Good morning.
During his 10-year stint as CEO of Unilever, from 2009 to 2019, Paul Polman transformed the consumer products giant into a model of sustainable sourcing, production, and profits.
His courageous embrace of stakeholder capitalism, combined with strong results and a 300% shareholder return, inspired other CEOs to take up the cause of ESG, only to downplay such efforts when faced with today's backlash. As Polman said last night at the Fortune Sustainability Dinner in New York, we now face a crisis of leadership in business at a time when we need it most. (Deloitte, which sponsors this newsletter, also sponsored this dinner.)
With record flooding, heat, wildfires, drought, ice melting, and other symptoms of global warming, there’s not much debate about the reality of climate change. It’s here. The question is what to do about it while delivering quarterly returns, crowd-pleasing products, and all the other things that keep leaders in their jobs.
Polman, who’s co-authored the book Net Positive and held senior advisory roles at the UN and elsewhere, called for a more collaborative mindset, cooperative leadership, and what he called “positive advocacy”—lobbying for causes bigger than yourself or your company. Only 5 or 6% of CEOs go to Washington to speak with politicians, he notes, and those executives who do tend to “only go for their own initiatives.”
But there is cause for hope. Most Fortune Global 500 companies have set significant carbon-reduction goals. For every $1 spent on oil and gas in the U.S. last year, $1.4 was spent on clean energy. Our other attendees shared what they’re doing: Bayer AG CEO Bill Anderson spoke about biodiversity and regenerative agriculture, Google’s chief sustainability officer Kate Brandt talked about the transformative power of AI in helping companies meet targets, Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel mentioned the chain’s holistic approach to sustainability, and Siemens USA CEO Barbara Humpton talked about the power of setting audacious goals. And there were many more conversations off the record.
None of it will be easy and emotions are running high. But protests against fossil-fuel investments and other issues are a sign that people care. Are we moving fast enough? The consensus was no. Do we have the tools to turn that around? Yes. As Polman told me: “We can’t be silent on something that’s so disruptive and difficult to solve. We have to work together.”
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Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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