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When Sustainability Ambitions Become a Living Plan: Unilever Expands, Deepens Commitments

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by in Capitalism 2.0, CSR reporting, CSRwire, ESG

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Yesterday, Unilever released the latest refresh to its Sustainable Living Plan with yet another subtle headline [don’t blame them for being European]: Unilever Expands Sustainable Living Ambition.

And once again it is seeking to set a mindset shift.

Besides a metrics update that started at the beginning of the month with the announcement that the company had successfully reduced the rate of diarrhea among children from 36 percent to five percent through its Lifebuoy branded handwashing campaign ‘Help A Child Reach 5,’ the company announced its decision to step away from calling the Plan, well, a Report.

A Plan That Is Meant to Evolve

As Chief Marketing Officer Keith Weed told me:

“The Living Plan is meant to evolve. Today, we’re engaging more, we’re collaborating more. We’re not writing a separate report any longer. And I’m proud to say that we’re moving toward an integrated report in our effort show how this is now integrated in our overall plan…why we closed down our CSR department. Sustainability [for us is] integrated, truly embedded across our value chain.”

The company also hosted a live by-invitation-only event in London with 100 senior sustainability influencers to discuss the next iteration of the Plan: an expansion to include three specific social targets:

  • Fairness in the workplace [“We have been working with Oxfam on the condition of factory workers in our extended supply chain in Vietnam – and the lessons we have learned we’re taking global, including a new sourcing policy, which makes clear basic levels of human rights that suppliers must adhere to.“]
  • Opportunities for women [“By 2020, we want to help empower five million women. They’re a key part of our international supply chain.”]
  • Developing inclusive business [“Like our Shakti model in India“]

unilever sustainable living planAnd a re-emphasis of what it considers its most critical challenges:

And a re-emphasis of what it considers its most critical challenges:

  • Helping combat climate change by working to eliminate deforestation, which accounts for up to 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions
  • Improving food security by championing sustainable agriculture, and improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers who produce 80 percent of the food in Asia and Sub Saharan Africa
  • Improving health and well-being by helping more than a billion people gain access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation and good hygiene habits.

The Rarity of Receiving Honest Feedback

I was catching up with Weed – who was among the initial creators of the USLP and continues to lead it across the organization today – right after the live event. And he was in a good mood. “In its early days, everyone was genuinely impressed [with the USLP] and were always polite in giving us feedback. They were probably also scared of scaring us off. But now, three years in, they’re more open with their feedback,” he told me.

The company is making good progress.

Besides good results from its #Iwashmyhands and #toilets4all campaigns, for example, some of the reported highlights include:

  • Over 75 percent of its factories have achieved zero non-hazardous waste to landfill
  • A new technology would reduce plastic in its Dove body wash packaging by 15 percent
  • Forty eight percent of agricultural raw materials are now from sustainable sources, up from 14 percent in 2010,
  • It completed training over 570,000 smallholder farmers and increased the number of Shakti women micro-entrepreneurs in India from 48,000 in 2012 to 65,000 in 2013
  • Avoided costs of €350million since 2008 in reducing raw materials and implementing eco-efficiency measures in factories on energy, water and waste
  • Launched compressed versions of its Sure, Dove, Vaseline deodorants across the U.K., which equal to 25 percent of CO2 savings per can.

As Weed counted off, “We’ve integrated USLP into our core business, brands like Lifebuoy are experiencing double-digit growth signifying that integrating sustainability in the core of your brand works, we’re creating less waste, saving money, creating eco efficiencies across our value chain, and if positioned right, can have everyone involved engaged.”

Unilever on TwitterDemonstrating the [Sustainability] Case Internally

“But perhaps the most important highlight is that we are starting to show progress against our commitments and core belief [about integrated sustainability into our business] internally,” he added.

But other challenges emerged.

“Although water usage across our manufacturing facilities was down, when you take into account our entire value chain, it actually went up as did our greenhouse gas emissions. Also scale is tough.”

And the need for good partners.

“We’re stepping up working with others on transformational change. We’ve learned a lot in the last three years. We need to work with others. For example, deforestation contributes 15 percent of GHG – we’ve been doing a lot of work on palm oil by ourselves. Now [we want to] expand the efforts to government and civil society so that we can get to zero net deforestation by 2020,” he added.

Challenges: Finding Partners, Changing Habits

For a brand as diversified and exposed as Unilever, finding partners that share ideologies are critical as is changing consumer behavior.

Last year, we collaborated with the Unilever team on a communication strategy that told the USLP story as well as helped the company engage in critical dialogue with its diverse audience. Besides a detailed blog series penned by Sustainability Chief Gail Klintworth that took us behind the scenes and on the ground with the USLP goals – and a live Twitter chat that generated hundreds of questions – one of the toughest challenges that emerged was influencing consumer behavior.

And some things are finally starting to shift.

Like the 180 million people who now know how to wash their hands properly. Or the 55 million who now have access to safe drinking water.  Or the 70 million people who have already watched/engaged with Unilever’s innovative Project Sunlight.

“The point is to make sustainable living commonplace. We’re an optimistic company – if you get engaged, let’s work together,” said Weed. “Stakeholders are telling us they felt this was very much a part of our business. People are sitting up and talking.”

Numbers aside, changing habits is hard – and it remains the company’s toughest challenge. “We’re using everything we can from celebrities to local partners and rewards. They say it takes 30 days to change a habit. Initiatives like Project Sunlight are important because of this,” he said.

Or the decision to replace current deodorants with compressed versions. “People see smaller cans and think it’s not value for money,” Weed offered. “But if there is any company that has the resolve to take on these challenges, it’s us. We know markets, scale, know how.”

So what’s next?

Engagement, engagement and more engagement. As the marketing chief put it, “We need to engage more people to think beyond their own communities and families. It will happen.”

More about the USLP Refresh here.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on April 29, 2014.

Pathway to Financial Success: Discover Activates Parents

03 Thursday Jul 2014

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Corporate social responsibility has many shapes and forms today. Some organizations continue to use philanthropy as the crutch while others are adopting more expansive and strategic measures to improve their relationship with society and the environment.

For Discover, a financial institution with a history of catering to an elite consumer group with high credit scores and deep pockets, the business model is simple: Provide credit to low-risk consumers while ensuring quality customer service.

However, social responsibility for a financial services provider is a complex debate. I’m a big proponent of context and financial literacy falls perfectly in line with Discover’s core audience and social footprint. But should Discover be educating all consumers on the viability and risks of financial products or simply restrict its outreach to its customer base? Considering that a wide swath of their consumer base is educated and high potential, where should Discover focus its consumer engagement efforts?

A couple of weeks ago, Discover announced a new five-year $10 million program designed to help get financial education into the classroom. Their target: high school students. But this latest initiative, called Pathway to Financial Success, isn’t going to be just about conversations in the classroom.

Financial_LiteracyLeslie Sutton, director of external affairs and head of CSR for Discover, spoke to CSRwire about the initiative. “Not only will the initiative provide grants to public high schools to cover the costs of implementing a course on personal finance and give them access to a standards-based curriculum, it will also emphasize teacher training,” she said.

Further, “through a public service announcement [called Awkward Conversations] and a website, we want to raise awareness of the need for financial education and to encourage parents to talk to schools about incorporating it into the school curriculum.”

Discover wants to activate parents this time in a meaningful way. And in true Discover fashion, they’re doing this in a funny and intuitively intelligent manner.

I caught up with Sutton for more insights:

Why the emphasis on financial education at such an early stage [high school] when most Discover’s customers are elite professionals?

This is one of the ways we give back to customers and our community.

Discover has been involved in financial education for over 15 years. Helping people achieve brighter financial futures is our company’s mission. And getting financial education into classrooms is one of the ways we can help achieve that. It’s critical that kids develop the skills they need to manage their finances to make informed decisions.

Discover sees a clear need for financial education in schools. Statistics show that a majority of Americans lack the knowledge to make good financial decisions. A Sallie Mae study showed that 84 percent of students said they needed more education on financial management topics, yet only 12 states require a personal finance course before graduation, according to the Survey of the States by The Council for Economic Education. That’s opportunity for us to use our resources and platform to compel change.

With an economy built on consumer demand and credit availability, only 12 states?

The problem is multifold. First, many states are not requiring students to learn about money basics at school. And many schools lack the resources to add curriculum. Both teachers and parents say they are uncomfortable talking to kids about money.

We know that we need to get financial education into the school curriculum. It is the only way to get them thinking early. That’s why Discover is awarding grants to public high schools to cover related costs and give them access to a standards-based curriculum with one of the requirements being that the school measure curriculum results, so that we can ensure this information is being retained – not just provided.

How do you plan on engaging parents considering some of them might not be Discover customers – and might not have the tools to activate their school districts?

Talking to kids about money can be awkward and we want parents to know that Pathway to Financial Success can help by providing the tools and resources to begin the conversation at home and in schools. We created a public service announcement to get parents’ attention on this issue. It directs parents to Pathway to Financial Success, where they can find financial education resources developed by independent organizations.

Discover: Pathway to Financial Success

It also contains information to help them become more comfortable talking about finances. And if they want to join us in addressing the inclusion of financial education in schools, the website also provides parents with the tools needed to address that with local school administrators.

How does Pathway to Financial Success align with Discover’s business model?

We have always believed in providing our customers with the tools and resources they need to make informed decisions about money. Through Pathway to Financial Success, we’re helping to ensure that the next generation develops the skills they need before they make decisions that will affect their futures. That’s in everyone’s interest, not just our customer base.

By working with parents and schools to get financial education incorporated into the school curriculum, we want to reach thousands of classrooms and over a half-million students with the hope that by raising awareness of the need for financial education, more parents, schools and corporations will get involved in the effort.

That is in everyone’s interest as well. Financial education and independence is a critical tool in our personal and professional happiness. At Discover, this is much more than consumer education. It is about long-term financial empowerment.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary sectionTalkback on February 23, 2012.