LONDON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Unilever ( UL ) has agreed

sustainability deals with its top 10 retail customers, including

Walmart ( WMT ), aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions and

minimising waste in its supply chain, the consumer giant's CEO

said on Monday.

Unilever ( UL ), which makes Dove soap, Knorr stock cubes and Ben &

Jerry's ( UL ) ice cream, was in the wake of the 2015 Paris agreement

on climate change the consumer industry's poster child for

setting tough sustainability targets.

About two years ago, however, the company came under

pressure from some investors concerned that Unilever's ( UL ) climate

strategy was distracting it from growing profits.

CEO Hein Schumacher in April changed some of the company's

years-old sustainability goals, leading to both praise from some

investors and criticism from climate activists.

"What's new and what's coming, and what I expect a lot from

in the years to come, is (our) collaboration on sustainability

agreements with (retail) customers," Schumacher said in an

interview at the Reuters IMPACT conference in London on Monday.

"We have a sustainability collaboration agreement... with

Walmart ( WMT ), for example...(The agreement) is about greenhouse gas

emission reduction, and we are their scope three."

Scope 3 emissions are those a company is indirectly

responsible for across its supply and distribution chain,

according to a classification development by non-profit

thinktank the World Resources Institute. A company's in-house

operations and energy use make up what is called Scope 1 and 2

emissions.

Walmart ( WMT ) has said previously it was working with suppliers to

avoid a 'gigaton' of greenhouse gas emissions from the global

value chain by 2030. Since it launched the initiative in 2017,

suppliers have reported that a total of 574 million metric tons

of emissions had been reduced or avoided, according to the

retailer's website.

Schumacher said Unilever ( UL ) also has a deal with health and

beauty retailer A.S. Watson's to create sustainable products

like body wash and toothpaste.

He added that Unilever ( UL ) was using climate-modelling to cut

supply chain emissions and make operations more resilient to

adverse events like drought.

"(Because of drought) we've completely changed our mustard

seed supply chain. We're changing our tomato supply chain, and

they do become a bit more resilient," he said.