Case Study: A Vision for Unilever
In 2009, the multinational company Unilever adopted a new strategic vision that integrated societal and environmental responsibilities. The company's Sustainable Living Plan was the center of this strategy. This plan aims to help more than a billion people improve their health and wellbeing, decouple Unilever's growth from its environmental impact, increase its social impact, and enhance the livelihoods of all those involved in its supply chain. Read this chapter to discover how Unilever merged sustainability with profitable growth.
What steps did Unilever take to re-engineer the company and implement the Sustainable Living Plan successfully? How did sustainable innovation play a role in helping Unilever achieve its goals? What were the results?
External Factors
"The unfortunate thing is that since the financial crisis of 2007-2008 so much money has been put into the global economy that in many places interest rates are zero or negative. So, we have six or seven times the money supply that the global economy needs and that causes chasing returns. Companies like ours have a longer-term value creation model and if you think longer-term, you also automatically run the business more sustainably.
"Now the longer-term model does not mean that you optimize your short-term returns all the time. Since 2009, Unilever's shareholder return has been close to 300 per cent. But it's about finding the right balance and being able to deliver short and long-term value for a multitude of stakeholders.
Unilever works very hard to get shareholders that are aligned with our strategy - 70 per cent of our shareholders have been with us seven years or more. "Kraft Heinz [which launched a bid for Unilever in 2017] went away after two days. So I don't know what the outcome would have been, it is all speculation.
Our Board has made very clear that we continue to be committed to our long-term sustainable value creation model. Realistically we have to be sure that we keep the balance right between the short-term and the long-term. What we are proving in Unilever is that we can have a long-term model that ultimately is good for society but also good for the shareholders. Increasingly we are demonstrating that the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan is actually an engine for growth and success.