Voices
and start addressing these issues? If we continue to consume
key inputs like water, food, land
and energy without thought as
to their long-term sustainability,
then none of us will prosper.
If business is to regain the trust
of society, it must start to tackle
the big social and environmental
issues that confront humanity,
especially at a time when governments seem increasingly to
be caught in shorter and shorter
election cycles and have a hard
time internalizing the global challenges in an increasingly interdependent world. As I have said
many times, “business can not be
a mere bystander in the system
that gives it life.” The environmentalist Paul Hawken believes
that if there is any deficit we are
facing right now, it’s a deficit of
meaning. Many are talking about
the need for a GDP+. A broader
measure of success than just simply wealth creation.
Stepping up to the plate is not
only the right thing for business to
do from a moral perspective, but
it is also in our economic self-interest. As CK Prahalad and others
have argued, there are enormous
growth and margin opportunities
in what people now call “sustain-
PAUL
POLMAN
HUFFINGTON
10.20.13
ability.” For Unilever, these are to
be found in addressing the needs
of billions of people for clean
drinking water, basic hygiene and
sanitation, nutritious food and
sourcing all of our agricultural raw
materials sustainably.
Unilever’s future success depends upon us being able to decouple our growth from our environmental footprint while at the
same time increasing our posi-
When people talk
about new forms of
capitalism, this is what
I have in mind: companies
that show, in all transparency,
that they are contributing
to society, now and for
many generations to come.”
tive social impacts. These are the
central objectives of the Unilever
Sustainable Living Plan, which we
launched in 2010.
When people talk about new
forms of capitalism, this is what
I have in mind: companies that
show, in all transparency, that
they are contributing to society,
now and for many generations to
come. Not taking from it.