Unilever Sustainable Development Group
The Unilever Sustainable Development Group (USDG) comprises external experts who provide advice and guidance on the development of our strategy.
The Group’s collective expertise covers environmental, social and economic issues in both developed and developing countries. It meets twice a year to discuss sustainability issues. We share the insights from these meetings with our Board’s Corporate Responsibility and Reputation Committee and our senior leadership.
Jonathon Porritt 
There are two things that make the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan so special. The first is its centrality. It’s at the heart of Unilever’s growth plans – or, to be more accurate, it will be when employees have become fully engaged, when function heads (in Finance, HR and IT, for instance) see it as their Plan, just as much as their colleagues in the supply chain do, and when all brand managers across all the categories get the buzz about selling sustainability as much as about selling more stuff.
Unilever isn’t there yet on that integration story. But that’s the deal. As Paul Polman says, sustainability and growth are not in conflict.
The second thing is what I call the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan’s ‘boundary conditions’. The Plan could just focus on Unilever’s direct impacts. But that’s relatively small beer, even in a company as big as this. It could also cover the performance of all the suppliers that provide Unilever with its raw materials – and it does. But even that’s not enough. The really big impacts come through the use of Unilever’s products in the home, not in the sourcing, manufacture and distribution of them.
That’s where the ambition level of Unilever (taking shared responsibility for those impacts in use) jumps out at you. There are not many companies doing that today, and none at this scale. And that’s what keeps Unilever’s senior managers awake at night – so the rest of us can sleep a little bit more easily!
Helio Mattar 
As a new member of the USDG, I am positively impressed by Unilever’s audacious goals and commitments, especially its efforts to ensure that they permeate the whole organisation, vertically down the hierarchy and horizontally across the different regions. Unilever’s belief in the power of innovation and co-operation through partnerships is the main impetus for this journey, and this belief is complemented by a determination to engage consumers and persuade them to behave more sustainably.
Unilever has set out its commitments even before the path to achieve them is fully clear. The ethical urgency to do so derives from its awareness of the huge positive impact that it potentially has on the environment and on society – Unilever is both talking the talk and walking the walk.
I work in the area of behaviour change among consumers, and my presence in the USDG demonstrates how willing Unilever is to face this singularly difficult challenge. Getting the public on-side is central for Unilever if it is to achieve its commitments, given that some of them relate directly to consumer behaviour, for example changing the hygiene habits of more than a billion people.
This demands a new consumer, one who is willing to contribute to the environment and society by way of his or her consumption. Unilever is working to find ways to engage consumers and encourage more sustainable consumption: a process which will benefit and protect Unilever’s reputation, and which will make a great positive contribution to human society as a whole.
Malini Mehra 
The true value of corporate change is not its immediate impact but the demonstration effect it provides. When Unilever adopted the Sustainable Living Plan in 2010, it became an activist. This was not just any company flogging a sustainability strategy. This was Unilever. A global company with a hundred years of history and a presence in over 190 markets. A colossus shaking hands with 2 billion people a day. When that handshake carries a message and the consumer reciprocates, these small acts could change the world.
This is the promise behind Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan. The Plan is bold and brazen. Bold because of the goals it sets. Brazen because it invites us – indeed, relies on us – to be the change-makers. It is a straightforward admission that ‘I cannot change the world without you’.
Unilever has done the maths. Humanity has overshot critical ecological thresholds, and this is why Paul Polman speaks of new models and a new capitalism. This is a rare admission and rarer still for a CEO. This is what sets the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan apart. It is a conviction strategy for growth through sustainability – and its tone is urgent.
This is exactly as it should be. The markets of the future cannot be the same as today, but reshaping expectations with sustainability in mind has to be a conscious and collective project. Strategic partnerships and a collaborative approach have never been more important in this age of revolution. If the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan is to succeed, it has to be the ‘people’s project’.
Ma Jun 
While the EU and many developed countries are suffering economic difficulties, developing countries like China and India continue to grow rapidly. Their rising populations and increasingly better-off societies generate huge demand and create growth opportunities for consumer goods suppliers like Unilever.
However, most emerging markets are facing daunting environmental challenges such as pollution, resource depletion and eco-degradation. These countries hope to stimulate consumption to enhance living standards and drive economic growth, but they are concerned that it may lead to more pollution and the unsustainable use of resources.
Unilever is in a unique position to help reconcile the conflicting targets of consumption and environmental protection. For many years it has been improving the environmental performance of its manufacturing and increasing the sustainable sourcing of agricultural raw materials. More recently it has worked with NGOs to motivate its industrial suppliers in China to clean up.
But what is really special is the company’s decision to set its environmental targets based on a ‘per consumer use’ basis. If it is to achieve its ambitious goals, Unilever has to inspire and enable consumers to adopt more sustainable habits.
This is no easy task – changing consumers’ habits is tricky. But change is urgently needed, particularly in developing countries. I am pleased Unilever has developed its Five Levers for Change methodology and encourage it to apply its marketing power to drive more sustainable practices as I believe this will have very positive social impacts.