IF YOU had to select a single global advocate and envoy for the modern notion of sustainable business, it would most likely be Unilever CEO Paul Polman, whose message to business, and the world, is so wide-ranging and heartfelt it verges on the messianic.There is almost no issue of the contemporary business/society debate that Polman does not blast through: poverty, global warming, job creation, gender equality, leadership, and even corporate reporting.It is a blurring whirlwind of eloquence and conviction.Nothing about the link between society and the Unilever business is accidental: the company’s business model is remarkable for explicitly taking the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals and their predecessor Millennium Development Goals, and deliberately turning them into specific numerical targets for Unilever’s fast-moving consumer goods business.How could that possibly work? It just does — or seems to. And Polman now has a huge trump card at his disposal: success.To all the scep...
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