Unilever's recent sale of its Skippy peanut butter brand in North America was just one indication of how slow-growing food businesses have begun to weigh down the global CPG giant.

Today's earnings report underscored that difficulty for Unilever: Fourth-quarter sales of Ben & Jerry's, Knorr soups and other Unilever food brands rose only 1.3 percent as consumers in debt-laden U.S. and Western Europe markets continue to pare back their supermarket purchases.

On the other hand, Unilever's business in Asia, Africa and Latin America demonstrated enough strength that the company was able to report an overall 5.4 percent rise in net profit for the period. In those markets, its revenues accelerated in home and personal-care items such as surface cleaners, soap and deodorant.Continue reading...

In 2010 Volvo launched a green living experiment, called One Tonne Life, to see if one family could learn to live more sustainably. That experiment, which involved other Swedish brands (Siemens, A-hus, Vattenfall, ICA), saw the Lindell family adopt a low-impact lifestyle that reduced their carbon dioxide emissions from 7.3 tonnes per year, the Swedish average for a family, to 1.5 tonnes — just shy of the one tonne goal of the project.

Now Unilever is running a UK-wide consumer challenge with 12 families to see if they can lead more sustainable lifestyles and save money on household bills. The goal is to address food waste, according to the press release for Unilever’s Sustain Ability Challenge.

Developed in partnership with The Futures Company, the challenge aims to bust the myth that it costs more to live in an environmentally-friendly fashion. The Futures Company's recent survey of 1,975 UK consumers found that seven out of 10 (68 per cent) identified the main barrier to living a more environmentally-conscious lifestyle is that it costs more — a myth that Unilever wants to overturn.

“We know that nearly 70 per cent of our environmental impact occurs when consumers use our products at home so changing consumer behaviour is one of the biggest challenges we face in achieving our Sustainable Living Plan goals," commented Amanda Sourry, chairman of Unilever UK and Ireland.Continue reading...

Avon's Jung to leave board early, shifting focus to new CEO.

Mondelez creates Oreo and Cadbury Dairy Milk hybrid chocolate bar, acquires Italian biscuit maker from Danone.

Foxconn faces more unrest at iPhone factory as new battle brews between Apple and Samsung.

BAE deal with EADS is questioned by major shareholder.

Baxter looks to its medical-product pipeline to sustain growth.

Budweiser donates to military families via tie-in with Major League Baseball.

BuzzFeed bets on online sharing of sponsored content.

Coca-Cola India signs Bollywood star Salman Khan as brand ambassador.Continue reading...

For some, the very term "climate change" is open to debate — witness the comments on our Coca-Cola scrapped polar bear white can blog post — but a just-issued report card by Climate Counts suggests major corporations are taking their impact on climate very seriously.

Climate Counts, a nonprofit collaborative effort to bring consumers and companies together in the fight against global climate change, scores the world's largest companies on their climate impact each year to spur corporate climate responsibility and conscious consumption.

This year's Scorecard, the organization's fifth annual report, is particularly encouraging because 13 companies scored 80 points or higher (out of a maximum of 100 points), representing more than triple the number of companies to achieve that threshold in 2010. "Of the twenty largest companies scored," says Mike Bellamente, Climate Counts Project Director, "seventeen are scoring at the highest level."Continue reading...

Al Gore prepares 24-hour global warming Climate Reality live-stream event.

Angry Birds spurs 1M t-shirts and 1M plush toy sales per month for Rovio.

AT&T will use plant-based packaging for accessories as Coca-Cola's PlantBottle arrives on UK shelves.

Bank of America announces 30,000 job cuts.

Boston Globe newspaper puts up online paywall.

British American Tobacco gears up for legal battle vs. the Australian government.

Broadcom bets on web traffic for mobile with $3.7 billion NetLogic deal.

Glenn Beck says his new TV network is "not for slugs."

Google - just another ad company?

Groupon sued by its own employees.Continue reading...

Consumers are doing it for themselves — but designers and creatives don't have to quit their day jobs just yet. A checkered path of twists and turns has led to an unholy alliance: brands soliciting user-generated content, incentivizing users with prizes, and essentially doing an end run around agencies and specialists trained in the arts of creating and selling.

Has UGC run amok? Let's take a look at the latest fad in crowdsourcing: contests for product labels, as exemplified by Chiquita and Knorr, Unilever's largest brand, as MediaPost points out.Continue reading...