The great challenge of the 21st century is to provide good standards of living for 7 billion people without depleting the earth’s resources or running up massive levels of public debt. To achieve this, government and business alike will need to find new models of growth which are in both environmental and economic balance.
In the years since 1945 global capitalism has delivered much that is positive. It has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It has helped catalyse a second agricultural revolution and, more recently, it has given birth to digital technology which is transforming all our lives.
But capitalism is not a panacea. For those things which we find hard to put a price on – biodiversity, carbon, natural capital – the market has failed us. As a result we live in a world where temperatures are rising, natural resources are being depleted, species loss is accelerating and the gap between rich and poor is increasing. This is completely unsustainable.
New models of business
Business has to decide what role it wants to play. Does it sit on the sidelines waiting for governments to take action or does it get on the pitch and start addressing these issues?
In Unilever we believe that business must be part of the solution. But to be so, business will have to change. It will have to get off the treadmill of quarterly reporting and operate for the long term. It will have to see itself as part of society, not separate from it. And it will have to recognise that the needs of citizens and communities carry the same weight as the demands of shareholders.
We believe that in future this will become the only acceptable model of business. If people feel that the system is unjust and does not work for them, they will rebel against it. And 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.
The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan
Unilever’s future success depends upon being able to decouple our growth from our environmental footprint, while at the same time increasing our positive social impacts. These are the central objectives of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan which we launched in November 2010.
The Plan will result in three significant outcomes:
help more than a billion people to improve their health and well-being
halve the environmental footprint of our products
allow us to source 100% of our agricultural raw materials sustainably.
Underpinning these three broad goals are around 60 time-bound targets spanning our social, economic and environmental performance across the value chain – from the sourcing of raw materials all the way through to the use of our products in the home.
Delivering against our targets
We have made a good start to delivering the Plan. There has been excellent progress in sustainable agricultural sourcing. We have increased the use of renewable energy in our factories, reduced the use of HFC gases in our ice cream cabinets and taken steps to ensure that our food brands have a better nutritional profile.
Much remains to be done. But businesses like ours no longer have a choice. Sustainable, equitable growth is the only acceptable model of growth. It is also a very effective one. Growth and sustainability are not in conflict. There is no inherent contradiction between the two. In fact, in our experience, sustainability drives growth.
That is why we are putting ‘sustainable living’ at the heart of everything we do. We have found that once you start looking at product development, sourcing and manufacturing through a sustainability lens, it opens up great opportunities for innovation and cost reduction.
Working partnership
But if we achieve our sustainability targets and no one else follows, we will have failed. Because of this we are working with other organisations, such as the Consumer Goods Forum, the World Economic Forum, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, NGOs and governments, to drive concerted, cross-sector change.
I hope this report will give you a sense of the progress we are making. If you have comments to make or solutions to offer do not hesitate to get in touch with me at: Paul_Polman.Sustainableliving@unilever.com
Paul Polman
CEO