GIBS/Transnet Sustainability Book Company: Unilever Writer: Lee Cahill Word Count: 1,048 Image: To be supplied UNILEVERS bold

journey to sustainability Sustainability isnt a destination, its a journey. Thats what Louise Duys, the Sustainability Manager at Unilever South Africa has learnt on her own career journey, which has taken her from a traditional marketing role to one of implementing an innovative and far-reaching corporate sustainability programme. Duys, who has a background in psychology, joined the local subsidiary of Unilever PLC in 2000, and it was in marketing where she obtained in-depth experience of the business, its values and goals. It was also where she gained invaluable insight into the social and environmental issues facing one of the largest FMCG manufacturers in the world. It was an incredible period in my career, she says, and it led me to understand that a company like Unilever is about so much more than its products. Five years after joining the company, Louise moved on to take up the newly-created role of Corporate Responsibility Manager, where her mandate was to assess Unilever South Africas social investment programmes and existing relationships with both NPOs (non-profit organisations) and community structures. It had become important to assess the return on our corporate social responsibility investment, she says, and to streamline our programmes by working with a smaller number of partners that were aligned to Unilevers business and social goals. In 2007, when BEE criteria were being integrated across the business, Louise took up yet another newly-created post, that of Sustainability Manager. At first, I felt as if I was a lone ranger, and that I was trying to push water uphill. Sustainability wasnt a firm concept at that stage, and there wasnt an integrated strategy driving implementation. This was further complicated by the fact that implementation budgets were - and still are - vested with individual business units, where the focus is primarily on quarterly results rather than on longterm sustainability. These were obviously issues that Unilever PLC was aware of and, in 2010, CEO Paul Polman introduced the ground-breaking Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP). This represented a bold attempt to turn the giant 44.3bn Anglo-Dutch company, which was still doing business in a largely traditional way, into a sustainability champion. And Polman wanted to double turnover in 10 years into the bargain - a truly audacious goal. His plan was to integrate all aspects of Unilevers operations into a model that would put sustainability at the very core of its way of doing business. Speaking about this at the time, he was honest enough to say: Our goal is something like JFK's dream of putting an American on the moon within a decade. He didn't know how he would do it. Neither do I." The important thing was that the 1

goal had been defined and set, and that was enough to get the company started on the journey towards an entirely different future. The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan gave Unilever South Africa a solid context within which to work, says Duys, and it put us on the right path because it makes a solid business case for sustainability. This isnt pie-in-the-sky, its a real roadmap that defines a new way of doing business; one that encompasses every aspect of the production and product usage value chain as well as social and environmental issues. Fundamental to the plan is the requirement that each business unit has to integrate sustainability goals into its output targets, a process that, in two short years, has seen a major shift at operational level. The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, says Duys, has become an inspiration to everyone in the business; a worthy goal towards which to work, and something that makes Unilever one of the worlds leading employers of choice. Make no mistake, the targets defined in the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan are stiff. The plan sets out to define how Unilever can double the size of its business by 2020 while simultaneously reducing its environmental impact and significantly upweighting its social impact. The aim is to do this in three ways: by helping a billion people to improve their health and well-being, by halving the environmental impact of the companys products, and by sourcing all of its agricultural materials sustainably. Says Duys: These are certainly bold targets, but theyre targets that energise everyone in the business and, again, there are clearly-defined results to aim for. Taking a lifecycle view of environmental impact, for instance, Unilever found that 68% of water usage associated with its products takes place at consumer level. And with sales of 160 million items a day worldwide, packaging was a top sustainability issue too. In South Africa Unilever has therefore identified four priority areas to support the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan: to reduce the amount of water used by consumers, to reduce the companys packaging footprint, to ensure that 100% of agricultural inputs were sustainably produced and procured, and to enhance livelihoods through job creation, workplace wellbeing and community development. The result, says Duys, has been transformational, and the emphasis on collaborative change has redefined the way in which Unilever does business. Innovation, behavioural change and strong partnerships are the hub around which the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan is built, and it is her task to keep the sustainability train firmly on the tracks. In business terms, we are creating a new space; a place in which to ask different questions and to adopt a different approach. This involves re-looking the way in which we define competitiveness, and formulating strong relationships with government, suppliers, NGOs, other industry players and academics. Its an effort that is being supported by total buy-in from the global Chair, and by the production of global toolkits to guide transformation both internally and externally. Weve also redefined our agency relationships, and ensure we work with agencies that share our vision. Of course, she emphasises that such extensive change doesnt happen overnight. Were at the cutting edge of where corporations should and want to go, she says, so theres no well-worn path to tread. We have to create the path as we go, and were still experiencing conflict

between long-term goals and short-term targets. The assessment of the impact of the entire product lifecycle is an on-going process too. But these are challenges that Duys and everyone at Unilever South Africa are embracing. When youre part of creating a whole new way of doing business, there are plenty of good reasons to get up in the mornings.

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