programme aims to drive consumer participation through a consumer incentive scheme. Consumers who bring empty plastic bottles and pouches of any brands in five FMCG categories (tea pouches, detergent powder pouches, shampoo & conditioner bottles, tooth paste tubes and ketchup pouches & pet packs) will be awarded discount coupons at the ‘easyday’ and ‘easyday Market’ stores in NCR. The coupons can be redeemed at these stores to buy any products of the five leading Hindustan Unilever brands, namely Surf, Kissan, Dove, Red Label and Close up.

This initiative builds on the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. Hindustan Unilever Limited is a subsidiary of Unilever. The Sustainable Living Plan aims to help everyone enjoy a good quality of life while respecting the planet. The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan decouples business growth from environmental impact. It sets out over 50 social, economic and environmental targets. The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan has set three big goals for Unilever to achieve by 2020:

• ● Help more than one billion people improve their health and well-being
• ● Halve the environmental impact of our products
• ● Source 100% of our agricultural raw materials sustainably

As part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, Unilever aims to halve the waste associated with the disposal of its products by 2020. Packaging protects products and allows transporting them safely, but at the same time it can end up as waste. Unilever approach to sustainable packaging takes a lifecycle perspective and targets waste reduction through a combination of reducing, reusing, recycling and eliminating packaging materials.

The ‘Go Recycle’ initiative is also driven by Bharti Retail's mission of being the 'Store of the Community' programme. This initiative aligns with the Company’s overarching goal of serving its customers beyond the easyday stores and work for the community for environment sustainability. As part of Bharti Retail’s sustainability program, about 3000 employees and customers of ‘easyday’ and ‘easyday Market’ stores have cleaned more than 9,500 Kgs of garbage and planted more than 7000 saplings across 30 cities in nine states in India. About 13,000 saplings were also distributed free of cost to customers for plantation.

Nitin Paranjpe, CEO, Hindustan Unilever Limited, said, “One of our key endeavors as part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan is to motivate consumers to take the small achievable actions that add up to a big difference and enable us all to live more sustainably. With over 700 million consumers across India using our products we believe that such small actions by our consumers will result in a big difference to promote sustainable living. It will ensure that while consumers have the opportunity to improve their quality of lives through use of our products it will also reduce the environmental impact of this consumption.”

Andrew Levermore, Chief Operating Officer, Bharti Retail, said, “Bharti Retail firmly believes that environmental sustainability is the cornerstone of our ‘Store of the Community’ program. The ‘Go Recycle’ initiative adds another feature to our sustainability effort. We are delighted to bring this initiative to our hundreds of thousands of customers and enable them to save money, live better and help the environment.”

About Hindustan Unilever Limited

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company touching the lives of two out of three Indians. HUL works to create a better future every day. We help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others.

Media Contacts:

Email: mediacentre.hul@unilever.com, Telephone: Prasad Pradhan - 022 39832429, R Ram - 022 39832413

About easyday and easyday Market

easyday and easyday Market stores are owned and operated by Bharti Retail, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s leading business groups. The company has launched more than 122 ‘easyday’ neighborhood stores in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir, and 11 compact hypermarkets called ‘easyday Market’ in Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, National Capital Region and Karnataka. easyday and easyday Markets stores promise "Sabse Kam Daam, Har Din" and offer an extensive product mix at everyday low prices (EDLP) which are relatively lower by at least 3-5% on a 'monthly basket of products' vis-a-vis similar stores.