Full Speech: Paul Polman at the SDG Business Forum 2019

Now it's my great pleasure to introduce my chairman and the chairman of almost everything that actually leads towards good outcomes on SDGs and climate, Paul Polman.

Thanks, John. Well, I'm especially pleased to be here. First of all, it's an incredible turnout, but more importantly, the discussions I heard and some of that I was privilege to over the last few days give me a lot of encouragement that the private sector is moving. And this morning again, and your active participation is a great example of that. I helped develop the Sustainable Development Goals as part of the high-level panel where I represented the business community. So I got it sort of in my DNA. And now as an SDG advocate, we're actively promoting these Sustainable Development Goals. And that's obviously What brought us here this morning? The world is not in an easy position right now, and we experience that on a daily basis in our businesses. How do you decarbonize a global economy when everybody is a carbon junkie? We just don't know how to grow without carbon. How do you move to a circular, I would argue, regenerative economy when we have all programmed our systems of digging the earth, make and dispose in landfills or oceans? How do we move these incredibly demanding financial markets which seem to creep on us shorter and shorter term back to the longer term so that we have the ability to address these key issues of climate change, of poverty, of food security? And how do we create an economic system that is more inclusive where people feel that they have a chance and can participate? Now normally in the normal course of history we all depended on governments and that was a good thing. It brought us wealth. In the last 70 years, our GDP has grown by 12 times when our population has grown by 3 times. We've become 4 times wealthier. We should be grateful for that to a lot of, a lot of extent. But now we see global governance not working. When global governance doesn't work, we cannot be cynical. We cannot be critical. We cannot abdicate our responsibilities. Just the opposite. We have to step up as business community. And fill that void. And now is the moment to do that. As simply as that. Probably the 2 biggest challenges that need to be addressed are climate change and inequality. And frankly, they are closely related. We're starting to discover that we're at this moment, by not addressing climate change, we're actually pushing more people into poverty. And it's not us. We are well protected in our islands of prosperity when the majority of this world lives in a sea of poverty. It just doesn't work anymore, and each time more we see the manifestations of that at the polls, in the streets, with the populisms in governments. The SDGs are a little bit difficult to understand— 17 goals and 169 targets— but we do pretty well. Make the Global Goals everybody's business. We now have 80 to 90% of the members of the UN Global Compact understanding that we have the Global Goals and linking their business plans one way or another to these Global Goals. We created a Commission for Business and Sustainable Development where we thought we needed to reach the top 1,000 CEOs. We reached actually 1,800 CEOs, all integrating the SDGs. By doing so, bringing more purpose to their businesses, to give their businesses more validity now and for generations to come. Momentum on these things is building. But what is also clear is that there is a gap to implement these Sustainable Development Goals, this wonderful plan to not leave anybody behind. We need about $3 to $5 trillion, and the reality is that we're currently only spending about $1.5 trillion. Now you might say, okay, let the governments close that gap. It simply isn't happening. All the money together of all the overseas development aid is only $160 billion. We need to have this gap of $2 to $3 trillion. That's where the private sector comes in. We need to use these billions to unlock these trillions. And by the way, it's probably the biggest business opportunity that we've ever seen in the history of mankind. Just this week alone, we launched reports on the Commission for Adaptation, resilient cities, food and land use. And over and over and over and over and over, anytime we issue these reports, we see that we're at the point where the cost of inaction is actually higher than the cost of action, to the point that we're starting to ask ourselves the question, what the heck are we doing? I would argue that for any of the goals, any of the 17 goals, we are already incurring costs right now that is higher than what we need for the implementation of all of the goals. That's the bizarre thing. And we're sleeping on the wheel. Although we're driving, we're clearly not driving fast enough. If you don't believe me, the cost of climate change that we're incurring today in this world is over $5 trillion. The costs of conflict and wars, goal number 16 called peace and justice, is 8 to 10% of our global GDP, 2 to 3 times higher than we need to implement all the Sustainable Development Goals. Our broken food and supply system, cutting the forests of this world as if it doesn't matter, keeping the farmers as poor as we can, having 160 million stunted children being born every year, having the audacity to have 826 million people go to bed every night not even knowing if they wake up the next day of hunger. And then wasting 30 to 40% of the food, or on the other side, starting what is probably the biggest epidemic this world will ever see, which is diabetes 2. There's over 2 billion people overweight or obese. What the heck are we doing? What the heck are we doing? The cost of that broken system is $7 trillion. The benefit by behaving like adults is $4 trillion benefit. A payout for an investment, a meager investment of $350 billion will give you a 15 times payout. I challenge any of you in your businesses to give me a program that has a 15 times payout. And yet we're paralyzed. We're paralyzed. And then we say we don't know how to do it. You know, there's enough money in this world. Did you know that half the money in this world has zero or negative interest rates? Now think about that. What does that mean if half the world's money has zero or negative interest rates? It means it's useless. So we're cutting forests, we're polluting the air, we're putting plastics in the oceans to turn all the stuff that we find on this wonderful planet into money to then discover that that money is useless. It's a little bit bizarre, isn't it? So why don't we then use that money and get back, make the air clean, take the plastics out of our systems, Restore our forests. It's all that we have to do. The cost of inaction is rapidly becoming significantly higher than the cost of action. This is the biggest business plan that we have in the history of mankind. Now, I'm happy that business is moving. Of course, you're all here coming with plans and presenting things, and that's a good thing. The governments—we have 40 governments that have put in other. Higher NDCs. We have 60 governments that have now climate targets that get close to the net zero. We see prices of carbon coming in in many places. $34 trillion on the financial market has asking for disclosure of prices on carbon. We see 2,100 chambers or all of our UN Global Compact members moving forward. Sure, it's happening, but don't fool yourselves by just reciting the anecdotes of what you're already doing. Collectively, it's not adding up. It's not adding up. On climate change, we're only one-fifth of what is needed. Anything above 2 degrees— I would argue 1.5 degrees— anything above 2 degrees is a freaking disaster. We're heading for 3.5, 4 degrees, and we're sitting here as if nothing happens. We're far behind on the global goals as well. We had a look at that, Mr. Secretary-General, a few times this week. Under the normal projections, On each of these goals, with a few exceptions, we won't even get to half of it. We won't even get to half of it. And then we think we're great. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't feel uncomfortable, if you don't move your business as usual, which is the trajectory that we're on, to business unusual, we're not going to get there. Now, we might all be fine, but there will be a hell of a lot more people dying. There will be a heck of a lot more poverty in this world. I don't want to be responsible for that. Thank you. Anytime you know that you're polluting and put carbon in the air, there's someone else going to die. Anytime you know you're wasting food, there's someone else going to die. Anytime you walk by a homeless and don't figure out what the solution is, you're part of that problem. It is our problem. We're living on that same planet. And if we don't find a way to live in harmony with our fellow citizens and with the nature itself, it's not going to work. We have the tools. We've never been so forearmed and so forewarned to do something about it. We don't need more PhDs. We don't need more people to go to Pluto or Mars to find the answer. And I would argue, frankly, don't come with the excuses that we need to wait for technology. Sure, it's fine to have more carbon capture and storage. It's fine to have more battery capacity. But every time in history we want more technology, what we need is human willpower. And the simple question to ask ourselves is, do we really care? Do we really care? And that's only you that can answer it, or myself. Do we really care? In our current behavior, I wonder. I wonder if we have enough people that really care. What does really care mean? It means that we operate in this world with a few principles: dignity and respect for everybody. There are many people born in wrong parts of the world. I hope we can treat them with the same dignity and respect so they don't need to go to bed hungry, so they have access to education. Isn't that the minimum birthright that we want for everybody? The second thing would be equity. Isn't this a world where everybody should have the same chances? There's not one country in the world where women have the same rights as men. Don't let yourself be fooled by any of your politicians. Access to land rights, financing, education is definitely skewed towards us. That's why we probably are both sitting here. $26 trillion will be unlocked if we would create these simple equal opportunities. That's more than it takes for many years to implement the Sustainable Development Goals. And then finally, what we need is compassion. Put yourself in the shoes of those people. It could have been us. We belong to the lucky 2% that didn't have to worry about getting food when they were born. First of all, we survived our births. Then we had at least access to a clean toilet, which is not the case for 2 billion people. We weren't stunted. We had enough food to not go to bed hungry. In my country, I got free education, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here. Ladies and gentlemen, we belong to the 2% of the world population. That has won the lottery ticket of life. If you are so lucky to have won the lottery ticket of life, then it is our duty to put ourselves to the service of the other 98%. And that brings us to goal number 17 of the SDGs, a goal that is called partnership. It's not the partnership of contracts, or you work for me, or you're in my value chain. No, it's a partnership for humanity. It's a partnership for the common good. It's a partnership where we put the interests of others ahead of our own, knowing that by doing so we're also better off ourselves. It's a partnership for humanity that we're asking here for. It gets to these basic values I was just talking about. In fact, Matthijs said it very well, that he said in the course of history there comes a time when humanity is called upon to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. It clearly is the moment to do this. And for anybody that understands it, not only will your businesses be more profitable, your employees more engaged, your employer brand will be higher, but you're actually doing something for generations to come. You're a real leader that puts the interest of others ahead of their own. You're a real leader by simply bringing humanity back to business. The Dalai Lama said it very well when he said that when you seek enlightenment for yourself simply to enhance yourself and your position, you miss purpose. But if you seek enlightenment for yourself to enable you to serve others, you are with purpose. My simple request to you is, live a life with purpose. Thank you very much. Thank you, Paul.