The Heart of Sustainable Business with Paul Polman

I'm Carol Cohn, and welcome to Purpose 360, the podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact. Welcome to our milestone 200th episode of Purpose 360. I'm so excited because I've invited a very special guest to return to the show. Paul Polman. Paul is a renowned business leader and a climate and equalities champion. He works at the intersection of global business, government, and civil society to accelerate action on our shared global challenges, and none more burning than the need to operate within planetary boundaries while addressing systemic Inequalities. He's joining us at a critical moment when our world faces unprecedented chaos, geopolitical tensions, economic volatility, ongoing conflicts, accelerating climate change, and widening inequalities that threaten humanity's very existence on our planet. In our conversation today, we'll explore how Paul makes sense of our tumultuous world, While he believes we need transformational leaders who are brave, purpose-driven, courageous, and collaborative, who join with others to solve some of the world's biggest problems. We'll discuss inspiring examples of leadership he's witnessed, including the profound impact of Pope Francis, whose recent passing prompted Paul Paulman to reflect on what true moral leadership looks like in our fractured world. We'll dive into the essence of courage in business, what it means, where it comes from, and what courageous actions Paul wants to see most from today's C-suite leaders. Throughout our marvelous conversation, we'll return to Paul's core conviction, that humanity must be at the center of business transformation, and that the world we want will only be achieved when we choose action over indifference, courage over comfort, and solidarity over division. So let's get started. Welcome back to the show, and thank you for helping us celebrate sharing purpose and the power of purpose with people around the globe. So welcome back to the show.

No, thank you, Carol, and I was looking forward to it. And obviously, congratulations with the 200th milestone. That's quite something to celebrate.

Well, thank you. And you have been obviously such an inspiration for me when I got to work with your teams at Unilever and then to follow all of the things you've written and your podcast and such. So I wanna share with our listeners, it's It's interesting. I run into young people and I say, well, you must read Net Positive, your fantastic book that was named the Financial Times Book of the Year, and all the work you've done. And some of them say, oh yes, I love Paul Polman. So that's why I continue to invite you back to the show. So thank you. But I'd like to share with our listeners just some more about Paul so you know how genuine and authentic he is in terms of his journey to help the world understand the power of purpose, the of stakeholder capitalism. Your leadership journey has been extraordinary, Paul, as CEO for Unilever for a decade, where you created an exemplary global model for purpose for companies, as well as how you've made a fantastic return of 290% to shareholders. You've become a global sustainability leader. You know, I know that I've, by the way, with your book, I've gifted over 100 copies, I believe, or more. To help— helping with those numbers. You helped develop the UN Sustainable Development Goals. You helped shape the Paris Climate Agreement. You've championed human rights for years and principles. And I love that you chair the Oxford Saïd Business School and One Young World as just some of the things that you do. You're also ranked number 3 in the world among the world's most influential management thinkers. So For everyone who's listening, this is gonna be an amazing conversation because your insights are invaluable, especially to the times that we're living in today. I'm honored to have you to return to Purpose 360 to share your wisdom and your gigantic heart. So thank you.

No, thank you very much, Carol, and I appreciate the kind words.

Let's just start with your personal purpose because you have been shaped by many things in your life. And one of the questions that I always ask when I'm interviewing candidates, my favorite question is, what is the most important thing you learned from your mother and what's the most important thing you learned from your father? And I know that your parents shaped, you know, your approach to why business must be a force for good, but a little bit about why you do what you do today.

Yeah, well, you know, my parents always taught me that the most important thing isn't accumulating wealth. It's really about serving others. They were, victims of World War II, more or less. My father was 15 when the war started, so high school was taken away from him, and all they wanted was peace in Europe again, getting better education for their children, a world where people would live in harmony, where communities would function. I think they embodied what you might call servant leadership, putting themselves to the service of others and knowing that by doing so, they were better off themselves as well. My father had 2 jobs. We had 6 children at home, and he wanted to give them all a decent life, but he literally worked himself to death. So if I learned something from my father, it's his generosity, but also his hard work. He really inspired that in all of us. And my mother was a teacher, and at moments in life, we hated her in the sense that she never let us go out of the house before she checked our homework and was always on top of that. But now I'm so grateful because that obviously is— has been such an important part of my life. And teachers are unselfish in all respects, giving their knowledge to others, wanting others to succeed and all that. And she passed on a few years ago at the tender age of 92. And although I miss her, I discovered that my father, who was gone earlier, and my mother now, that they continue to live on. And I try to live their values, which basically boil down to probably— What are those values? Dignity and respect for everybody, equity, compassion, the basic human values that I think transfers the globe and that we need now more than ever.

I'd love to just start with your take on what is happening in the world today. We're living in incredibly chaotic times driven by geopolitics, economic volatility, wars, climate change, dramatic inequalities for billions around the globe. And as you have said, all of this is threatening humanity's very existence. So what's your take on it? What's your point of view?

Well, Carol, it's no doubt that a lot of things are happening, and for many, it's hard to make sense of. And all I can say, perhaps as a starting point, it's much bigger than just a simple attack on sustainability, if you want. This is an extraordinary moment that I think is bigger than people realize, and it's not just the tariffs itself. We have the environmental collapse, and increasingly you see the signs of that. We have the geopolitical instabilities, we have the widening social inequality that you see in the world, the economic volatilities, and all of that gets amplified by a revolution, if you want to, in technology that comes on top of it. So this is a major shock or a major reconfiguration of our economic system since the '30s, in my opinion. And to be honest, it might not be an answer you want to hear, but if anybody tells you what's going to happen, I don't think they're worth listening to. We live in a period of high ambiguity, if you want to call it. And one thing that we know is it will be highly volatile in the next 5 to 10 years. But within all of this, we need to realize that the current trajectory that the private sector was on, or that our economic systems are on, had become not sustainable anymore. And more importantly than ever, this is where our inner compass becomes more important than anything else. I think we have the technologies, we have the financial means, we have the awareness of what needs to be done to create this more inclusive world for all. But the key question that we're currently struggling with is, do we have the willpower? And it's It's clear that short-term, not having addressed these issues has created a lot of anxiety amongst a lot of people in society who felt that they were left behind. And I've said many times that any system where too many people feel they're left behind or they're not included will ultimately rebel against itself. And we see that. And unfortunately, the shocks that we're currently going through are not the ones we would've wished for, but it might be needed. Now, so many things are broken, which to some extent is better because people are starting to realize that there are some fundamental issues that need to change and that you cannot just address that by simple bandages.

And I know it's a pessimistic time. I think that the attitudes, especially in the United States, people are really getting very fearful of their jobs, of tariffs, of costs, and things like that. But you also, every time I meet with you or hear you speak, you also talk with optimism. And I know that you were at Climate Week 2024, you were at One Young World again last fall. Can you share anything that's optimistic and positive so that we don't have a downer for all of our listeners?

Oh, you don't want to have a downer because things are moving, you know? Last year, we spent $2.1 trillion on the green conversions. That was more than twice what we spent on fossil fuel. We have 95% of the CFOs and the CEOs saying we want to spend more in making our business models more resilient and more competitive, more future-proof if you want to. We see countries moving. In Europe, just solar and wind is now over 30%. We're nearly 50% in renewable energy. Even in the US in the last 8 years, 85% of the new capacity that has come on stream in energy has been green energy. An economy that's now $5 trillion that is expected to go to $15 trillion by 2030, that has created in this wonderful country, the United States, 3.5 million more robust and more resilient jobs. This is where all the growth in the economy is. And companies that understand that and that are positioned very well for that future increasingly are seeing that reflected in their market value as well. Having a little bit of a setback or a pushback against things like ESG or DE&I are to some extent healthy. It doesn't mean we need to abandon. It doesn't mean we need to stay silent. It actually means that we have to become more determined, but also think a little bit more, think a little bit more about how we make these changes. And what is very clear is in all of this, be guided by our long-term purpose and values. The long-term direction and scenario that sustainability will rebound is a given. The planetary boundaries, Mother Nature doesn't care who's in the White House. So this is the time that we need to look at our values, but also build bridges to these polarized communities that we now see.

When you meet with leaders and you talk about live your values, And it seems to them, well, values might be kind of soft. What do you say to them so that they will lean into those values and be authentic to them, make them real?

We have to recognize that we need to bridge, that we need to reconcile. And I always talk now about what I call the ABCs of leadership, Carol, but more importantly ever in today's world, we need to adapt. To understand really what made these other 50% vote the way they voted. What is really on their minds and what do they really care about? And perhaps reaching out a little bit and adapting is not so bad. The B stands for bridging. As I said, I believe 80% in the middle has more in common than social media or the newspapers make us want to believe. So can we overcome that? We've spent a lot of time in Washington and talking with people that are now in office, and they do care as much about a lot of things that other people care about. And I think we can move forward on many more things than what people think. And then the C stands for cooperating. The challenges are now so big that we simply can't do it alone, so let's work it together. And what you find with politicians is that if you come constructively to them with a coalition of companies, in my case where I focus on, and you come with constructive solutions, they're the first ones to embrace that.

I love the ABCs, and we'll get into storytelling a bit more 'cause you recently wrote a blog about that and, you know, who's saying what, especially about greenwashing. But I wanna just shift a bit. Since we arranged this conversation, unfortunately Pope Francis passed away. You wrote a beautiful tribute to him that we're gonna post in our show notes. And I just wanted to read a little bit about it 'cause it leans so much into leadership. Humanity has lost one of its courageous moral voices, but his legacy lives on in the countless lives he touched and the moments he inspired. For me, this moment is not just for mourning, but for deep gratitude that we've been fortunate to witness a rare kind of leadership at a time of widening divides, as you say, amongst nations, within societies, and between humanity and the planet. He offered a steady hand and a moral compass. In a world increasingly fractured, he reminded us of something so simple but profound, that we belong to each other. How did he— I know you met with him a number of times. How did he touch you?

No, tremendously. And frankly, when I hear it, I still get emotionally touched because we need courageous leadership, as you rightfully say, in this tumultuous time. And it's the values that he aspired to that anchor us. This is this turbulent world of distrust, of economic insecurity, of malfunctioning institutions, if you want to strain on our natural systems. And I think he was in that sense a moral compass or a beacon of hope, or as you rightfully say, a source of inspiration. He reminded us that our economic systems that we live in, First and foremost, must uphold these dignities of people and well-being of our planet. And in his Laudato Si' or Fraterni Tutti, a home for all, and frankly, we are all connected, was a wonderful manifestation of that. He was a voice for the youth. He was a voice for planet Earth. He was a voice for future generations and certainly didn't hesitate to use that moral position he was in and include other faith leaders in that as well. So I was very fortunate to meet him a few times. I was very fortunate to look at some opportunities that the Vatican themselves had to be even a more important part of it.

And I know that when you were young, you had considered entering the priesthood.

That is true. I actually wanted to be a priest. I wanted to be a doctor. I really never wanted to go into business, but my father, who didn't have much money either, made it very clear to me that I had to provide my own living. So, you know, I'm an accidental businessman if you want to, but the more I got into the private sector by serendipity, I found that business could be, and the more I was in it, saw that business can be a force for good.

You work with so many different coalitions, whether it is food, whether it's fashion, whether it's the built environment. I know you're working on aviation fuel, things like that. And you bring a tremendous amount of leaders together. And you say that when you get these CEOs or C-suite individuals and they're in a room and they begin to collaborate more, then you say, cooperate, don't compete, which I think is really interesting today. This is a different type of leader. This is a transformative leader. Can you give any advice to our listeners, again, in our volatile, chaotic times, Very uncertain times. What are the things, what are the traits of leaders? What do they need to do to somehow guide through volatility?

You know, it was Rumi, a poet of the 13th century, who said it very well. He said, yesterday I was clever, I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, I'm changing myself. And we just don't spend time enough in this rat race on ourselves. I've seen in my own life as well and learned the hard way at times that you cannot be sustainable as a company or purpose-driven as a company if you don't have your own sustainability or your own inner strengths and purpose. And yet we don't spend enough time on that. We've become human doings versus human beings. And, you know, and one of the reasons I created with Valerie Keller Imagine, is to really work on this inner core. In fact, when we put the Unilever training together over the 10 years that I had the fortune to lead that wonderful institution, we had the inner core and the outer core where we worked together. And so most of the issues that we need to solve first and foremost require our own resilience. So I tell people indeed, work on your own physical resilience, your emotional resilience, your mental resilience, and frankly, your spiritual actual resilience or what you, with your Purpose 360, call purpose. And I don't think there's much difference between those 2 words in its essence. So these coalitions I put together is something that I was passionate about as a next step in my life after Unilever, because CEOs themselves, when they run companies, have limited bandwidth. So when we bring them together, the first thing to make it a success, what people often don't invest in, is investing in trust. I have a farm in the south of England. I bring them to the farm and we discuss the food policies. When we had the crisis in the Ukraine and we had the disruption in our global food supplies, we brought the major leaders of all the food companies to a farm in the Cotswolds in the UK. You know, put the boots on, walk the land, touch the animals, and it just changes a human being.

And it softens them up. It's being in nature.

It's becoming human. It's becoming—

There you go.

It's probably, and that we are grounded, and the word human and humus and humanity and humility have all the same derivatives. So anyway, it is putting that perspective in place and why that is so important. So it's bringing humanity back to business, putting people central in all we do. If we lost something in the debate about climate change was that we forgot that it was about people. We were talking about particles in the air. We were talking about worlds falling apart, but we didn't touch the hearts and minds of people. The beauty now of biodiversity, which is a much broader issue, is that people can relate to it because instinctively we know we are part of that biodiversity. We are one of these species in the world, and inherently we know that if 70% has already disappeared in the last 5 decades, that it's just a matter of time for us to be the next victims of it. So we feel more engaged by that, we're more connected, and that's probably a better way in also to work together in this very polarizing environment that we're in.

The question about the attacks on the words D-E-N-I and E-S-G, what do you, I'm sure you're asked this question many, many times, What do you recommend to companies when they're being attacked on this?

So it's not easy, to be honest, because the attacks are vivid, the attacks are personal, the attacks are sometimes imminent. This is more, if I may say, than an attack on sustainability. This is an attack on democracy, on the values, on your constitution, and on values that we have in a global normative system. And so the first thing I think that leaders have to do in this environment is, again, be true to your values and your purpose as a company. And that is why it's so important what you are doing. But then the second thing they have to do is to be humble. And I think the first thing I would suggest is that you recognize that not everything was working before either. The DE&I efforts weren't working as well as we sort of pretended that it, or the ESG efforts weren't really delivering the results at the speed that was needed. So we have to recognize that the efforts that we were doing weren't helping, weren't giving us the right results. Now, where I differ with some of the CEOs is that silence is not the answer. Silence ultimately makes you complicit. And if it's difficult to be speaking up alone in some circumstances, then try to do it together. And what has surprised people a little bit is the deafening silence. I think it's starting to change right now. We can talk about that, but it certainly has been too long. The most important thing in all of this, and I'll give you some ideas what we have to do, but the more important story in all of this is that we control the narrative. Right now, there is a narrative being put out that it doesn't make sense, that people don't believe in electric vehicles anymore, that it's more expensive and it takes jobs away, that it's a plot from a foreign country like China to get economic supremacy above systems in the US. So there's a narrative being created here that is, and we start to believe this narrative. The newspapers pick up on this narrative, social media. amplifies it. And that's a narrative that is being driven by a narrow self-interest. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We are moving forward also in this country. The economics, as I said, drive it. We're moving to a society that is free from air pollution. We're moving to a society that can get affordable energy for everybody. We're moving to a society where there is political security because you're energy independent. We're moving to a society where there is a a better human health because there's a better eco-health and a better biodiversity. We can solve these things if we work for the interest of all of us and not for the interest of a few.

I have to say this little tiny story that you've given. You said that when you read to your children and grandchildren, there's not a single story that ends with, and the hero gave up. Have our heroes given up, or do you still feel that there's others marching with you, Paul, that are saying, okay, maybe we won't say DE&I, maybe we won't say ESG, we'll change the terminology, but we'll continue the work?

No, I tend to believe there are. And without being naive about it, there is a book, Rutger Bregman, my fellow Dutchman, who wrote a book called Humankind. But I do believe you have to believe in the inherent goodness of of people. Otherwise, life is not worth living for. So I haven't met CEOs who want more air pollution or more unemployment, more people going to bed hungry, more destruction of biodiversity. It simply doesn't exist. But then why collectively are we behaving like this? It's because of the boundaries in which we operate. And so we have to move these boundaries, the boundaries of short-termism in the financial market, the boundaries of not putting a value on this natural capital, Leaders that are courageous, that are adaptive, that are anchored in the moral clarity, not just the managerial competencies. And I think we have that. And right now when ESG and DE&I are under attack, it is the instinct of many to retreat. I understand that, or to whisper behind closed doors or to hide the good work for what they're doing. in light of the political pressures and retaliations that are there. But that is not good leadership. That's risk aversion dressed up as pragmatism, and we cannot afford that right now. So the net positive mindset that we're asking for is really the antidote to this chaos. It actually moves you from defense to offense, if I may say, from compliance to competitiveness, from surviving this storm which is not enough to actually shaping what comes next. And this is where we need more leaders that really are focused on the here and now, but don't get sidetracked by only the here and now, that are focused also at these longer-term business cycles, that are focused on the system crisis, and as a result, the systems changes that we need. And that net positive wealth is not a luxury, that's an absolute necessity. And we have a few years to get there. No, Fortunately, many more of these leaders are coming together. They understand, these leaders, and they understand, and their companies as well, that the future of their children, their grandchildren, but also of their companies is at stake. And that especially these values they care for need to be fought for now more than ever because they actually go to the heart of the success of the businesses that they represent in the first place.

Let me ask you another question, and you alluded to this. What is the role of employees? You talked about not just top-down, but bottom-up in the regenerative, restorative, and reparative journey, your net-positive companies. What is the role of employees?

Well, what we have seen, I would call employees citizens of this world. The CEOs in companies, they're being held to account by their employees. We saw that before we went into this current wave of pushback. Where frankly people were walking out because of government contracts or because of absence of commitments on climate change. I can only say that that pressure is building up more now. Some of these CEOs that have moved 180 degrees as a result of an election have bent over to be in the inauguration campaign, have switched their values that were being set. If you look at these companies, they've seen a significant drop in engagement. They've seen a higher turnover, I think they have become less of an employer brand. And whilst they might get away with it for the shorter period, whilst they sometimes might have a monopoly, so it doesn't show up in the bottom line yet, over time it erodes these companies and that erosion is going faster than I think people realize.

And you also fielded that research about, and that came out with what was it, conscious quitting?

Yes.

That it was some, yeah. Can you explain the results of that? Because While some are quitting, the ones that are thinking about quitting is a huge number.

So what we found already before this last election in the US, we looked at 8,000 people in the US and the UK across different range, age ranges. And what we found that 30% of all these people had quit companies because the values of the people themselves was not aligned with the values of the company or the CEO. In fact, only 8% of these people thought that their CEOs were moral leaders. Obviously, the CEOs themselves gave themselves much higher scores. But the reason why we called it conscious quitting was because 60% of the employees were saying, well, we're considering leaving the companies because of these companies not being aligned with the speed of change, what needed to be done, or giving agency to their employees to be involved in it. And they said, you know, I don't want to work in an environment like this. So even if they don't quit the companies, you are going to pay the price for it in a lower level of engagement, undoubtedly. So that's a hidden time bomb that every company is sitting on. And CEOs would be very, you know, would be well advised to be very mindful about that. And I think it's true for far more companies than individual CEOs realize.

I'd like to shift now, as we wind down this amazing conversation, to the The role of humanity intertwined in business, why is it so important for companies even today, even more so, to be human?

Well, we have to, it goes back to what's our purpose in life. It goes back to why you have your 360 podcast and why it's so important to remind people on that. Why are we here on Earth? You know, profits or shareholder value, I always say it's a little bit like white blood cells in our bodies. We need white blood cells to live. I think we understand that, but we You don't live for white blood cells. You don't meet people and say, how are your white blood cells today? What we need to do is go back to the core of why business was here. Business was created to solve societal problems, not to create societal problems. Business started, any great business started by addressing societal issues that were affecting human beings. Lord Lever in the Victorian age had to deal with the issues of hygiene and invented the bar soap, and it served him well. So we need to go back to what we are all about. And what we are all about is the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals, not leaving anybody behind. It is to put humans central. We might call them the consumers in some companies, but at the end of the day, it's the citizens of this world. So companies themselves also, I always have felt and advocated for, are made up of human beings. They're not some abstract structure that has to go onto spreadsheets. They're human beings. That make decisions, that work together, that have families, that try to think now, but also for the future, for themselves and their communities. So why don't you embed that into your principles in a company? A principle, a very simple principle like the Golden Rule, should be actually an overarching principle for any business. Do unto others and the planet as you would've done unto yourselves. And if you cannot justify a decision because of, you know, you would not want to suffer yourself from unacceptable labor standards in your value chain, unacceptable air pollution that kills people in other parts of the world. That's what I call humanity in everything you do. What does that mean for people? Because that's ultimately why we are here, to ensure that everybody has an opportunity for a better life.

I love that. I hate to wind this down. I'm going to have to ask you back for maybe the 300th, but I want to read a quote that you stated that was so profound about purpose. The world we want will only be achieved when we choose action over indifference, courage over comfort, and solidarity over division. Paul, what would you like to end this marvelous conversation

I just do a simple reminder if I have 2 minutes, which is that we are very fortunate and everybody that is listening to this wonderful podcast, and thanks again, Carol, we're very fortunate to be where we are. We were born in countries probably where we had a piece of bar soap and we didn't have to deal with infectious diseases that kill still 5 million children a year. We had food, so we didn't have to deal with stunting. which affects 160 million children and makes them mentally scarred for the rest of their lives. We had a toilet, so we didn't have to deal with issues of open defecation, which 1.5 billion people have to deal with. We probably had access to free education like myself, still deprived of 250 million children in this world. So in other words, we had won the lottery tickets. We have won the lottery ticket in our lives. And if we have had the wonderful fortune of having won the lottery ticket of life, whilst we frankly haven't done anything for it, we belong to the 5% of the lucky ones in this world. Then it's our duty, it's our obligation to put ourselves to the service of the other 95%. A world that is not inclusive, where we don't ensure that more people can participate in this wonderful economic system, if you call it that way, or in this wonderful world is probably better, then it will never function. So we need to be very conscious about the luck that we have, but also about the obligations that it brings. I'm looking out of the window here. I see the Statue of Liberty, and it reminds me of Viktor Frankl. When they built the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast of the United States, they forgot to build the Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast. So if there is one message in this broadcast, I think they go hand in hand.

I love that. I just love that vision and that desire. Paul, you have been, you are so generous. And I'd just like to share with our listeners, you are so generous with leading organizations, convening organizations. You do a lot in education. You're bringing, you know, new points of view to MBA students and others. We are so fortunate to have you in our lives.

No, no, likewise. What you're doing is tremendous. And your 200th podcast, I'm looking for the celebration of the 1,000th podcast in the not too distant future.

Well, that would be wonderful. Of course, I'll invite you to that. But I am just a small servant in this world where you are talking about we are so, so We are so fortunate to have you in our lives, Paul Polman. We are just extraordinarily appreciative and thankful for all that you've done in the world. So thank you for joining Purpose 360 and celebrating my 200th podcast.

Thanks, Carol. Be safe and thanks for the opportunity and hopefully see you soon again.

This podcast was brought to you by some amazing people, and I'd love to thank them. Ann Hundertmark and Kristen Kenny at Carol Cohn On Purpose, Pete Wright and Andy Nelson, our crack production team at True Story FM, and you, our listener. Please rate and rank us. Because we really want to be as high as possible as one of the top business podcasts available so that we can continue exploring together the importance and the activation of authentic purpose. Thanks so much for listening.