Paul Polman
Many companies are pushing financial performance and sidelining environmental and social objectives. The CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman, says you can do it all, even in a crisis.
In a wide-ranging interview with Guardian Sustainable Business, Polman calls on business leaders, politicians and NGOs to embrace systems thinking, and to recognise they cannot deal with the world’s environmental and social challenges in isolation.
Polman is scathing of companies that claim their hands are tied by fiduciary duty to maximise profits for shareholders in the short-term, arguing that this is “too narrow a model of Milton Friedman’s old thinking. The world has moved on and these people need to broaden their education with the reality of today’s world.
Thank-you Mr. Polman for your courage to be a true leader.
NOTE: The world that Mr. Polman describes is something that is being explored in great detail with the “Sustainable Economy Project”. Please join us in this journey – click here to download the white paper, “A Journey in Search of Capitalism 2.0”.
To read more about this interview conducted by INSEAD (Business School of the World) please follow this link