Yesterday in a packed room in London, Unilever updated a group of stakeholders on the progress made on its Plan, one year on. Paul Polman shared the stage with some of his senior execs, who were all pretty upfront about where Unilever had done a good job, but where they still had much further to go.
What followed was a good discussion with questions from the audience on issues as diverse as investors’ interest in the Plan to whether brands such as Axe / Lynx encouraged ‘conspicuous consumption’.
Highlights for me: Unilever’s new commitment on palm oil, pushing the boundaries on a very tricky issue; Paul Polman’s real engagement and understanding of the issues, and some good meaty challenges from the audience on sustainable consumption, food fortification and truly sustainable packaging solutions.
Overall my impression coming away was that Unilever continues to gain trust among its key stakeholders through its willingness to share the difficulties as well as the successes of its work. And the challenges are significant. There is a real task remaining in fully embedding the Plan with Unilever employees and business units, as Paul acknowledged yesterday. And Unilever has barely made a dent in some of its targets.
But nevertheless, (and of course I’m biased having worked with Unilever for many years, including helping prepare for yesterday’s event) hearing the feedback from others and seeing the progress, makes me continue to believe that the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan and the real energy behind it in the business is something exciting and inspiring for other businesses out there to learn from.