Sustainability means Business: Unilever and Net Impact

UCT Graduate School of Business: Sustainability at the heart of Business 
www.gsb.uct.ac.za

On 12 November 2013 I attended a talk about how Sustainability can be incorporated into the day to day operations and strategy of a business.  Net Impact @netimpact in partnership with Unilever have set up a programme for intrapreneurs in established companies to make a difference around the ethical triple bottom line (environment, society, economy).  The talks were powerful and inspirational and included speakers from Unilever, Woolworths and Reel Gardening.  It illustrated the steps these pioneers are taking in incorporating sustainability into their cultures and business models.  I will discuss the Unilever and Woolworths presentations.

James Inglesby from Unilever is an intrapreneur who has started a sanitation project in Ghana.  Portable toilets are bought by urban dwellers and then serviced on a regular basis.  This solves a great need for sanitation in developing countries (solves waste and disease issues) and also aligns with Unilever's business model of creating a bigger market for toilet disinfectants & cleaners.  The toilet was designed by +IDEO to accommodate the needs of the dwellings in urban Ghana.  As can be seen through the ages, Western technology does not always work in other settings.  This Clean Team project in Unilever was done in partnership with NGO WSUP  (Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor) so that their knowledge of the sanitation issues can be shared for best implementation.  James shared some pointers that helped him on this journey.  What I could gather is the new CEO of Unilever Paul Polman is a champion of sustainability in business and has led the movement in Unilever of "Make Sustainable Living Commonplace".  The implementation of the USLP (Unilever Sustainable Living Plan) which each employee applies daily is driven by the Brand and Communications teams.  An inspirational story of how one's values and principles can be aligned to your corporate business model.

Justin Smith from Woolworths drives the sustainability model currently in practice.  Woolies has won Sustainable Retailer of the Year for 4 + years since 2007.  The key salient points I took away from this and which could be applied to any industry looking to start a sustainability journey were as follows:

1. Understand the key impacts of your sector.  What are the environmental/social impacts?
2. Senior leadership buy in.  This is extremely important because if the FD does not see a business case or the CEO does not see the ethics behind the movement, nothing will get started.
3. Research/bench marking/context.  How can this work and what must be changed.
4. Measurement & Integration.  Make sustainability quantifiable and report on benchmarks.  The transition from soft issue to hard evidence will be made.
5. Relationship sustainability and innovation.  Innovation in all divisions to take concept forward.
6. Stakeholders and Partnerships.  Maintain strong relationships and partnerships along entire supply chain.  Create symbiosis between partners (WWF and NGO's in Woolies case).
7. Clarity on Business Case.  From the results of the measurements and integration, give it a Rand value.  How much is saved? Are sales up? Is productivity up?  Woolies has attracted investment from entities who want to invest responsibly (PRI) and this has tripled in the last few years.

I asked two questions after the presentation:

• How does Woolies measure Sustainability targets and report there on?  MS Excell spreadsheets were used initially as there were no software packages available.  This solution has been expanded to a custom bespoke package used by everyone and works for the company.
• Senior level buy in is the make or break of Sustainability take on.  What steps were used to ensure this?  Lots of change management was used and the biggest impact was when HR incorporated these KPI's into each employee's scorecard.  It really then became part of the company culture and now Woolies attracts recruits with these values and ethics which builds the brand even further.

Thank you to the UCT Graduate School of Business for organising the event.  A truly informative and practical session.