Former Unilever CEO Paul Polman Says Aiming for Sustainability Isn’t Good Enough—The Goal Is Much Higher
Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, challenges business leaders to ask themselves if they care about the world’s problems.
November 19, 2021
Summary.
How can a company profit from solving the world’s problems, not from creating them? Is the world better off because your business is in it, or not? These are some of the fundamental questions that Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, asks business leaders to consider as the stakes for not taking direct action rise. Polman’s new book, Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take, points out that sustainability, while a laudable goal, is far from enough. “[I]ncreasingly, companies are starting to understand that you need to be restorative, reparative, regenerative. And this is really what net positive leaders do.” Net positive leaders take responsibility for their total impact on the world, lead with transparency, and focus on the long term. They aim for cooperative leadership, not just competitive leadership, because the world’s problems are so immense that it is beyond the scope and ability of a single company to fix them.