CLIMATE campaigners urged Unilever to refrain from “pedalling its greenwashed promises” today and commit to a sustainable future as the company announced a profit rise.

Unilever reported its sales had grown 7 per cent and operating profit had increased by 2.6 per cent to €9.9 billion (£8.45bn).

Ahead of the announcement, Greenpeace UK unfurled a banner outside Unilever’s London headquarters on Wednesday, reading: “PROFIT WARNING – Plastic Polluted Money.”

According to the activists, Unilever is selling 1,700 throwaway plastic sachets, which are near-impossible to recycle, every single second.

Greenpeace urged the firm to commit to phasing out single-use plastic within a decade.

Greenpeace UK head of plastics Nina Schrank said: “[Unilever CEO] Hein Schumacher can’t let yet another profit announcement drive Unilever further down the dead end of ditching sustainability or its famous ‘purpose.’

“The answer is not to abandon these – it’s to make ‘purpose’ far more than the greenwash the company is currently peddling.

“A future-fit Unilever isn’t one which continues to flood the world with polluting single-use plastic.”