This challenge marked the beginning of Project Medusa, which demonstrated that dramatic strides can be made by taking a number of small positive steps.

 Water is especially significant in making food products. At the Goiania factory, for example, fresh tomatoes are washed, skinned and cooked to make the popular Pomarola pasta sauces and Extrato Elefante tomato paste. Water is used to wash the fruit, clean the equipment and cool the machinery. In the past, the water evaporated during cooking was sent directly to the water treatment plant, but it is now used to wash equipment and for cooling.

It was at Goiania, where Fabiano Vilela is the environment co-ordinator, that the two-year Medusa project was launched in 2003, with a meeting of managers from Unilever?s operations worldwide to share examples of best practice. The examples were grouped into three areas: mindware – training, awareness campaigns, posters, competitions and slogans; software – operating procedures and job instructions; and hardware – changes to equipment and recycling systems.

The overriding emphasis was to get everyone in the factories involved. At the end, Project Medusa has achieved a reduction in total water consumption of 7.9% and a 14.7% reduction in the load per tonne of production.