Doug Baillie
Doing well by doing good
Doug Bailie
Environmental and social sustainability will be big businesses’ licence to compete in future, says Unilever Western Europe President Doug Baillie.
Speaking at the Rhodes Investec Business School’s (RIBS) business forum lecture, Baillie spoke passionately about sustainable development being “the core” to future business strategy around developing and emerging markets.
The main growth in the world’s population was in D&E countries, particularly in urban areas. This means that big opportunities existed for business in developing and emerging markets. “The scale of development opportunities is huge. That is where future business is going to come from.”
But, there was “compelling scientific evidence” of the natural environment’s reducing capacity to supply the resources and services needed, making environmental sustainability vital.
The increasing demands from the growing developing and emerging population who had “aspirations for a better quality of life” also meant that big business would increasingly have to contribute to social sustainability as well.
“Just do the maths,” he says. There is an expectation that the population will peak at nine billion. “To enjoy the same standard of living as we do in the developed world, we would need three planets identical to the one we already inhabit.”
This means that while increasing output to meet growing needs, industry would have to simultaneously reduce its footprint by two-thirds.
He said Unilever focused on sustainable agriculture, water, energy and packaging and waste as four vital areas in which its footprint could be reduced. The global giant had several programmes, particularly in developing and emerging countries to address all four of these areas.
Two-thirds of Unilever’s raw materials came from agriculture. “We get involved in all the agricultural products we buy and have set sustainability targets for all key crops.”
Baillie said consumers were also increasingly demanding that big business take action to slow down climate change.
But, he said he feared that with the financial crisis the world was facing, the environment could drop off the agenda.
“If this happens we are in serious trouble.”
New business models had to be developed to ensure planet vitality.
