Speaker 1: Hey, folks, Tie here just a note before we get started.
Speaker 1: The conversation in this episode was recorded before Uni Lever's
Speaker 1: recent announcement that Alan Job will be retiring from UNI
Speaker 1: Lever at the end of Okay, here's the show. Unless
Speaker 1: you're a crystal clear in your mind why it makes
Speaker 1: you a better business, how it will drive stronger performance,
Speaker 1: don't start the journey because this is not CSR. This
Speaker 1: is not some offset where you can buy a clean
Speaker 1: conscience by donating to a charity or having a park
Speaker 1: made next to your headquarters. Unless it sits at the
Speaker 1: heart of your business model, driving revenue growth, taking out cost,
Speaker 1: improving your employee proposition, don't do it. Welcome to calling Bullshit.
Speaker 1: The podcast about Purpose, a swashing the gap between what
Speaker 1: companies say they stand for and what they actually do,
Speaker 1: and what they would need to change to practice what
Speaker 1: they preach. I'm your host, Tie Ontogue, and I've spent
Speaker 1: over a decade helping companies define what they stand for,
Speaker 1: their purpose and then help them to use that purpose
Speaker 1: to drive transformation throughout their business. In this special episode
Speaker 1: a positive case study, we're doing a deep dive into
Speaker 1: Unilever with their CEO, Alan job to find out how
Speaker 1: a global company of such vast scale, with such a
Speaker 1: complex history keeps purpose front and center. You may not
Speaker 1: even have heard of Unilever, but I bet you've grown
Speaker 1: up using a bunch of their products. Dove Soap, Lipped
Speaker 1: and Ta Basiline, Ben and Jerry's, to name just a few.
Speaker 1: Many of these brands are purpose led in their own right.
Speaker 1: But what if the company that owns all of these
Speaker 1: household brands committed to operating under a single purpose to
Speaker 1: make sustainable living commonplace. What if they committed to net
Speaker 1: zero carbon and regenerative farming practices, cut their use of
Speaker 1: virgin plastics, and ensured fair wages for everyone up and
Speaker 1: down their supply chains. Imagine the profound impact that could
Speaker 1: have on the future of the planet. Unilever has imagined
Speaker 1: that impact, and as the parent company to these famous
Speaker 1: brands and hundreds of others, they're in the unique position
Speaker 1: to bring that dream to life. But how do they
Speaker 1: pull this off? It is such an ambitious project. They
Speaker 1: have hundreds of thousands of employees, three point four billion
Speaker 1: customers around the globe, and over a century of complex
Speaker 1: history to grapple with. I had the opportunity to sit
Speaker 1: down with their CEO, Alan Joke, for an honest conversation
Speaker 1: about the opportunities and challenges that Unilever faces and how
Speaker 1: he plans to help you. Leaver continue the journey into
Speaker 1: a purpose driven and ever brighter future. But first let's
Speaker 1: delve into Unilever's history. The story begins in nine century Holland,
Speaker 1: when two butter making families, the Jurgen's and the Vandenburgh's,
Speaker 1: turned their efforts toward a new product, Marjarine. Meanwhile, over
Speaker 1: in England, William Lever was also making changes at his
Speaker 1: family business, Leaver Brothers. The resulting product, Sunlight Soap, was
Speaker 1: so popular that soon they were making four dred and
Speaker 1: fifty tons of it every week. Consider progressive for his time,
Speaker 1: William Lever saw his company as more than just a
Speaker 1: profit engine. His mission was to make cleanliness commonplace and
Speaker 1: bring hygiene and thereby help to the masses. He wanted
Speaker 1: to do well by doing good, to grow his company
Speaker 1: and simultaneously, where's the standard of living for both his
Speaker 1: customers and his employees. With prosperity sharing as his guiding principle,
Speaker 1: he built a village called Ports Sunlight, where he offered
Speaker 1: affordable housing and other amenities to factory workers. It was here,
Speaker 1: at a time when benefits were practically unheard of, that
Speaker 1: he introduced innovations like sick leave, paid time off, and pensions.
Speaker 1: After years of common interests and even some collaboration behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, the Yurgans and the Vandenburg's officially combined their
Speaker 1: businesses in nineteen twenty seven to create Margarine UNI. Two
Speaker 1: years later, Lever Brothers joined the fold in what The
Speaker 1: Economist called one of the biggest industrial amalgamations in European history.
Speaker 1: In simpler terms, Unilever was born. Over the next half century,
Speaker 1: Unilever grew a lot. They continued to acquire and launch
Speaker 1: new companies and brands, and by the nineteen eighties they'd
Speaker 1: become the world's twenty six largest corporation. But through the
Speaker 1: eyes of someone looking back from the company engaged in
Speaker 1: some fairly questionable activities During this period of rapid expansion.
Speaker 1: There were some controversial marketing campaigns for skin lightning products
Speaker 1: in the global South, and human rights violations like child labor.
Speaker 1: Over the years, parts of Unilever had definitely lost touch
Speaker 1: with ports. Sunlight's founding principle of doing well by doing good.
Speaker 1: In the late ninety nineties, with their ideals off track
Speaker 1: and growth stalled, the business was in decline and in
Speaker 1: they took dramatic action and cut three quarters of their
Speaker 1: nearly six hundred brands. But even after shifting focus to
Speaker 1: their most successful brands, the next decade really only saw
Speaker 1: some modest returns. By the time uni Lever was hit
Speaker 1: by the two thousand and eight recession, it was clear
Speaker 1: that the only way forward was to get a truly
Speaker 1: fresh perspective. The most important thing is that you pursue
Speaker 1: your your purpose, whatever you feel strong about. Figure out
Speaker 1: where you want to make the difference. That's the first
Speaker 1: thing you need to do. That's Paul Pullman. He had
Speaker 1: steered Unilever's rival Nestle through this financial storm as their
Speaker 1: cf OH. This caught the attention of the head haunchos
Speaker 1: at Unilever, and instead of hiring from within, they decided
Speaker 1: to poach Paul Pullman in two thousand and nine. He
Speaker 1: became Unilever's new CEO. First order of business get everybody
Speaker 1: on board with his ambitious vision. Because I came in
Speaker 1: from the outside. Some people felt that the Troy and
Speaker 1: Horse was let into the company. And I discovered very
Speaker 1: early on that it was for me to prove that
Speaker 1: I could be part of the team, instead of them
Speaker 1: to prove that they could be part of my team.
Speaker 1: To do this, he knew he needed a better understanding
Speaker 1: of Unilever's history, so he turned his attention to the
Speaker 1: company archives and started digging. And we came to some
Speaker 1: enormous values, and one of them is certainly doing well
Speaker 1: by doing good. He had unearthed those same principles upon
Speaker 1: which William Lever built Ports Sunlight. We took all that
Speaker 1: strength and said, can we not turn that into a
Speaker 1: business model? That is that's what they needed right now.
Speaker 1: Palman implemented what he called the Sustainable Living Plan, which
Speaker 1: aligned their global business strategy with the well being of employees, customers,
Speaker 1: and the environment. They also started acquiring purpose led businesses
Speaker 1: like Seventh Generation and Ben and Jerry's, and Paul brought
Speaker 1: a new approach to Unilever's finances as well, signaling to
Speaker 1: investors that if they weren't interested in sustainable, long term
Speaker 1: value creation, that they should take their money elsewhere. If
Speaker 1: you want to solve all these issues like climate chance
Speaker 1: or food security, or poverty alleviation, or access to clean
Speaker 1: drinking water or education. You cannot be victim to the
Speaker 1: quarterly reporting. So you need different business models. And you know,
Speaker 1: even when I became CEO, we stopped doing quarterly reporting,
Speaker 1: We stopped giving guidance. We moved our compensation systems to
Speaker 1: the long term. And make no mistake, Palman said ambitious
Speaker 1: financials for the company as well. He declared that he
Speaker 1: expected the company to double revenue while cutting its environmental
Speaker 1: impact in half. To put that in perspective, Unilever had
Speaker 1: three hundred factories across the world, four hundred brands, and
Speaker 1: two point five billion customers, no small task. When Pullman
Speaker 1: stepped down in January, he generated a two hundred and
Speaker 1: nine percent shareholder return. He had expanded Unilever's global market share,
Speaker 1: and he had become a purpose driven business legend. And
Speaker 1: the story continues with our guests today. Paul Pullman's handpicked
Speaker 1: successor and current Unilever CEO, Alan Joe. As you'll hear,
Speaker 1: Alan is a warm, engaging leader who has worked in
Speaker 1: almost every part of Unilever's business around the world. I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to work with him as a client
Speaker 1: when he was a senior marketer at UNI Lever and
Speaker 1: I was an advertising creative director. We sat down to
Speaker 1: discuss his approach to sustainability and how he keeps purpose
Speaker 1: front and center while he runs a global corporation with
Speaker 1: real integrity. That conversation right after the break, I am
Speaker 1: extremely excited to introduce the CEO of UNI Leaver, Alan
Speaker 1: Job Alan, welcome to calling bullshit. Hi Tai, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. It's great to be here, Nice to see
Speaker 1: you after a while. Great to see you too. And
Speaker 1: to start out with, I thought it would be great
Speaker 1: to just have you tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: yourself and your background. Sure you can maybe tell from
Speaker 1: my accent that I'm Scottish by birth, grew up in Glasgow,
Speaker 1: went to University in Edinburgh and then joined Unilever Streets.
Speaker 1: After university um and the first five years in London,
Speaker 1: then fourteen years in the United States and thirteen years
Speaker 1: in Asia. My family and wife and I have lived
Speaker 1: for four years in Bangkok, five years in Shanghai and
Speaker 1: four years in Singapore. Came back to the UK just
Speaker 1: four years ago. So after twenty seven years away, I'm
Speaker 1: a cultural stranger in my own country. A lot of
Speaker 1: my a lot of my time in marketing UM, but
Speaker 1: then progressed into general management and plenty of interests outside
Speaker 1: of work. I certainly don't live to work. But when
Speaker 1: you became CEO, you took over from Paul Paulman, who
Speaker 1: is the person who put Unilever on the path to
Speaker 1: really being a purpose led organization. What has that transition
Speaker 1: been like for you taking the range yourself and also
Speaker 1: taking over for Paul. Well, in terms of the continuity
Speaker 1: of our sort of sustainability journey, it was relatively straightforward
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's not
Speaker 1: a ten year old thing. It's a hundred and ten
Speaker 1: year old thing. Our various founders and Uni Leaver are
Speaker 1: believed in running the business on a sustainable or purposeful way.
Speaker 1: This guy, William Lever, who found our Leaver Brothers, one
Speaker 1: of our antecedent companies, did all kinds of cool things.
Speaker 1: He built a model village to house his workers when
Speaker 1: his workers went off to fight in the First World War.
Speaker 1: Not only did he hold their jobs open for them,
Speaker 1: he paid their families their wages while they were all fighting. Um.
Speaker 1: He kind of invented pensions. He had an elaborate system
Speaker 1: to create libraries for those workers children, and he back
Speaker 1: in the eighties to find the mission of the firm
Speaker 1: as to make cleanliness commonplace and lessen the load for women.
Speaker 1: So he was a very early on to social issues
Speaker 1: and public health issues. Now, over the history of the company,
Speaker 1: we have generally tried to do the right thing as
Speaker 1: a business, often after exploring every other possible alternative, and
Speaker 1: sort of Paul snift out this DNA and did an
Speaker 1: utterly brilliant job putting it back in the center of
Speaker 1: our business strategy and our culture. So it's something that
Speaker 1: was very easy to carry forward. Also, frankly, I believe
Speaker 1: strongly in in this mission as well, and maybe that's
Speaker 1: partly why he was an enthusiastic supporter of me coming
Speaker 1: into the role. But it's not been a difficult thing
Speaker 1: to pick it up and run with it. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so it's fascinating that William Lever is kind of an
Speaker 1: O G conscious capitalist. I would say it sounds like
Speaker 1: in some ways he is. There is dark sides to
Speaker 1: his history as well. So we had we had palmwell
Speaker 1: plantations in the Congo where we suspect strongly that there
Speaker 1: was a form of forced labor um. In fact, we've
Speaker 1: commissioned an academic study with the University of Liverpool to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of that. We don't want that
Speaker 1: to be a secret. If something bad went on back there,
Speaker 1: then we want to know all about it. But the
Speaker 1: vast majority of Leavers activities were holy positive. In fact,
Speaker 1: I found a brochure recently where for the first football
Speaker 1: match between Lever brother there's Port Sunlight football team versus
Speaker 1: Everton FC. Every Everton one one I have to admit. Okay,
Speaker 1: So pivoting to Unilever today, how do you articulate Unilever's purpose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do articulate the purpose of the company as being
Speaker 1: to make sustainable living commonplace. We want to be a
Speaker 1: force for good as a company that, through our operations
Speaker 1: and through our brands, we help people to live more
Speaker 1: sustainable lives. And so I think if you ask most
Speaker 1: people in Unilever they would be able to see, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the purpose of the company is to make sustainable living commonplace.
Speaker 1: It's accompanied by a very clear vision which is we
Speaker 1: want to be the global leader and sustainable business and
Speaker 1: we want to prove that it drives better financial outcomes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we'll get into this in a second,
Speaker 1: but that sits right alongside our purpose, absolutely, And and
Speaker 1: how would you characterize the dominant system that Unilever is
Speaker 1: trying to improve upon with that purpose? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: this comes back to shareholder capitalism versus stakeholder capitalism. And
Speaker 1: I would love to go to my grave having proven
Speaker 1: two things. I'd first of all, like to prove that
Speaker 1: there is no trade off between responsible, purposeful, sustainable business
Speaker 1: and strong financial performance. Any time we get into discussion
Speaker 1: of well, how do you trade off between the financial
Speaker 1: performance of the company and the sustainability mission that you're on,
Speaker 1: then we're doomed because ultimately the need to deliver returns
Speaker 1: as a business will prevail. And so I want to
Speaker 1: prove that sustainable business is a pathway to better financial performance.
Speaker 1: And the second thing I'd love to prove is that
Speaker 1: we have multiple stakeholders. They're all important, but I think
Speaker 1: there's a priority of sequence. If we look after our people,
Speaker 1: the employees of Unilever, they'll look after the business. They
Speaker 1: will be the people who will make sure that the
Speaker 1: actions we take don't have an adverse effect on the
Speaker 1: planet or society. And in doing so they will ensure
Speaker 1: that our shareholders are are better rewarded. So those are
Speaker 1: the two dominant systems I'd love to have an impact on.
Speaker 1: One is this stakeholder model which ends up rewarding shareholders better.
Speaker 1: And the other is scorching this notion that there's a
Speaker 1: trade off between sustainable business and financial performance. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that, And I wonder if you could talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the compass, which is the name for
Speaker 1: your business strategy. Can you explain what the compass is
Speaker 1: and how it works. Sure. Look, four years ago, we
Speaker 1: had two documents in the company. We had our business
Speaker 1: strategy and we had our sustainability strategy, and we felt
Speaker 1: that didn't make a lot of sense, and so we
Speaker 1: rewrote our business strategy and as five pretty simple elements
Speaker 1: to it, which is some choices that we've made around
Speaker 1: high growth spaces we want to take our portfolio into,
Speaker 1: like hygiene and skincare and prestige beauty. We've called out
Speaker 1: the US, China and India as particularly important markets to
Speaker 1: win in. We've called out e commerce as a must
Speaker 1: win channel, and we've talked about the organization and culture
Speaker 1: that we want to build. But the first of the
Speaker 1: first choice is win with our brands as a force
Speaker 1: for good, powered by purpose and innovation. And then dropping
Speaker 1: immediately below that are three areas where we think we
Speaker 1: can bring our commitment to sustainable living to life. One
Speaker 1: is improving the health of the planet and others improving
Speaker 1: people's health and well being. And the third is contributing
Speaker 1: to a fair or more socially inclusive world. And again
Speaker 1: underneath that, there are thirty eight specific commitments that we've
Speaker 1: made so that the two sides of the coin, our
Speaker 1: sustainability strategy and our business strategy are fully fully integrated.
Speaker 1: And are all of Unilever's brands. Do all of them
Speaker 1: have a defined purpose? Or are you somewhere along the
Speaker 1: journey of defining all of those We're on the journey.
Speaker 1: We're on a journey. Let me first will see how
Speaker 1: we define it? Yeah, please, you'll be familiar with the
Speaker 1: idea of continuous tracking, looking at our brands and the
Speaker 1: competitor brands and the attributes and how we score on
Speaker 1: those attributes in the eyes of consumers. Well, we now
Speaker 1: have a standard question and for all categories in all countries,
Speaker 1: where we ask, does this brand make a positive contribution
Speaker 1: to society or the planet. And when in that country
Speaker 1: a consumer scores our brands as well above average on
Speaker 1: an index, then we say, okay, that brand in that
Speaker 1: country is a purposeful brand. And at the moment, to
Speaker 1: be precise, our turnover now comes from brands that the
Speaker 1: consumer sets are doing something a little bit more for
Speaker 1: society of the planet. Some of our brands are almost
Speaker 1: entirely seen that way, like Dove or Ben and Jerry's
Speaker 1: and others are are finding their way. You can't really
Speaker 1: superimpose a purpose. Most of our brand's purposes we find
Speaker 1: by excavating archaeology of their DNA and where they've come from.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to sort of suddenly force fit in
Speaker 1: terms of the journey that you're on. Is the goal
Speaker 1: to be a hundred percent at some point? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: suppose it's an ambition. It happens a little bit organically.
Speaker 1: And the reason I say that is our brands that
Speaker 1: score highly on purpose are growing twice as fast access
Speaker 1: a little as close to three times as fast now
Speaker 1: as the rest of the portfolio, and so there's a
Speaker 1: very natural migration of our portfolio into that space. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: there will be some brands that never quite get there.
Speaker 1: But so long as you know, six of our brands
Speaker 1: are are scoring highly on purpose and are growing three
Speaker 1: times faster than the rest of the portfolio. Organically, the
Speaker 1: vast majority of our portfolio will soon be seen as
Speaker 1: more purposeful by the consumer. Right. I was listening to
Speaker 1: an interview of you at a recent Goldman Sachs conference
Speaker 1: where you said that we found that setting audacious goals
Speaker 1: goals were not sure how we're going to meet is
Speaker 1: a very effective way of driving change in our company,
Speaker 1: and I just wondered if you could talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that, For instance, how do you set those goals? Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably the easiest way to answer this is not in
Speaker 1: the abstract, but with a specific challenge, which was we
Speaker 1: were looking at our decarbonization of the company, and let
Speaker 1: me maybe just set it up by saying, we're not
Speaker 1: an n G O TI, We're a business. We're not
Speaker 1: doing this because of the moral imperative. We're doing because
Speaker 1: we think it makes us a stronger business with it
Speaker 1: will have a more successful long term future. UM and
Speaker 1: there are dimensions of the business case around growth. I've
Speaker 1: touched on. Some of our brands are growing faster when
Speaker 1: they embrace sustainability. There's a dimension around cost. We actually
Speaker 1: think it should take cost out the organization. Um it
Speaker 1: lures risk. A planet underwater or on fire is not
Speaker 1: a place to be a consumer products company. But on
Speaker 1: this point of cost, there will be a price on carbon.
Speaker 1: So today carbon is treated as a free good and
Speaker 1: there's very few places where there's attacks or a price
Speaker 1: on carbon of any sort. There absolutely will be so
Speaker 1: both because we care about climate change, but also because
Speaker 1: it makes good economic sense to reduce the carbon footprint
Speaker 1: of Unilever. We wanted to lay out our plan to
Speaker 1: decarbonized Unilever, and I suggested to our board that we
Speaker 1: put it to shareholder vote. And this caused a few
Speaker 1: sweaty moments in in our board meeting because we were
Speaker 1: worried that some of our shareholders might say, what, you're
Speaker 1: going far too far, and others might say, well, you're
Speaker 1: not going far enough. But we wrote this carbon Transition
Speaker 1: Action Plan and we put it to a shareholder vote
Speaker 1: last May at our a g M. And now, coming
Speaker 1: to actually answer your question, it has some big hairy
Speaker 1: goals in there, one of which is to be net
Speaker 1: zero as a company by twenty nine. Now we've got
Speaker 1: milestones along the way. So for instance, we want reduction
Speaker 1: and scope one and two carbon by we want a
Speaker 1: seventy percent reduction in all emissions by but that endpoint
Speaker 1: target and net zero by nine, we have no clue
Speaker 1: how we're going to get there, and it will require innovation.
Speaker 1: It will probably require reshaping of our portfolio. It will
Speaker 1: require us to take as much carbon as we can
Speaker 1: out of our operations. It will require us to advocate
Speaker 1: for a decarbonization of electrical grids around the world, because
Speaker 1: the biggest carbon footprint that you on ever has is
Speaker 1: the energy that's used in heating the water that's used
Speaker 1: to wash your skin, wash your hair, wash your clothes,
Speaker 1: cook your food. That's our single biggest footprints. So and
Speaker 1: only when we've done all that, we will probably need
Speaker 1: to do a little bit of offsetting at the end.
Speaker 1: So that would be an example of where we've set
Speaker 1: a goal with no idea how we're going to get there.
Speaker 1: But I can tell you most people in the company
Speaker 1: of a feeling that it's the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: and that by setting the goog will start taking the
Speaker 1: actions that we need to take. I love that the
Speaker 1: thing that I think that's really interesting about that is
Speaker 1: that in traditional shareholder capitalism, companies have been conditioned to
Speaker 1: externalize cost. It would be rare of a company, i think,
Speaker 1: to actually think about the carbon footprint of heating the
Speaker 1: water that people use to bathe as a part of
Speaker 1: your responsibility. It's really inspiring that you think about it
Speaker 1: that way. Well, two footnotes. We were the first company
Speaker 1: in the world to put our carbon transition plan, our
Speaker 1: climate Transition Action Plan to shareholder vote. Many have now followed,
Speaker 1: so we're delighted to see many people now writing their plans.
Speaker 1: And the second footnote is that it squeaked through the
Speaker 1: shareholder vote with six shareholder support. And actually that's a
Speaker 1: great statistics to understand that the capital markets are starting
Speaker 1: to care about these types of matters. Absolutely, that's really positive.
Speaker 1: You've already made tremendous strides as a company over the
Speaker 1: last decade, and as you look at the challenges that
Speaker 1: lie ahead, the things that you want to take on.
Speaker 1: What are those challenges. Well, there are lots of problems
Speaker 1: in the world right now, but our view is that
Speaker 1: there are three that are bigger than the rest. The
Speaker 1: first is the climate emergency that the impact of climate
Speaker 1: change on everything is hard to overstate. It's going to
Speaker 1: be a major major problem for the world. Even if
Speaker 1: we do the best possible job that we can and
Speaker 1: managed to get to one and a half degrees above
Speaker 1: pre industrial levels, it's still going to cause a major
Speaker 1: failure of the world food system. It's going to cause
Speaker 1: massive migration from hard hit areas, so we better be
Speaker 1: dealing with that. The second, and it's related as a
Speaker 1: degradation and loss of nature combination of climate change and
Speaker 1: us chopping down large swathes of for us putting in
Speaker 1: monocrop agriculture, smashing by diversity. And then the third is
Speaker 1: the dramatic increases in inequality that we're seeing country by country. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: because China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out
Speaker 1: of poverty, net inequality in the world is not going up,
Speaker 1: but if you look at it on a country by
Speaker 1: country level, the tremendous situation inequality and it's getting worse.
Speaker 1: And those are three of the things that we hope
Speaker 1: our business can play a role in addressing. A lot
Speaker 1: of what Unilever uses as input materials are agricultural raw materials,
Speaker 1: not just in our foods business, but much of what
Speaker 1: we use in our personal care products like soap uses
Speaker 1: agricultural raw materials. And what what we've said is that
Speaker 1: by twenty thirty we want a hundred percent of our
Speaker 1: agricultural raw materials to come from regenerative agriculture, where the
Speaker 1: farming practices leave the land in better place. Let me
Speaker 1: give you a really simple example. We buy soybean oil
Speaker 1: that's grown in the US and uh, a soy field
Speaker 1: generates abouts of carbon par acre. If you plant cover crops,
Speaker 1: so low rise plants that can be harvested in amongst
Speaker 1: the soy that's being farmed, that reduces the carbon output
Speaker 1: of that acre by five kilograms, So it goes from
Speaker 1: three of carbon emissions to a hundred and fifty ms
Speaker 1: of carbon sequestration. That would be an example of regenerative
Speaker 1: agricultural practices. We can maybe have a chat about palm oils,
Speaker 1: material we use a lot of and it's a demonized material,
Speaker 1: but actually I'd like to make the case for palm
Speaker 1: oil at some point. Yeah, well, let's let's talk about
Speaker 1: that now. I no palm oil was mentioned in the
Speaker 1: context of the history of Unilever in the Congo, so
Speaker 1: it's long been an ingredient in many of your products.
Speaker 1: Where does UNI ever stand with palm oil today? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there have been horrible things done to nature and the
Speaker 1: animals that live in virgin forests through the clearing of
Speaker 1: forests to grow palma. It's shocking. Actually, if you fly
Speaker 1: over parts of Malaysia, you can see these huge parts
Speaker 1: of the country that have just been cleared and replaced
Speaker 1: by palm plantations. However, palm is an exceptionally productive material,
Speaker 1: and if you were to try and replace the palm
Speaker 1: oil that is used to make actually some very healthy
Speaker 1: foods and a lot of things like soap and other
Speaker 1: types of surfactants with rape seed or soy, it would
Speaker 1: require eight times the acreage. So here's our view, where
Speaker 1: are we to shift away from palm? We would end
Speaker 1: up destroying large parts of the world with crops that
Speaker 1: need more acreage. And there is perfectly sustainable ways of
Speaker 1: growing palm right now where you use much less fertilizer,
Speaker 1: where you don't clear virgin land. Instead of using pesticides,
Speaker 1: we introduced owls onto the palm plantations, and the owls
Speaker 1: keep the rodent population down, which is a sort of
Speaker 1: romantic notion. But what Interestingly, what it requires is technology.
Speaker 1: It needs real time geo mapping coupled with cell phone
Speaker 1: tracking of truck drivers, coupled with some advanced AI technology.
Speaker 1: And we are very confident now that something like of
Speaker 1: our palm comes from certifiably sustainable planting. That last two
Speaker 1: or that last one or two percent is we're working hard,
Speaker 1: spending a lot of money on figuring out how do
Speaker 1: we get that out of our supply chain. So I
Speaker 1: touched a bit there on um the climate crisis and
Speaker 1: some of the things we're doing, some of things we're
Speaker 1: doing on nature and the degradation of nature. And we've
Speaker 1: got a lot of programs running. But I think one
Speaker 1: that we're very proud of is there's a concept of
Speaker 1: a fair living wage. It's more than a minimum wage.
Speaker 1: It's enough money that a family of four could feed, clothes, house,
Speaker 1: educate and transport themselves. And Unilever, of course pays a
Speaker 1: fair living wage already to anyone working in our business.
Speaker 1: But that's only a hundred and fifty thou people. There's
Speaker 1: about five million people in our supply chain. And what
Speaker 1: we've said is that by t anyone who's not able
Speaker 1: to prove they're paying a fair living wage to their
Speaker 1: employees will not be a supplier to Unilever, and that
Speaker 1: we think is the single biggest redistributive action that we
Speaker 1: can take to try and address inequality through our own operations.
Speaker 1: I love that once again, just most businesses don't think
Speaker 1: about the world that way. And obviously I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Like the fact that you're getting ahead of it is great,
Speaker 1: but you're getting ahead of it because it's better business
Speaker 1: that are ultimately operating in an unsustainable manner. Put the
Speaker 1: time horizon on your survival essentially as a company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we've got a pretty good feel for what
Speaker 1: that time horizon is and it's because of different attitudes
Speaker 1: amongst different age cohorts in society. Yes, so baby boomers
Speaker 1: at least are honest. They don't really claim that they
Speaker 1: change their brand choices according to sustainability considerations. I I
Speaker 1: just creep into gen X and we're worse. We say
Speaker 1: that we care about sustainability, but don't actually modify our
Speaker 1: purchasing behavior, So we're dishonest. Gen Y millennials to make
Speaker 1: gross simplifications, Millennials care about sustainability but are not prepared
Speaker 1: to pay more and won't accept it if the product
Speaker 1: performs more poorly as a consequence, jensennials the kind of
Speaker 1: next generation consummate cup coming into the consumption classes. Practically
Speaker 1: the only thing driving and choice is the values of
Speaker 1: the brand and the values of the company behind the brand.
Speaker 1: And so this is simply about relevance for the future.
Speaker 1: And if you want to be a brand that's still
Speaker 1: a company, that's still a healthy, successful, thriving company ten
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years from now, you better be modifying your
Speaker 1: business practices in a way that are acceptable to the
Speaker 1: gen's annials that are coming through the population right now.
Speaker 1: It's so important. In fact, we're called calling bullshit because
Speaker 1: such a huge number of young people in particular are
Speaker 1: just calling BS on shareholder capitalism. Um. The entire generation
Speaker 1: of consumers is calling BS. And it's a clarion call.
Speaker 1: Right If you want to run a business, if you
Speaker 1: want to sell a product in the future, you had
Speaker 1: better pay attention to this. So I could not agree more.
Speaker 1: And and when I get challenged about, hey, why are
Speaker 1: you so obsessed to putting purpose in your brands? You
Speaker 1: know you some sort of woke capitalist, the answer is hell, no,
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure that our brands remain
Speaker 1: real event for the generations that are coming through into
Speaker 1: society today. Yeah, exactly. Okay, So I'd love to pivot
Speaker 1: again and talk a little bit about your leadership and
Speaker 1: purpose led business. One of the things that I really
Speaker 1: believe is that no company is is perfect, That being
Speaker 1: purpose led is a journey, right, and and every company
Speaker 1: is somewhere along that timeline. First of all, do you
Speaker 1: agree with that? You know, I mentioned earlier that we've
Speaker 1: we've got these thirty eight specific targets and commitments that
Speaker 1: sit in our compass. Our executive team looks at progress
Speaker 1: on those every quarter, and in the last review, which
Speaker 1: was a couple of weeks ago, all of those thirty
Speaker 1: eight six were green, most of the rest were read.
Speaker 1: And so so we are a massively a work in progress.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I guess it goes with setting somewhat stretching ambitions.
Speaker 1: But we've got so much hard work ahead of is
Speaker 1: it's a little daunting that last two of palm oil
Speaker 1: that we're not sure is sustainable. It's going to take
Speaker 1: tons of heart. We're gonna have to co invent technology
Speaker 1: with Microsoft to fix that. I'll tell you one that's
Speaker 1: really haunting me at the moment is our plastics commitment.
Speaker 1: We've said that by which is just around the corner,
Speaker 1: we will have reduced our use of virgin plastic by
Speaker 1: by using recycled material and sums through an absolute reduction
Speaker 1: or replacement with other materials like aluminium or would even
Speaker 1: can you believe wouldn't there you go? So I'm kind
Speaker 1: of trembling knees about this plastic commitment because there's a
Speaker 1: worldwide shortage of recycled plastic. The premium for recycled plastic
Speaker 1: over virgin material, perversely is rising. And so that's an
Speaker 1: example where tie we've got our work cut out. I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure how we'll get there, but we're very
Speaker 1: much a work in progress. So that that leads to
Speaker 1: another question, which is do you think that leading a
Speaker 1: purpose led business is harder? For instance, you have so
Speaker 1: many more stakeholders to think about, then the CEO of
Speaker 1: a traditional shareholder led business, is it is the job harder?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Really, No, tell me a business
Speaker 1: leader who doesn't care about her employees, her customers, are consumers,
Speaker 1: her business partners, societies that you're doing business and the
Speaker 1: planet and I think I'll be able to show you
Speaker 1: a business leader that's not getting good results, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve to get good results. So it's not unnatural
Speaker 1: to care for those different stakeholders and make sure their
Speaker 1: interests are being looked after. And if you do it
Speaker 1: with deep conviction that the shareholder will be better rewarded
Speaker 1: at the end of the day. Now, we're also working
Speaker 1: progress on that. By the way, our financial performance needs
Speaker 1: to step up to prove this model. But we've we've
Speaker 1: got a little bit of momentum. We've just did our
Speaker 1: fastest year of growth for nine years. Yeah, you've done
Speaker 1: well in the US here, things are, things are coming along.
Speaker 1: We have a theory of change, a model that we
Speaker 1: use on pretty much all the big issues that we're
Speaker 1: trying to address, whether that's climate or our gender or inequality.
Speaker 1: Let me use gender as an example. Think of four
Speaker 1: concentric rings, and that the innermost ring is our own operations.
Speaker 1: So my job one is to make sure that there's
Speaker 1: proper gender representation inside Unilever. And we've gone over the
Speaker 1: last eight years from a position where thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: of our managers were women to now of our managers
Speaker 1: are women. That we've got nine non execs on our board,
Speaker 1: five women, four men, so we're okay on that. Then
Speaker 1: the next ring is what we call our value chain.
Speaker 1: Are we making sure that there's good gender representation in
Speaker 1: our suppliers, in our distributors, and in some of the
Speaker 1: business models that we involve third parties in. That's the
Speaker 1: next impact that we can have. Then we go to
Speaker 1: the next level when we think about the impact that
Speaker 1: our brands can have. We go from reaching millions of
Speaker 1: people to tens of millions of people. When Dove gets
Speaker 1: busy helping girls not carry unrealistic images of beauty, or
Speaker 1: when sunset, it's creating opportunities for women to set up
Speaker 1: their own hair salons. And then the outer most ring
Speaker 1: is what we call advocacy, and that's where partnerships come
Speaker 1: in and we work with civil society, government, academia to
Speaker 1: try and change the system. And I think those first
Speaker 1: three rings most business leaders have to deal with. We
Speaker 1: have an unusually active advocacy program and that is a
Speaker 1: little bit of extra work. In fact, I just came
Speaker 1: from a board meeting of the World Business Council for
Speaker 1: Sustainable Development. But you know what, it's very rewarding and
Speaker 1: worthwhile work. So it's a little bit of extra work,
Speaker 1: but not really, but you love it. Yeah, it's satisfying,
Speaker 1: feeds the soul. So are there other leaders of purpose
Speaker 1: had businesses that particularly inspire you? Oh? Lots, yes, lots
Speaker 1: and lots. To me, the iconic one is Patagonia, and
Speaker 1: you know of Asinar and everything that he has set
Speaker 1: up there and which has been carried on by his successors.
Speaker 1: And there's a survey comes out every year of opinion
Speaker 1: leaders and their views on companies and whether sustainabilities at
Speaker 1: the heart of their strategy. I'm embarrassed by the fact
Speaker 1: that you don Leaver just for the last few years
Speaker 1: scored number one in Patagonia number two, because I don't
Speaker 1: think we deserve it at all compared with the deep
Speaker 1: Remember if are discontinued his his metal petons, which was
Speaker 1: the core product in his business, because he felt they
Speaker 1: were damaging the very rock that he was so lovely.
Speaker 1: We're leaving him stuck in the rock, and he exactly.
Speaker 1: So I really admire almost everything that they keep reinventing themselves.
Speaker 1: You're making fleeces out of PT bottles, encouraging people not
Speaker 1: to buy a new jacket, come and get it repaired.
Speaker 1: Their sourcing policies and they're just fantastic. Another one is, yes,
Speaker 1: we're broadened. Who runs Ikea? Ikea have done such deep
Speaker 1: work on understanding the climate and social footprint or so
Speaker 1: the planetary and social footprint of their business, their supply chain,
Speaker 1: their stores. And I'll give you one more um that
Speaker 1: you may never have heard of. A food company that
Speaker 1: grows fruit and vegetables around the world called Alam. They
Speaker 1: were founded by a guy called Sonny Vergas. Sonny lives
Speaker 1: in Singapore, and he has built one of the world's
Speaker 1: leading agricultural production companies, and he's done it with extraordinary
Speaker 1: attention to purpose and sustainability. So there's one, and then,
Speaker 1: of course there's a whole lot of other lists, but
Speaker 1: there's three that I particularly admire. Today there are so
Speaker 1: many more purpose led businesses that actually started with a purpose.
Speaker 1: So a lot of young companies begin that way, but
Speaker 1: a lot of older companies sounds like unlike Unilever, didn't
Speaker 1: begin that way and are now trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to make that transition. What advice would you have
Speaker 1: for other CEOs who are beginning that purpose of the journey.
Speaker 1: The first point I would make is entirely predictable, which is,
Speaker 1: unless you're crystal clear in your mind why it makes
Speaker 1: you a better business, how it will drive stronger performance,
Speaker 1: don't start the journey because this is not CSR. This
Speaker 1: is not some offset where you can buy a clean
Speaker 1: conscience by donating to a charity or or having a
Speaker 1: park made a part built next to your headquarters. Unless
Speaker 1: it sits at the heart of your business model, driving
Speaker 1: revenue growth, taking out cost, improving your employee proposition, don't
Speaker 1: do it because then it's not sustainable. And the second
Speaker 1: is you don't have to go from zero to perfect,
Speaker 1: just get started with a few inistas. And it's so
Speaker 1: rewarding economically and emotionally. It's such a strong thing to
Speaker 1: build a company culture around that. I believe it will
Speaker 1: snowball and catch momentum. And you know, it has to
Speaker 1: be authentic, but it doesn't have to be perfect. Let's
Speaker 1: use that as a pivot too, company culture, because it's
Speaker 1: such a huge part of it. How would you describe
Speaker 1: the Unilever company culture? We want our company to be human,
Speaker 1: to be purposeful, and to be accountable. You don't even
Speaker 1: does have a culture where we treat each other with respect.
Speaker 1: If you get the job done, but you're an asshole
Speaker 1: and you leave a kind of a trail of people
Speaker 1: who would love to need afterwards, right exactly, then I
Speaker 1: think our company would tissue reject you like a badly
Speaker 1: matched Oregon quicker than the average company. So being human
Speaker 1: and with that comes you know a lot of friendships.
Speaker 1: Not too hierarchical. I mean every company is get some hierarchic.
Speaker 1: We're not too hierarchical. Um, So that's the human The
Speaker 1: second is purposeful. We believe that, Um, this is a
Speaker 1: bit slogany, but we do believe that brands with purpose growth,
Speaker 1: that companies with purpose last, and that people with purpose thrive.
Speaker 1: And we've putting out fifty thou people through purpose workshops
Speaker 1: to try and understand is the thing that makes them
Speaker 1: take well aligned with the work that they're doing it
Speaker 1: you'll leave. And when people find that alignment, my goodness,
Speaker 1: it cements their commitment to the company that you can
Speaker 1: see job satisfaction scores that are through the roof. And
Speaker 1: so that's the purposeful part of our culture, more human,
Speaker 1: more purposeful. And then the accountable bit is we want
Speaker 1: people who are prepared to take risks. We want people
Speaker 1: who are prepared to have a go for people who
Speaker 1: understand that, you know, poor performance plus a good excuse
Speaker 1: is still poor performance. And and those are the kind
Speaker 1: of three ways we describe our culture. I think it's
Speaker 1: one thing it doesn't capture, which is we are extraordinarily international.
Speaker 1: There is no dominant nationality in our business. And I
Speaker 1: love that. I'm sort of looking out my office here
Speaker 1: and I can see a melting pot of different nationalities.
Speaker 1: And typically a French company would be full of French people,
Speaker 1: and American company full of Americans and so on. Truly global.
Speaker 1: And are there certain things that you look for in
Speaker 1: a new employee? Is there a Unilever type? Over the
Speaker 1: years I've been trained on all these different competency frameworks
Speaker 1: and what to look for a reference to that have
Speaker 1: stuck with me. One is very simple. It's that people
Speaker 1: are successful in our company tend to be strong masters
Speaker 1: of their inner game, so that they're very self aware,
Speaker 1: they control their emotions reasonably well, and they operate out
Speaker 1: of a sense of service and purpose. And that is
Speaker 1: a precursor to mastering your outer game, which is your
Speaker 1: expressed leadership, your drive for business performance, your passion for
Speaker 1: consumers and customers. I think it's an interesting concept that
Speaker 1: you have an inner game in an outer game and
Speaker 1: both need to be performing at a high level for
Speaker 1: for someone to do well. The simple kind of Alan
Speaker 1: Joke criteria after thirty odd years of kindiring people is
Speaker 1: I want people who are are smart. Uh, got a
Speaker 1: bit of EQ and a bit of i Q. Who
Speaker 1: are quite driven. They've got they can show that they
Speaker 1: get around obstacles. And the third is that they're nice,
Speaker 1: kind people that other people want to be around. And
Speaker 1: I could just think of my kind of leadership team.
Speaker 1: They are all bright, they are all driven, and they
Speaker 1: are all someone you'd want to appear with. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the criteria I use is if I were
Speaker 1: stuck in an airport with this person for an unexpectedly
Speaker 1: long period of time, would that be a good thing
Speaker 1: or a bad thing? Exactly? Uh. One of the things
Speaker 1: that you touched on that I'd love to just talk
Speaker 1: about a little bit more is talent and the effect
Speaker 1: that being purpose lad has on your ability to attract talent. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We measure our attractive us as an employer for undergrads
Speaker 1: coming out of university in h forty four countries around
Speaker 1: the world. In forty two of them were the employer
Speaker 1: of choice in our sector, and ten years ago that
Speaker 1: was seventeen. So we have no problem attracting really high
Speaker 1: quality graduates coming out of university. In fact, we get
Speaker 1: two million job applications a year across the company. But
Speaker 1: I think what's maybe more interesting is we've been able
Speaker 1: to attract some really senior executives and indeed board members
Speaker 1: who would have a pick of the places they could work.
Speaker 1: And the universal reason is because they want to understand
Speaker 1: or be part of a company um that is operating
Speaker 1: in a responsible fashion. Whether you call it purposeful or
Speaker 1: responsible or sustainable, it's the same threat that is acting
Speaker 1: and to attract senior and junior folks, and we've got
Speaker 1: really hard data on this guy. I was surprised to
Speaker 1: hear that we're the third most followed company on the
Speaker 1: world on LinkedIn, after Apple and Google. You know, a
Speaker 1: sleepy old soap maker. Not bad, very cool. Okay, I
Speaker 1: have a couple of questions that I want to ask
Speaker 1: you to wrap up. I'm just curious about this. You've
Speaker 1: acquired a number of certified B corps over the years,
Speaker 1: I think seven or eight of them, and I just
Speaker 1: wondered if there were any plans to become a B
Speaker 1: corp at the group level. Yeah, we've studied this at
Speaker 1: least twice that I know of, in in excruciatingly detail.
Speaker 1: BE corps certification is not designed for enterprises the skill
Speaker 1: of Unilever. We would need to create an entire industry
Speaker 1: of certification around the company, every operation in a hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety countries, multiple divisions, multiple brands, and it would
Speaker 1: cost an absolute fortune. And it is It is doable.
Speaker 1: It's just about doable. I would love for you Deliver
Speaker 1: to be a B corp. But the bragging right, so
Speaker 1: becoming a B carp are not commensurate with the cost
Speaker 1: an effort that would be required to achieve that certification. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that completely resonate. Okay, so two questions to wrap up.
Speaker 1: First of all, what have I not asked you about
Speaker 1: that you think that our listeners should know about you
Speaker 1: or about you know Leaver? You know I asked you know.
Speaker 1: The share price has been languishing a little bit for
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, and I I think, in
Speaker 1: the spirit of the name of the podcast, all these
Speaker 1: all these fine words that I've been saying about all
Speaker 1: the wonderful things that we're doing in the world, Well,
Speaker 1: why you know, shouldn't it be more visible in the
Speaker 1: share price? That's the that's the really sting or tough question.
Speaker 1: And the short answer is we've surprised the stock market
Speaker 1: three times in the last three years. We under undergrew
Speaker 1: what we said we would do in two thousand nineteen.
Speaker 1: So in December two thousand nineteen we announced the sales
Speaker 1: warning and that called the market off guard. In the
Speaker 1: first year of COVID twenty are operating margin went backwards
Speaker 1: by sixty basis points when the market wasn't expecting it.
Speaker 1: And then the third one, I think is a little harsh.
Speaker 1: We were the first company at the gate um to
Speaker 1: call attention to inflationary pressures that were coming in mid
Speaker 1: twenty and so we are well exactly, but the one
Speaker 1: day dropping our share price on those three days explains
Speaker 1: the entire discount to our sector and what it says.
Speaker 1: It's great to be sustainable, what's great to a super
Speaker 1: year of growth last year, but in our particular sector,
Speaker 1: the sort of predictability and reliability of performance really matters
Speaker 1: as well, and there's I make no excuse for that.
Speaker 1: There's no reason why UNI leavers shouldn't deliver what we
Speaker 1: call four G growth, which is consistent growth, competitive growth,
Speaker 1: profitable growth, and responsible growth. And that's still in the
Speaker 1: to do list. And just to follow up to that,
Speaker 1: you discontinued quarterly reporting a while ago, a decade ago.
Speaker 1: Does that help or or hurt? Yeah? When we say
Speaker 1: we dis continued quarterly reporting, kind of so we still
Speaker 1: report our top line and our growth every quarter, and
Speaker 1: we report our fool p and now the bottom line
Speaker 1: semi annually, so at the mid year. So really what
Speaker 1: we stopped doing was reporting profits at the end of
Speaker 1: Q one and the end of Q three. And I
Speaker 1: would say it's materially helpful. It gives us flexibility to
Speaker 1: invest in the business within a half rather than constrained
Speaker 1: by the particular phasing that a quarter would demand. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good thing, but it's not all the
Speaker 1: way to you know, we abandoned quarterly reporting, I don't
Speaker 1: think right. Okay, now, thank you for the clarification on that.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Okay, Allen on calling bs UM, we
Speaker 1: have a question that we ask every guest So we
Speaker 1: define BS as the gap between word indeed in the organization,
Speaker 1: and we have a tool that we call the BS
Speaker 1: scale where we rate organizations on that gap, zero being
Speaker 1: the best zero gap between word indeed and a hundred
Speaker 1: being the worst total bullshit. So, taking into consideration that
Speaker 1: everything is a journey, where would you rate Unilever on
Speaker 1: that scale today? That's interesting. So if it was the
Speaker 1: gap between ambition and where we are today, uh, then
Speaker 1: it's a high number. It's a high numbers, you know, sixty.
Speaker 1: If it's the gap between what we say and what
Speaker 1: we're really doing in the company, then it's quite a
Speaker 1: low number because we are very transparent. No, I think
Speaker 1: it's the latter. I think it's gap between what you
Speaker 1: say you stand for and where what your intention truly is.
Speaker 1: Then I would say, I think we are quite transparent,
Speaker 1: and we report a lot, and there's not a huge
Speaker 1: gap between what we say we're doing and what we
Speaker 1: really are doing. So I'd give us, but there's obviously
Speaker 1: some so I'd say, I don't know, live and in
Speaker 1: a in a company of your scale, I just have
Speaker 1: to say, I think that's extraordinarily low. So I'm very
Speaker 1: inspired by what you're doing, and I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for being on the show today. This has been great.
Speaker 1: Does that mean you're not going to wrap up by
Speaker 1: saying you're fool of sh it? Nope, you're off the hook,
Speaker 1: not full of ship not but not on our scale. Okay,
Speaker 1: not on our scale. Well, it's uh been a while
Speaker 1: since we saw each other. Thank you very much for
Speaker 1: having me on, and uh maybe we can follow it
Speaker 1: up sometime and me meanwhile, look forward to that beer together.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I'd like to end the show
Speaker 1: today by giving you a lever our official BS score.
Speaker 1: Our scale goes from zero to a hundred. A zero
Speaker 1: means zero gap between word and deed, and a hundred
Speaker 1: means the gap is huge. Total BS Alan gave you
Speaker 1: a lever between a twenty and five. Based on what
Speaker 1: I've heard today, I'm going to agree and give him
Speaker 1: a twenty. I see all kinds of promising signs that
Speaker 1: this company is really trying, starting with leadership. The sheer
Speaker 1: size of this company makes it much harder to live
Speaker 1: up to their purpose, but it also means that when
Speaker 1: they do meet their ambitious goals, the impacts are huge.
Speaker 1: Alan is clearly passionate about getting things right, and his
Speaker 1: enthusiasm informs every aspect of the business, driving real change.
Speaker 1: The company is also quick to admit when it falls short,
Speaker 1: and they're willing to acknowledge the problematic areas of their history,
Speaker 1: which is why as time passes, I expect their score
Speaker 1: to actually go down. But Alan's retirement announcement comes at
Speaker 1: a time when the company is under intense pressure to
Speaker 1: focus on short term financial results rather than on the
Speaker 1: long term goal of building a sustainable global company. While
Speaker 1: he's still at the helm, Alan is using unili purpose
Speaker 1: to steer the ship, but we'll be keeping a close
Speaker 1: eye on what happens once leadership actually changes. To weigh
Speaker 1: in with your thoughts, visit our website Calling Bullshit Podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. You'll be able to see where you know
Speaker 1: leave our ranks on BS compared to the other companies
Speaker 1: and organizations we feature on the show. And if you're
Speaker 1: starting a purpose led business or you're thinking about beginning
Speaker 1: the journey of transformation to become one, here are three
Speaker 1: things that you can take away from this episode. One
Speaker 1: set ambitious goals. As Alan pointed out, it's by setting
Speaker 1: goals that at first seemed unachievable that real change happens
Speaker 1: in an organization. The goal keeping him awake right now
Speaker 1: is cutting the use of plastics by in one of
Speaker 1: the largest package goods companies in the world. So what's yours? Two?
Speaker 1: Your business strategy and your purpose are not separate things.
Speaker 1: There are two aspects of one thing. The problem in
Speaker 1: the world that you exist to solve. Your purpose is why.
Speaker 1: Your business strategy is how, and when you get it right,
Speaker 1: profitability is a natural outcome. Three. There is a timer
Speaker 1: taking on businesses that don't make the shift to being
Speaker 1: purpose led, and it's going off in about ten years,
Speaker 1: maybe even less than that. Why Gen's annuals, they're voting
Speaker 1: with their wallets for companies that are trying to solve
Speaker 1: some of the big problems in the world. They will
Speaker 1: decide what businesses thrive and what businesses fail in the future.
Speaker 1: Don't wait to establish a relationship with them. Start now.
Speaker 1: And if you had fun on this trip across the universe,
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Calling Bullshit podcast on the I Heart
Speaker 1: radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to people
Speaker 1: speaking to your ears. And thanks to our production team,
Speaker 1: Hannah Beal, Amanda Ginsburg Andy kim D s Moss, Hayley Pascalites,
Speaker 1: Parker Silzer, Basil Soaper and me Jean Zulu. Calling Bullshit
Speaker 1: was created by co Collective and is hosted by Me
Speaker 1: Time Monte You thanks for listening.