Here’s what HUL’s Prabha Narasimhan has to say about FMCG major’s latest initiative to reduce plastic waste

Hindustan Unilever launches its first ‘Smart Fill’ machine in India to attract ‘eco warriors’, for starters.

Hindustan Unilever has released it’s first ‘Smart Fill’ machine, an in-save merchandising version for its domestic care merchandise with the goal to reuse, lessen and recycle plastic. Currently deployed in choose Asian markets, this initiative gives customers a choice to reuse their plastic bottles via way of means of refilling merchandise from HUL’s manufacturers like Surf Excel, Comfort, and Vim via clever renew. Initiatives just like the renew are a part of Unilever’s international attempt to construct sustainable, ‘purposeful’ manufacturers brands.

While speaking about the initiative in an interview with Storyboard, Prabha Narasimhan, executive director for Hindustan Unilever and Vice President for Unilever South Asia, says, “We did an interesting piece of research on this and what we found is that 20 percent of the Indian consumers are already eco-warriors, these are the lead-edge consumers who want to understand what is happening in the environment and want to make a positive contribution. In our pilot, we saw that they are looking for avenues in which they are keen to contribute. Our first port will be these consumers.”

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Prabha also said that there have been many challenges with the first in the idea of consumer behavior, to encourage its consumers to bring their own bottles that’s where it has worked the best. The second challenge that we have is that of the business model which is making sure that it works in a way so that it is a win-win for everybody.

HUL is riding on a consumer-centric approach – ‘Reuse, Refill and Reward’ to build mass public awareness that changes the way plastic is viewed, used, and managed.