The Sustainability Illusion: Who Really Owns the Brands We Buy?

Every July, I try to be a little more conscious about the waste I create.

Like many people taking part in Plastic Free July, I've swapped disposable products for reusable alternatives, carried reusable shopping bags for years and tried to reduce the amount of unnecessary plastic entering my home.

I've also tried to vote with my wallet.

When I shop, I naturally gravitate towards brands that seem to align with my values. I look for recyclable packaging, sustainability certifications, ethical sourcing claims, environmental credentials or the familiar B Corp logo. For anyone unfamiliar with it, Certified B Corporations are businesses that have been independently assessed against standards for social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. While no certification makes a company perfect, it's one of the reasons I've often felt more confident that my money is supporting businesses trying to make a positive difference and that genuinely appear to care about the planet.

Recently, though, I started looking more closely at who actually owns some of the brands I buy.

What I discovered wasn't scandalous.

But it was surprising.

And it made me realise just how complicated sustainable shopping has become.

The Brands I Felt Good About Buying

For years, I've associated certain brands with making better environmental choices.

Pukka felt like the ethical tea company.

graze felt like the modern, responsible snack company.

Wild seemed like exactly the kind of innovative business Plastic Free July encourages us to support - a company built around refillable products and reducing single-use plastic.

Each of these brands has genuine sustainability credentials. They're not pretending to be something they're not, and in many cases their products are more sustainable than the alternatives sitting beside them on supermarket shelves.

What I hadn't appreciated was that all three are owned by Unilever.

That discovery made me pause.

Not because I suddenly thought they were bad products - they aren't. But because I'd never really considered where the profits from my purchases ultimately ended up.

Following the Money

The more I looked, the more examples I found.

Innocent Drinks, a brand I've long associated with ethical business and environmental awareness, is majority owned by Coca-Cola.

Ecover and Method, which built their reputations on helping consumers reduce their environmental impact, are owned by SC Johnson.

Ben & Jerry's, perhaps one of the most outspoken brands on social and environmental issues, is also owned by Unilever.

None of this is hidden. The information is publicly available.

I simply realised I'd spent years judging products by the logo on the front of the packet without giving much thought to the corporation behind it.

The Plastic Problem

This matters because while many of these brands are making genuine efforts to reduce their environmental impact, their parent companies often operate on an entirely different scale.

Take Coca-Cola.

Its ownership of Innocent doesn't make Innocent any less sustainable. The smoothie company can still source ingredients responsibly and improve its environmental performance.

Yet Coca-Cola has repeatedly been identified in global brand audits as one of the world's biggest contributors to branded plastic pollution.

As a consumer, I found that contradiction difficult to ignore.

I might choose an Innocent smoothie because I want to support a company that appears environmentally responsible.

But part of that purchase ultimately contributes to the profits of a corporation that continues to sell billions of plastic bottles every year.

A similar tension exists with Unilever.

The company owns brands that encourage more sustainable behaviour, from refillable personal care products to ethically sourced food and drink.

Yet across its wider portfolio, it remains one of the world's largest producers of packaged consumer goods, relying on vast amounts of plastic packaging.

That doesn't make the sustainable brands insincere.

It simply highlights how difficult it has become to separate genuinely sustainable products from the wider corporate systems they exist within.

Are These Acquisitions a Good Thing?

The more I thought about it, the more I realised there are two ways to interpret this.

The optimistic view is that sustainable brands are helping change large corporations from the inside. When companies like Unilever acquire refillable deodorant brands or environmentally focused food businesses, they're recognising where consumer demand is heading. Sustainable innovations can be scaled much faster when backed by the resources of a global company.

Under this view, every purchase sends a signal that sustainability sells.

The more sceptical view is that multinational corporations have simply become very good at acquiring the brands environmentally conscious consumers want to support.

In that version of the story, sustainable brands improve corporate reputations while the wider business model changes very little.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

The Sustainability Ownership Gap

What surprised me most is that most of us, including me, tend to judge products on three levels.

1. The product

Is it refillable?

Is it organic?

Can I recycle the packaging?

2. The brand.

Is it a B Corp?

Does it have good values?

Does it seem to care about the environment?

3. Ownership - we rarely consider this.

Who owns the brand?

Who receives the profits?

What else does that parent company produce?

It's a question I'd honestly never asked myself before.

Who Owns What?

Sustainable Brand	Owned By
Pukka	Unilever
graze	Unilever
Wild	Unilever
Ben & Jerry's	Unilever
Seventh Generation	Unilever
Innocent Drinks	Coca-Cola
Ecover	SC Johnson
Method	SC Johnson
Green & Black's	Mondelēz
Alpro	Danone
Tom's of Maine	Colgate-Palmolive
Burt's Bees	Clorox

Seeing the list laid out like that was probably the biggest surprise of my research.

So What Can We Do?

The conclusion I reached wasn't that sustainable shopping is pointless.

Far from it.

Buying a refillable deodorant is still likely to reduce plastic waste.

Choosing an organic tea may still support better farming practices.

The better product is still the better product.

But if we also care about where our money ultimately goes, ownership becomes another factor worth considering.

Thankfully, there are still businesses that remain independent or employee-owned while placing sustainability at the heart of what they do.

Independent alternatives worth considering

• Bio-D – Independent UK manufacturer of environmentally friendly cleaning products with a long-standing commitment to reducing environmental impact.

• Fussy – Independent UK refillable deodorant company and certified B Corp focused on eliminating single-use plastic.

• Riverford – Largely employee-owned and a pioneer of organic farming and seasonal food.

• Finisterre – Independent B Corp producing durable outdoor clothing with a strong focus on repairability and transparency.

• KinKind – Independent UK company making plastic-free shampoo, conditioner and personal care products.

• Elvis & Kresse – Independent B Corp creating products from reclaimed materials while donating a significant proportion of profits to charity.

  
  

None of these businesses are perfect.

No company is.

But they demonstrate that sustainability can be built into the foundations of a business rather than added later.

Plastic Free July Has Changed the Way I Shop

This research hasn't made me throw away the products I already buy. Nor has it convinced me that every multinational company is the enemy. If anything, it's reminded me that sustainability is rarely black and white.

I'll probably continue buying some of these brands because many remain better environmental choices than the alternatives.

But I'll also pay a little more attention to who owns them.

Plastic Free July encourages us to think differently about our consumption. For me, that now means looking beyond the packaging, beyond the branding and beyond the sustainability claims. Because sometimes the most important environmental question isn't just:

"How is this product made?"

It's:

"Who ultimately benefits when I buy it?"

Perhaps that's the next step towards becoming a more informed consumer. Not striving for perfection.

Just understanding a little more about the choices we make every day.