Environmental and social issues of Unilever

Environmental and social issues of Unilever Unilever began with British soap-maker company named Lever Brothers. Their revolutionary action in business was by introducing the Sunlight Soap in 1890s. That idea was from William Hesketh Lever, founder of Lever Brothers. This idea helped the Lever Brothers become the first company that help popularise cleanliness in Victorian England. Moreover, the product rapidly emulated globally after that it was a success in UK and made Lever Brothers obtained more business worldwide. One of the reasons of this success was the strategy from William that not only prioritize on selling the products but also focus on manufacturing them. On the other side, in 1872 Jurgens and Van den Bergh created a company that produces margarine. Since there were many competitors in the margarine industry in Dutch, in 1920s, Jurgen and Van de Berth decided to strengthen their company by joining another margarine manufacturer in Bohemia. In 1927, there were three companies including Jurgen and Van de Berth compan y which formed Margarine Unie located in Holland. In 1930, the Lever Bros merged with the Margarine Unie and even though, an international merge was an unusual move at that time, both of the two companies have the same vision that by doing this merge with strong global networks would create new opportunities. Finally, the name of Unilever was created by the merge of the companies. Not too long after Unilever was formed, they got a big problem which was that their raw material companies were reduced from 30% to 40% in the first year. As that problem started to attack, Unilever had to react quickly by building up an efficient system of control. In September of 1930, Unilever established the Special Committee that was designed to stabilize British and Dutch operate and concern as an internal cabinet for the organization. Since William Levers death in 1925, it was Frances DArcy Cooper who replaced him to become the chairmen of Lever Brothers. Cooper made several benefits for Unilever, one of his revolutionary action was that he led the various companies that included Unilever into one Anglo-Dutch companies. According to The Netherlands official UK site, Anglo-Dutch Companies is the British and the Dutch historically joined forces to form some of the strongest companies in the world, and until now their position is still strong. In 1937, when the correlation between the profit-earning capabilities of the British and Dutch companies found itself overturned, it was Cooper that came to solve the problem by convincing the board of the necessity for restructuring. In the 1930s, Unilever continued to grow their business when they promoted their products in America Latin. To keep it growing, Unilever adapted a new strategy in 1940s by widening their business areas and create new areas such as particular food and chemical manufactures. Furthermore, Unilever recognized that there were something more important than widening their areas, it was the relationship between marketing and research that they must focus on. Therefore, Unilever expanded their operation by making association by two important actuations in US, those are Thomas J. Lipton company, manufacture of tea, and the Pepsodent brand of toothpaste in 1944. In 1957 Unilever continued their actions by associating with U.K. frozen food maker birds eye, and in 1961 with U.S. Ice cream novelty maker Good Humor. In the 1980s Unilever made a revolutionary restructuring by selling most of its subsidiary business to concentrate the companys core business. Eventually, foods, toiletries, detergents and special chemicals were the Unilevers core business. This restructuring also helped Unilever to make a collaboration with Chesebrought-Ponds in U.S. in 1986. That collaboration made a big impact to Unilever, their profit margin increased. Furthermore, Unilever bought Chesebrought-Pond in 1987. Nowadays, Unilever become the worlds most consumed product brand in home care, personal care and food. In 2002, Unilever had a worldwide revenue around à ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬48,760 million. Unilever has two main parenting companies, they are Unilever NV in Rotterdam and Netherland and Unilever PLC in London, UK. However, Unilever still has two major competitors named Nestlà © and Procter Gamble. Unilever has several worldwide products in foods such as Lipton, Knorr, Blue Band, Ben and Jerry, Walls, and Brooke bond. In home care, they have Surf, Sun, Radiant, Domestos and Skip. In personal care, they have Ponds, Vaseline, Rexona, Lux, Dove, Lifebuoy, Pepsodent, Sunsilk and Axe/Lynx. Social and Environmental issues Besides Unilevers success, there are also some social and environmental issues that affects Unilever. There are several damages created by Unilever during their processes in manufacturing, supplying, and labouring. Palm oil issues that affected by Unilever Unilever is the company with the worlds largest buyer of palm oil. They turn the palm oil material to their products like detergents, cosmetics, bio-fuel and soaps. Their actions by cutting down the palm oil of the most area in Kalimantan was slowly destroying habitat of Orang-utan, an endangered species which lived almost everywhere in the rainforest of Kalimantan. This action resulted in the extinction of the Orang-utan species in Kalimantan. An expected of two million acres of the rainforests in Kalimantan have been cut down annually. This action is also damaging Indonesias rainforest, eventually leading to a severe climate change. Unilever created their products to help people in doing their daily life, but in fact they are also destroying other endangered lives. In 2008, Unilever was criticised by Greenpeace UK because of these actions. In November 2009, Unilever announced to cancelled and stop buying palm oil from Indonesian company, PT Smart for environmental reason. In April 2010, Unilever had secured GreenPalm certificates. GreenPalm endorsed By RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), Organization formed by several stakeholders in the palm oil industry, to protect the environmental impact of palm oil and endorse sustainable agriculture. These certificates have function to cover the supplies of its European, Australian and New Zealand businesses. Unilevers Mercury Waste In 1983, Chesebrough Ponds Ltd, one of U.S. company bought an area near Kodaikanal. They relocated their thermometer-making factory that had been in Watertown, suburb of New York to this area. In 1987, Unilever bought Ponds and the thermometer-making factory in Kodaikanal and became the biggest facility in the world. Then, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), the subsidiary of Unilever which operates and located in India, took charge of the factory. Early 2001, there were 7,4 tonnes of mercury-contaminated wastes around Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu found. Kodaikanal has beautiful lakes, perennially cool weather and rich forests which is why it became the most popular tourist destination in South India. After investigating the source of those mercury it was found to be from Hindustan Lever Limited factory. Mercury is a toxic metal that can harm humans liver and brain. Once mercury come into the environment, it will be changed during natural method into a structure that works its way quickly through the food chain where it can contemplate to hazardously high levels. Mercury is the basic material to create thermometers. In March 2001, four hundred people from Factory workers unions and local communities protested and complained about the unsafe waste disposal methods from Hindustan Lever Limited factory. They gave an ultimatum of either closing the factory or remove it from Kodaikanal areas. They also said since the mercury disposal happen in this area, it was destroying the Shola ecosystem of Western Ghats. After that incident, Unilever decided to postpone their thermometer production in Hindustan Lever Limited factory near Kodaikanal until they find a solution to the problem. However on June 21 2001, the Government of India ordered HLL to close the factory and ship the rest of the mercury waste to the U.S. Unilever Use Child Labour in India In India, Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) has employed for expected number of 25,000 children, mostly girls in cotton seed production. They worked usually between ten and thirteen hours per day and they only got 40 Eurocents per day. Sometime, they are exposed to toxic pesticides during their work. The reason company prefer employed child than the adult was to save money in waging the labour. Usually, a child only receives 55% less than a man and 30 % less than a woman. One of their labour was Narasamma, 12 years old. She was a migrant who worked in cotton seed field for the last three years. She worked more than 12 hours per day with only two breaks. During work, she was regularly sprayed by pesticides and got ill after. However, she only earned Rs. 800 a month. In early 2003, many countries in Europe such as Germany, Netherlands and Ireland started do the campaign to stop Child labour. This campaign started from Germany, then to Netherlands and the campaign finished in Ireland. The main message from those campaigns was that school is the best place for children, so stop child labour. In may 2003, Unilever announced that they would solve the child labour problem in India. Unilever told Hindustan Lever Limited to start rejecting the use of child labour. Conclusion Unilever is one of most influential companies in the world by providing products that help people in their daily life and also supporting global economic growth. They improve their strategy to create products time by time until they meet customer requirements. That is why most of their product trustable and convenient to be used. Some survey showed that every houses in the world at least has one of Unilever product. This is showed that Unilever is very influential in human social life. Perhaps giving value to the brand is the best action that Unilever had done. However, Unilever made some environmental and social issues in their history. Many had protested what Unilever had done in the moment. In fact, Unilever is one of the companies which have been responsible for their actions. Unilever reacted quickly by fixing the problem.

A Fear of Looking Foolish

Humor is a read way to scatter the feeling of being foolish. Keep in mind that who you are being foolish in front of are humans and there isn't one of them who hasn't been foolish themselves. I agree in this quote â€Å"Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness† from Sac Guitar, it symbolized that being foolish is not bad as we know, it is the experience that made us more brave from our mistakes. One more quote that eve found on Google â€Å"Its always the fear of looking stupid that stops you from being awesome† fromKier Sacs, just remember that quote and try to relaxed and have faith on yourself when you are doing something–then you'll just find that you made it through. The root cause of all our excellence, all our ability, is fear.. We are afraid afraid to look bad, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to look like a fool in front of others. So we make sure that we are prepared. We make sure we are in control. We like to do well at anything that we do, it is never a pleasure to be bad at anything.But it is fear, a deep fear that motivates us more than anything else. It's always the fear of looking foolish that stops you from being awesome so release yourself from the fear of being foolish. Know that there are times when it will happen. Deal with it with humor and move on. Whatever you do don't let the fear of looking foolish stop you from doing what you want to do. As far as I know, no one has ever died from looking foolish. Yes, it hurts on the ego, but does little other damage if we don't let it get to us.Always remember that looking foolish is all part of being human so onto be scared of looking foolish just be who you are don't mind what people might think to you. There is a lot to be learned from taking risk and not being perfect. Don't let the fear of making mistakes and looking awkward stop you from taking risks and living life to the fullest. We're going to mess up. We're going to make mista kes. We're going to break things. While we try hard not to do that, the glory, the hero within us comes to play not when we're perfect, but when we recover. Mistakes will be made, accidents happen, and you will screw up.

Sahul Ancient Pleistocene Continent of Australia

Sahul is the name given to the single Pleistocene-era continent which connected Australia with New Guinea and Tasmania. At the time, the sea level was as much as 150 meters (490 feet) lower than it is today; rising sea levels created the separate landmasses we recognize. When Sahul was a single continent, many of the islands of Indonesia were joined to the South East Asian mainland in another Pleistocene era continent called Sunda. It is important to remember that what we have today is an unusual configuration. Since the beginning of the Pleistocene, Sahul was almost always a single continent, except during those short periods between glacial expansions when the sea level rises to isolate these components into north and south Sahul. The north Sahul consists of the island of New Guinea; the southern part is Australia including Tasmania. Wallaces Line The Sunda landmass of southeast Asia was separated from Sahul by 90 kilometers (55 miles) of water, which was a significant biogeographical boundary first recognized in the mid 19th century by Alfred Russell Wallace and known as Wallaces Line. Because of the gap, except for birds, Asian and Australian fauna evolved separately: Asia include placental mammals such as primates, carnivores, elephants and hoofed ungulates; while Sahul has marsupials like kangaroos and koalas. Elements of Asian flora did make it across Wallaces line; but the closest evidence for either hominins or Old World mammals is on the island of Flores, where Stegadon elephants and perhaps pre-sapiens humans H. floresiensis have been found. Routes of Entry There is a general consensus that Sahuls first human colonizers were anatomically and behaviorally modern humans: they had to know how to sail. There are two likely routes of entry, the northern-most through the Indonesia Moluccan archipelago to New Guinea, and the second a more southern route through the Flores chain to Timor and then to Northern Australia. The northern route had two sailing advantages: you could see the target landfall on all legs of the journey, and you could return to the departure point using the winds and currents of the day. Sea craft using the southern route could cross Wallaces boundary during the summer monsoon, but sailors could not consistently see  target landmasses, and the currents were such that they could not turn around and go back. The earliest coastal site in New Guinea is at its extreme eastern end, an open site on the uplifted coral terraces, which has yielded dates of 40,000 years or older for large tanged and waisted flakes axes. So When Did People Get to Sahul? Archaeologists mostly fall into two major camps concerning the initial human occupation of Sahul, the first of which suggests that the initial occupation occurred between 45,000 and 47,000 years ago. A second group supports the initial settlement site dates between 50,000-70,000 years ago, based on evidence using uranium series, luminescence, and electron spin resonance dating. Although there are some who argue for a much older settlement, the distribution of anatomically and behaviorally modern humans leaving Africa using the Southern Dispersal Route could not have reached Sahul much before 75,000 years ago. All of the ecological zones of  Sahul were definitely occupied by 40,000 years ago, but how much earlier the land was occupied is debated. The data below was collected from Denham, Fullager, and Head. Wet tropical rainforests in eastern New Guinea (Huon, Buang Merabak)Savanna/grasslands of subtropical northwestern Australia (Carpenters Gap, Riwi)Monsoonal tropical forests of northwestern Australia (Nauwalabila, Malakanunja II)Temperate southwestern Australia (Devils Lair)Semi-arid regions of interior, southeastern Australia (Lake Mungo) Megafaunal Extinctions Today, Sahul has no native terrestrial animal larger than about 40 kilograms (100 pounds), but for most of the Pleistocene, it supported diverse large vertebrates weighing up to three metric tons (about 8,000 pounds). Ancient extinct megafaunal varieties in Sahul include a giant kangaroo (Procoptodon goliah), a giant bird (Genyornis newtoni), and a marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex). As with other megafaunal extinctions, the theories about what happened to them include overkill, climate change, and human-set fires. One recent series of studies (cited in Johnson) suggests that the extinctions were concentrated between 50,000-40,000 years ago on mainland Australia and slightly  later in Tasmania. However, also as with other megafaunal extinction studies, the evidence also shows a staggered extinction, with some as early as 400,000 years ago and the most recent about 20,000. The most likely is that extinction happened at different times  for different reasons. Sources: This article is part of the About.com guide to Settlement of Australia, and part of the Dictionary of Archaeology Allen J, and Lilley I. 2015. Archaeology of Australia and New Guinea. In: Wright JD, editor. International Encyclopedia of the Social Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition). Oxford: Elsevier. p 229-233. Davidson I. 2013. Peopling the last new worlds: The first colonisation of Sahul and the Americas. Quaternary International 285(0):1-29. Denham T, Fullagar R, and Head L. 2009. Plant exploitation on Sahul: From colonisation to the emergence of regional specialisation during the Holocene. Quaternary International 202(1-2):29-40. Dennell RW, Louys J, ORegan HJ, and Wilkinson DM. 2014. The origins and persistence of Homo floresiensis on Flores: biogeographical and ecological perspectives. Quaternary Science Reviews 96(0):98-107. Johnson CN, Alroy J, Beeton NJ, Bird MI, Brook BW, Cooper A, Gillespie R, Herrando-Pà ©rez S, Jacobs Z, Miller GH et al. 2016. What caused extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna of Sahul? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 283(1824):20152399. Moodley Y, Linz B, Yamaoka Y, Windsor HM, Breurec S, Wu J-Y, Maady A, Bernhà ¶ft S, Thiberge J-M, Phuanukoonnon S et al. 2009. The Peopling of the Pacific from a Bacterial Perspective. Science 323(23):527-530. Summerhayes GR, Field JH, Shaw B, and Gaffney D. 2016. The archaeology of forest exploitation and change in the tropics during the Pleistocene: The case of Northern Sahul (Pleistocene New Guinea). Quaternary International in press. Vannieuwenhuyse D, OConnor S, and Balme J. 2016. Settling in Sahul: Investigating environmental and human history interactions through micromorphological analyses in tropical semi-arid north-west Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science in press. Wroe S, Field JH, Archer M, Grayson DK, Price GJ, Louys J, Faith JT, Webb GE, Davidson I, and Mooney SD. 2013. Climate change frames debate over the extinction of megafauna in Sahul (Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110(22):8777-8781.

Graduation Speech Fireworks Essay - 999 Words

Even though you cannot see them yet, the fireworks will begin tonight. In bright stunning colors, they will paint over the black world around them and they will glow. In all shapes and sizes they will scatter over the stars and the moon. They will erupt in loud, almost deafening blasts to hushed crackles of soundless glory. Each diploma received is a lighted match of fire. Each graduate is a fuse. If you put a lighted match and a fuse together, you make sparks to create light. If you put a diploma and a graduate together, you have fireworks. As I look down into the mass crowd of parents, guardians, relatives, friends, teachers, and other members of Southern Columbia’s school community, I can only focus on my fellow graduating†¦show more content†¦Both of these diversely sized accomplishments are what make the world complete. If the world were filled with large accomplishments, what would build the climax to get ready for such awe-inspiring displays? If the world were filled with small accomplishments, what would make the grand finale so grand? Just like a fireworks display, every graduate has the potential to create a large canvas of achievements or a small canvas of achievements. Every success has just as much importance as the next. If you have ever closed your eyes for one second during a fireworks display, you can hear and feel the energy they possess. Fireworks can give off loud bursts as well as crackles and fizzles that are more appreciated by the ear. The human heart can also feel the explosion of the firework, for it tenses and almost seemingly stops beating for a millisecond. The big booms make people jump and feel the full affect of the explosion. The quieter rumbles still give off noise so they are not completely overshadowed. Just like the size of the explosion, the noise it gives off leaves impressions as well. 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