Post by account_disabled on Feb 22, 2024 2:18:42 GMT -5
Foto Paul Polman – World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2010» by World Economic Forum is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 As people around the world confront the COVID-19 pandemic and call for racial justice, the business community has an integral role to play in both the dialogue and solutions to these social issues. This has urged several business leaders to speak out and be brave in their response; like former Unilever CEO Paul Polman, who recently, during his conversation with Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz , noted: What COVID has done is make us understand some things that until today we had not been able to do. COVID has made it clear that there can be no healthy people on an unhealthy planet. Everyone is understanding much more about the relationships between biodiversity, climate, inequality – can I add racial tension to that? And I think it's not surprising that more people are now asking for a more holistic solution. Polman, ex-CEO of Unilever Polman noted that citizens, employees and executives alike want better solutions. Polman is co-founder and president of Imagine, an organization and foundation started in 2019 with Valerie Keller, the organization's CEO; Jeff Seabright, former director of sustainability at Unilever and Kees Kruythoff, president and CEO of the company Livekindly.
Imagine's mission is to mobilize business leaders to confront climate change and global inequality. During the webcast, Polman noted that one of the reasons he co-founded Imagine was to help break down barriers for companies trying to meet their sustainability commitments. It is difficult for some companies to do individually what the general public expects of them; they may not have the skill or capabilities; They could even have the corporate government working against them with certain policies. So we asked ourselves: Can we bring together these Bulgaria Mobile Number List CEOs, at the industry level, across value chains to make them braver leaders who drive transitions faster? Polman, CEO of Unilever. Polman has spent decades leading large corporations in various roles at P&G and most recently as CEO of Unilever. He is known for his optimism. Polman develops his work at Imagine, with the goal of bringing together key stakeholders who can have a major impact on their industries. " We carefully select the industries that we believe have the greatest impact on the Sustainable Development Goals, especially when it comes to climate change and inequality ," he said, noting that his organization has started with the fashion industry and is starting to have boost in the food and financial industries. The COVID-19 pandemic puts Imagine's efforts in the tourism industry on hold. At the moment Imagine is being selective about the organizations it works with; Polman said there will be room for more collaborators in the future.
Here are three takeaways from the conversation between Polman and Makower. 3 notable points from the Polman and Makewoer conversation 1. Companies that focus on ESG performance are better off " I think it's clear now... that if you want to maximize performance, we automatically need to adopt a more ESG-responsible, multi-stakeholder business model ," Polman said. " That's what the numbers keep telling us ." In addition to meeting the expectations of stakeholders financially, it is also necessary for companies to meet the needs of their employees. Right now, in particular, there is enormous tension within companies because employees want their “C-suites” to deliver on their promises, for example by truly incorporating diversity and inclusion into all of their work in an intentional and sustained way. Companies that have not invested in their employees or their value chains " realize that their relationships are broken ," Polman said. " These are the moments of truth where I think you can see what good corporate behavior leads to and what bad corporate behavior leads to ." 2. Our social model is broken. The most marginalized people, such as communities of color and those working in service industries, have suffered the most from the COVID-19 pandemic Polman noted that people are starting to realize the importance of social cohesion.