• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  • Sustainability
  • CSR
  • CSR reporting

In Good Company: Singh on CSR

~ Connecting the dots between Business, Society & the Environment

Tag Archives: palm oil

Chatting LIVE with Mars’ Sustainability Chief: Integrating Sustainability, Driving Responsibility

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSR, CSR reporting, ESG

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

@marsglobal, agriculture, barry parkin, climate change, cocoa, CSR, CSR reporting, Disclosure & Transparency, employee engagement, environment, ESG, fish, mars, palm oil, renewable energy, Social Media, social media, Stakeholder Engagement, supply chain, Sustainability, sustainability, sustainable sourcing, triplepundit, Twitter chat


On July 24, 2014, I facilitated a live Twitter chat with Barry Parkin, Chief Sustainability Officer at Mars, Inc. and TriplePundit to offer an opportunity to learn more about sustainability at the food manufacturer.

As a lead up to the chat, Mars published its fourth annual Principles in Action Summary, which details the company’s approach to business, its progress, and the shared challenges facing both its Marsbusiness and society.

As one of the world’s leading food manufacturers with more than 130 manufacturing sites and an expansive supply chain, how does the company contextualize sustainability, set goals that encompass its social and environmental footprint, grow its supply chain and do it all responsibly?

For an hour we chatted – with 104 attendees generating almost 600 tweets, over 3.5 million impressions and 27 questions. Here’s the Storify summary.

And here are Parkin’s responses to the questions that we couldn’t get to in the hour:

  • @cmehallow: Does @MarsGlobal use @CDP Water Disclosure to manage/measure its #water impacts?

We have just completed our second CDP Carbon response and are evaluating the Water and Forest programs.

  • @csrdispatch: This might be a cheeky question, but do you feel a conflict between commitment to sustainability and selling junk food?

Our consumers, both people and their pets, get nutrition and pleasure from our products.  We are continuing to look at the role of our portfolio in addressing nutrition and obesity.

  • @dgardinera @dataeco: What have been your experiences with large #renewableenergy procurement?#MarsSusty

Our most recent large scale project was Mesquite Creek, but we have on-site projects or 100% renewable contracts at more than a dozen globally. We also just announced another project in Australia last week: http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/10219-the-sun-won-t-melt-this-mars-bar.html

  • @kellyfmill: Specific ways #sustainability goals are integreated w/ other departments? 

We believe it’s everybody’s responsibility, therefore we have goals in all functions/departments in the business. 

  • @jsonenshine: Can you share how you are driving farmer productivity? [A3b: Driving farmer productivity is our way to do both.]

Yes, as an example in cocoa, we are providing training, latest planting material and access to fertilizer for farmers.

  • @wssocialimpact: How does @MarsGlobal address sustainability goals in the short term?

We have a range of Sourcing Targets for 2015 and 2020 and Operations Targets (SiG) for 2015. More info at:

http://www.mars.com/global/about-mars/mars-pia/our-operations/sustainable-in-a-generation.aspx

http://www.mars.com/global/about-mars/mars-pia/our-supply-chain.aspx

  • @gurumug: How do you cross-verify #sustainability reporting standards/systems ?

We have a third party audit of our data and an assurance by Corporate Citizenship.

  • @greenguyboston: Glad to see your sustainable sourcing goals, but what is your progress to date against them?

Check out our 2013 Principles in Action Summary to learn more on our progress to date: http://mars.com/pia.

  • @jreneemorin: What are @MarsGlobal biggest challenges working with suppliers on #MarsSusty?

One of the challenges is that we work with 100k+ suppliers and often many tiers of them back to the farmer. 

  • @cmehallow: When @MarsGlobal needs to access capital markets, does its strong #susty program provide advantage?

We are a private, family-owned business, but we do believe that boosting our reputation through sustainability is crucial to attracting great people to work for us

  • @rohitms4: Is there any specific standard to measure your success in #sustainability?

Yes, measurement of impact and not just activity. 

  • @earthshare: How is @MarsGlobal investing in associates and their communities? #MarsSusty

In 2013 we did more than 500K hours of Associate training, and through the Mars Volunteer Program, 19K Associates devoted 70K hours to their communities.

  • In response to A15: @darrylv asked: That is promising. How about elsewhere in your supply chain? #MarsSusty

Because there are more farmers in cocoa than any other crop we purchase, we started there first and we’re looking to learn from our experiences in cocoa.

  • @beth_rcarnac: As a Mars Associate, I’d love to ask where have you seen our Associates best come together to collaborate on this #MarsSusty

There are Associates at every factory around the world and collaborating across our sites to achieving our SiG goals. 


Want to chat with us? Email me for more details.

Advertisement

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

People Get Sustainability, Business (and Marketers) Don’t: 20 Minutes with the CEO of Unilever

11 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in Capitalism 2.0, CSR, CSRwire

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Accountability, aman singh, Brand Management, Business, Capitalism 2.0, cause marketing, CEO Network, climate change, consumer behavior, Consumerism, CSR, CSRwire, Edelman, Innovation, integrated reporting, keith weed, Leadership, leadership, marketing, Marketing, millennials, milton friedman, palm oil, paul polman, politics, rainforest alliance, Social Enterprise, Stakeholder Engagement, supply chain, Supply chain management, Sustainability, sustainability, tensie whelan, the rainforest alliance, unilever, unilever ceo, Work culture


Last month, Unilever CEO Paul Polman was in town – New York – to receive the Lifetime Achievement award from the Rainforest Alliance. As Rainforest Alliance President Tensie Whelan put it, “Paul has made several lifetimes of difference by leading Unilever to become a game changer.”

The company’s work with the Rainforest Alliance is well-known – by setting targets like sourcing 100 percent of its palm oil sustainably, Unilever has made it easier for other companies to follow suit and helped complex supply chains become comfortable with change and collaboration.

And, the company hasn’t stopped at palm oil.

Today, roughly 50 percent of the company’s tea originates on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms as it works toward sourcing 100 percent of its raw agricultural materials from sustainable origins (that figure currently stands at 48 percent).

Having recently interviewed Unilever’s Marketing Chief Keith Weed on the company’s refreshed goals and commitments, the opportunity to discuss sustainable development from the vantage point of the outspoken CEO was tempting. We caught up over a quick phone call:

The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan:

“When we launched it we said we don’t have all the answers. One of the reasons why we are working so wellUnilever CEO Paul Polman with Rainforest Alliance is because we share common goals. Take tea for example: Standards are driving up fast in an industry that’s not easy to standardize. [This is where the] scale of Rainforest Alliance is significant – and essential for the USLP to come alive.

“[Its] only been a year since the Rana Plaza fire happened. Those 1,050 women worked in conditions that were little more than modern-day slavery. We’re determined not to let that happen in our supply chain. So we’ve put some goals to match our resolve. We’re going to help more women gain access to training and land rights. The transformation can be substantial.”

Pushing forward in the absence of political will/action:

“In the absence of politicians, we need to move faster. Climate change is a great opportunity for business. Report from the White House is an encouraging sign. Needle is starting to move in the U.S. The tornadoes and hurricanes are starting to drive the message home for people.

“Besides, this is probably the only opportunity we’ll have. The Millennium Development Goals, for instance, are due to be completed next year – the urgency cannot be watered down.”

The most critical challenge for business:

“The biggest challenge is [that] we cannot scale our ambitious goals alone. It’s a major challenge to create the right partnerships and increasingly difficult to get the political sector to participate. How do you create size and scale in a vacuum?”

The changing role of marketers:

“I always say, don’t blame the consumers. There are many examples where consumers are leading business, especially the young ones. They’re changing our lives and systems.

“Consumers are speaking out everyday but we don’t want to see it. Then we say the consumer doesn’t want to change. If we can tap into the enormous movements, we can create change much faster. That’s the job of the modern-day marketers. Their job has changed. It doesn’t work any more to push consumption. We need a new model and get companies to adjust their marketing strategies as well as their job roles.”

People get it, business doesn’t:

“I spend a lot of time on how to develop leaders who can lead us through partnerships, with purpose, can think long-term and beyond 2020. On my way back from Abu Dhabi last month, I was reading an article that reported university students rebelling against the way economics [is being taught]. If teachers are teaching Milton Freidman’s theories, who is going to change the economy? For my kids, sustainability is the new normal. They don’t want to watch TV or buy the newest gas-guzzling car. Their generation is already thinking differently. Yet, marketers keep saying consumers don’t want it.

“Our understanding of consumers [and consumption] is too narrow. We need to get much closer to consumers. If we go to any of the emerging markets – 81 percent of the world’s population lives outside the U.S. and Europe – most of the growth is occurring in climate stretched areas today. They might not understand Rio+20 or climate change language but they know that weather patterns are changing, water is decreasing, etc.”

From mindless to mindful consumption:

“Marketers should switch from asking whether consumers are willing to pay for something to which consumer doesn’t want less poverty, more education, a healthier world with cleaner air and better nutrition.

“We just need to be astute about solutions. Look at the Edelman survey – consumers expect more and more from business, and if business understands this, it is a wonderful time. Children die from diseases which we can solve with hand washing – new market – marketers should be very excited by this. But that connection is not there.”

Three actions to change the world:

“We must get out of short termism because lots of solutions are long-term [climate change, access to education, water shortage, etc.] – and we can only solve them if we invest over longer periods and evaluate the social and economic capital. Then business people can optimize these. For example, 40 of the top 100 companies are already pricing carbon internally. They’ve committed to stay within these limits. Business is leading because they see the cost of action vs. inaction. We have now 40 countries that are pricing carbon including China. We have 20 other countries that are putting a tax on carbon. The system is starting to move.

“We need to give politicians Unilever Sustainable Livingconfidence that this [focus on sustainable development and long termism] will not kill jobs or stifle growth. The exact opposite is in fact true but we need to provide the proof points.

“We need to get companies to adopt integrated reporting quickly as well as become comfortable with transparency. It’s going to take much more than a nine-to-five job to bring all of this together. We need leaders and we’re short on them.”

If this was his last interview as the CEO of Unilever:

“We can use our scale to transform systems and change. We need to create a better place than the one we were born in. Ninety-nine percent of people are not in a position to make a difference. We can. We need to force change – it’s our duty to leave the place in a better place. I hope this drives Unilever and everyone else.”

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on June 2, 2014.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Connecting the Dots Between Consumers, Consumption & Sustainability: The External Face of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by Aman Singh in CSRwire, ESG

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Brand Management, Business, cause markeing, cause marketing, CSRwire, employee engagement, Environment, ESG, marketing, packaging, palm oil, PepsiCo, roundtable on sustainable palm oil, sanitation, Stakeholder Engagement, supply chain, Supply chain management, Sustainability, sustainability, unilever, unilever sustainable living plan, waste, water


What role does a consumer-facing sustainability strategy play in an ambitious plan like the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan? That’s where I left off in my interview with Marketing Chief Keith Weed last week in our review of the ambitious Plan two years since launch.

From Desire to Habit: Unilever’s Five Levers for Change

He chose to respond by explaining a framework called the “Five Levers for Change” that his team developed to solve exactly this dilemma. An excerpt:

  1. Make it understood. Sometimes people don’t know about a behavior and why they should do it. This Lever raises awareness and encourages acceptance.
  2. Make it easy. People are likely to take action if it’s easy, but not if it requires extra effort.  This Lever establishes convenience and confidence.
  3. Make it desirable. The new behavior needs to fit with how people like to think of themselves, and how they like others to think of them.  This Lever is about self and society.
  4. Make it rewarding. New behaviors need to articulate the tangible benefits that people care about.  This Lever demonstrates the proof and payoff.
  5. Make it a habit.  Once consumers have changed, it is important to create a strategy to help hold the behavior in place over time. This Lever is about reinforcing and reminding.

“We need to continue to work with others to drive this change. If we achieve the Sustainable Living  Five_Levers_of_Change_unileverPlan, and it doesn’t change business at scale, ultimately that’s a fail. Unilever’s impact is huge but we’re still a drop in the ocean. We need a movement going for businesses to help address this,” he explained.

“We are already working with organizations like the World Toilet Organization, UNICEF and others on sanitation, for example, which is a very important issue for us. Two million children die every year from pneumonia or diarrhoea. In a world where there are more mobile phones than toilets or toothbrushes, our work ahead is sure cut out for us,” he added.

The fact is Unilever cannot do it alone. None of it.

And Weed and team have understood that since launching the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. While scale is a huge factor, organizations require individual and mass power to change consumer behavior and habits. And that is where the Five Levers for Change along with creative partnerships like the kind Weed referred to can help.

Making Sustainability Personal…

“I was in Brazil recently speaking to a lady in Sao Paulo about the environment and the city’s pollution. For her this meant dust from the nearby construction and the tainted flavor of her water supply. These were her immediate challenges – not deforestation or climate change. People view the world through the prism of my world – family, friends, and community. Our world is a step bigger: the city you live in, the supermarket, the local dump, etc. And the final level, ‘the world’ is the rainforest, the ice melting in the Arctic,” Weed continued.

His point: We need to connect “my world” with “the world” for consumers. “Right now we’re at level one. When I asked the lady what she thought would solve the issues, she suggested stopping the
littering because it would stop the drains from getting clogged and therefore avoid local floods. Level One,” he said.

What companies need to do is create a movement and work with people to drive change. A natural question then: Is Unilever working with other companies on its initiatives or primarily with nonprofits?

… and a Business Driver

One example Weed offered was palm oil.

“We purchase a lot of palm oil but it still makes only for three percent of the world’s palm oil. We started our journey by promising to source 100 percent of our palm oil sustainably by 2020. It’s a clear signal to the entire palm oil supply chain that that is the future we are working toward.”

“But this goal would be impossible to reach across the value chain without working with other purchasers of palm oil. So we work with other businesses and NGOs on the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil to do this collectively.”

In fact, Weed says Unilever managed to reach the 100 percent goal last year because of this collective effort. The next step: To make the supply chain of sustainable palm oil easier and connected by 2020. “Right now procuring sustainable palm oil means weaving through a very complex supply chain,” he added.

Another example: the work of the Consumer Goods Forum, which includes 650 members including manufacturers, competitors, retailers and NGOs, responsible for over $2.5 trillion in sales. And Weed is pretty positive about the goals and work of the Forum: “There are a lot of companies getting behind the need to address the negative impacts of deforestation, and momentum is starting to build,” he said.

While momentum is starting to build – with several companies announcing new initiatives and collaborations – the issue did bring us back full circle to where we started: how do we connect these overarching partnerships with the average consumer?

Subtle Messaging & Cause Marketing

And what role does cause marketing play in Unilever’s 2020 plan? Should we expect more nuanced advertising on the lines of the Dove campaign, for example? Or go full throttle like Patagonia’s Sourcing_unilever“Don’t  Buy This Jacket” campaign?

It’s going to be subtler, says Weed. “For example, for our Tomato soup in Germany or our Ketchup in India, we talk about sourcing tomatoes sustainably. With our Lipton tea, we talk about sourcing all our tea and tea bags sustainably by 2020,” Weed explained.

“Consumers comprehend these messages differently though. When we talk about sourcing our tea sustainably, customers see the Rainforest Alliance logo as a sign of better quality and taste, not necessarily sustainability. With our Hellman’s mayonnaise we discuss cage-free eggs. Consumers perceive that as an indication of better food: animals are better looked after therefore they’re getting better food. However, it’s still early days,” he added.

Work Culture: Participating in Change

Early days also for Unilever’s employees, who are witnessing – and participating – in a significant shift culturally at a company that has left behind decades of “doing things one way” to a more complex ideology. How has the company’s culture evolved since 2010?

According to Weed, the greater purpose espoused by the Sustainable Living Plan has been significant for employees – kind of like Performance with Purpose over at competitor PepsiCo. “The notion that you can work for a business to earn money, build a career and also do it in a better way is significant. We need new ways of doing business in the future – our generation has stolen from our children’s
generation financially and environmentally – so we ‘re going out and saying we want our employees to innovate and encourage new ways of doing business,” Weed said.

In fact, the marketing chief, who also leads internal and external communications for Unilever, says despite the many crises facing our world today engagement levels among employees have gone up consistently every year.

A sentiment that resonated in an email I received this week from Kam Erik Fierstine, a project delivery manager in Unilever Engineering Services at the company’s Henderson, Nev.-based ice cream plant. Here’s what he wrote when I asked him about the culture at his company:

“The Sustainable Living Plan is something that is quite apparent to those of us that live in a desert-like area where we are very conscious of water usage. It has shown our employees that Unilever has the same values that we were raised with. Our employees would not put up with a leaky faucet at home, and now they have the backing of management to proactively fix these simple issues at work.”

“We all agree that we want to leave a healthy planet for future generations and we can help do that by conserving our resources. Our employees see the management team walking the talk and that empowers them to escalate issues and voice new ideas. They will now do small things to make a larger impact like pick up things from the floor or switch off conveyors or equipment when not in use.”

The Henderson, Nev.-based ice cream plant was recently honored by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy for its sustainability practices.

“They see us taking on challenges in a positive way and that’s inspiring,” Weed wraps up.

Originally written for and published on CSRwire’s Commentary section Talkback on May 1, 2013.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

Let's Talk!

Virtual
732-322-7797
amansinghdas@gmail.com

Connect with me on Twitter

My Tweets

Blogs I Follow

  • Nonprofit Chronicles
  • Learned On by Andrea Learned
  • Angry African on the Loose™
  • csr-reporting
  • The CSR Blog
  • In Good Company: Singh on CSR

My Cloud

Capitalism 2.0 CSR CSR reporting CSRwire ESG Guest Author HR Stakeholder Engagement Sustainability Uncategorized

Recently written…

  • Rationality is Ruining Us: Mayors, presidents and governors join major businesses in charting way forward on climate change
  • 2015: the year businesses recognize that climate change is real – and 4 other themes
  • Hardcore lessons of sustainability – ’10 Words or Less’
  • Brewing a Better Future [#BaBF] with Heineken: Examining the Many Flavors of Local Sourcing
  • From Conflict to Collaboration: Kimberly-Clark and Greenpeace Participate in LIVE Twitter Chat

What others are reading

aman singh aman singh das Brand Management Business corporate social responsibility CSR CSR reporting CSRwire ESG Leadership Stakeholder Engagement supply chain Sustainability sustainability Work culture

Categories

Most Read

  • causecapit…

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Nonprofit Chronicles

Journalism about foundations, nonprofits and their impact

Learned On by Andrea Learned

Angry African on the Loose™

I have opinions. I am from Africa. I live here now. I blog.

csr-reporting

Connecting the dots between Business, Society & the Environment

The CSR Blog

Connecting the dots between Business, Society & the Environment

In Good Company: Singh on CSR

Connecting the dots between Business, Society & the Environment

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • In Good Company: Singh on CSR
    • Join 119 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • In Good Company: Singh on CSR
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: