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Business is an unlikely hero: a force for good working to solve society's most pressing challenges, while boosting bottom line. This is social purpose at work. And it's a dynamic journey. Purpose 360 is a masterclass in unlocking the power of social purpose to ignite business and social impact. Host Carol Cone brings decades of social impact expertise and a 360-degree view of integrating social purpose into an organization into unfiltered conversations that illuminate today's big challenges and bigger ideas.
Carol Cone:
I'm Carol Cone, and welcome to Purpose 360. The podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact. Paul, welcome back to Purpose 360. I am so thrilled that when I ran into you at the One Young World Conference last September, which is 2000 of the greatest, youngest change makers, it's such an exciting experience. And you were so gracious to give me a brief interview and you said, "Well, what else can I do for you?" And I said, "Okay, Paul. Well, we're having our 200th podcast and I just love to have very special people on my milestones." And you were so gracious and you said "Absolutely."
So welcome back to the show and thank you for helping us celebrate sharing purpose and the power of purpose with people around the globe. So welcome back to the show.
Paul Polman:
No, thank you, Carol. And I was looking forward to it. And obviously congratulations with the 200th milestone. That's quite something to celebrate.
Carol Cone:
Well, thank you. And you have been obviously such an inspiration for me when I got to work with your teams at Unilever and then to follow all of the things you've written and your podcasts and such. So I want to share with our listeners, it's interesting, I run into young people and I said, "Well, you must read Net Positive," your fantastic book that was named the Financial Times Book of the Year, and all the work you've done. And some of them say, "Oh yes, I love Paul Polman." So that's why I continue to invite you back to the show, so thank you.
But I'd like to share with our listeners just some more about Paul, so you know how genuine and authentic he is in terms of his journey to help the world understand the power of purpose, the power of stakeholder capitalism. Your leadership journey has been extraordinary, Paul, as CEO for Unilever for a decade where you created an exemplary global model for purpose, for companies as well as how you've made a fantastic return of 290% to shareholders.
You've become a global sustainability leader. I know that I've, by the way, with your book, I've gifted over 100 copies, I believe or more, to helping with those numbers. You helped develop the UN sustainable development goals. You helped shape the Paris Climate Agreement. You've championed human rights for years and principles, and I love that you chair the Oxford-side Business School and One Young World as just some of the things that you do.
You're also ranked number three in the world, among the world's most influential management thinkers. So for everyone who's listening, this is going to be an amazing conversation because your insights are invaluable, especially to the times that we're living in today. I'm honored to have you return to Purpose 360 to share you wisdom and your gigantic heart. So thank you.
Paul Polman:
No, thank you very much, Carol, and I appreciate the kind words.
Carol Cone:
But let's just start with your personal purpose because you have been shaped by many things in your life. And one of the questions that I always ask when I'm interviewing candidates, my favorite question is, what is the most important thing you learned from your mother and what's the most important thing you learned from your father? And I know that your parents shaped your approach that why business must be a force for good, but a little bit about why you do what you do today.
Paul Polman:
Well, my parents always taught me that the most important thing isn't accumulating wealth, it's really about serving others. They were victims of World War II, more or less. My father was 15 when the war started. So high school was taken away from him, and all they wanted was peace in Europe again, getting better education for their children, a world where people would live in harmony, where communities would function.
I think they embodied what you might call servant leadership, putting themselves to the surface of others and knowing that by doing so, they were better off themselves as well. And my father had two jobs. We had six children at home and he wanted to give them all a decent life, but he literally worked himself to death though. If I learned something from my father, it's his generosity, but also his hard work. He really inspired that in all of us.
And my mother was a teacher and at moments in life we hated her in the sense that she never let us go out of the house before she checked our homework and was always on top of that. But now I'm so grateful because that obviously has been such an important part of my life, and teachers are unselfish in all respects, giving the knowledge to others, wanting others to succeed and all that. And she passed on a few years ago at the tender rates of 92, and although I miss her, I discovered that my father who was gone earlier and my mother know that they continue to live on and I try to live their values, which basically boiled down to probably dignity and respect for everybody, equity, compassion, the basic human values that I think transfers the globe and that we need now more than ever.
Carol Cone:
Certainly we do. I'd love to just start with your take on what is happening in the world today. We're living in incredibly chaotic times, driven by geopolitics, economic volatility, wars, climate change, dramatic inequalities for billions around the globe. And as you have said, all of this is threatening humanity's very existence. So what's your take on it? What's your point of view?
Paul Polman:
Well, Carol, it's no doubt that a lot of things are happening, and for many it's hard to make sense of. And all I can say perhaps as a starting point, it's much bigger than just a simple attack on sustainability if you want. This is an extraordinary moment that I think is bigger than people realize and it's not just the tariffs itself. We have the environmental collapse and increasingly you see the signs of that. We have the geopolitical instabilities, we have the widening social inequality that you see in the wealth, the economic volatilities, and all of that gets amplified by a revolution, if you want to, in technology that comes on top of it.
So this is a major shock or a major reconfiguration of our economic system since the thirties in my opinion. And to be honest, this might not be an answer you want to hear, but if anybody tells you what's going to happen, I don't think they're worth listening to, we live in a period of high ambiguity, if you want to call it. And one thing that we know is it will be highly volatile in the next five to 10 years.
But within all of this, we need to realize that the current trajectory that the private sector was on now that our economic systems are on had become not sustainable anymore. And more importantly than ever, this is where our inner compass becomes more important than anything else.
I think we have the technologies, we have the financial means, we have the awareness of what needs to be done to create this more inclusive world for all. But the key question that we're currently struggling with is do we have the willpower? And it's clear that short term not having addressed these issues has created a lot of anxiety amongst a lot of people in society who felt that they were left behind.
And I've said many times that any system where too many people feel they're left behind or they're not included will ultimately rebel against itself. And we see that and unfortunately the shocks that we're currently going through are not the ones we would've wished for, but it might be needed. Now, so many things are broken, which to some extent is better because people are starting to realize that there are some fundamental issues that need to change and that you cannot just address that by simple bandages.
Carol Cone:
And I know it's a pessimistic time. I think that the attitudes, especially in the United States, people are really getting very fearful of their jobs, of tariffs, of costs and things like that. But you also, every time I meet with you or hear you speak, you also talk with optimism. And I know that you were at Climate Week 2024, you were at One Young World again last fall. Can you share anything that's optimistic and positive so that we don't have a downer for all of our listeners?
Paul Polman:
Oh, you don't want to have a downer because things are moving. The last year we spent $2.1 trillion on the green conversions, that was more than twice what we spent on fossil fuel. We have 95% of the CFOs and the CEOs saying, "We want to spend more in making our business models more resilient and more competitive, more future-proof if you want to."
We see countries moving in Europe, just solar and wind is now over 30%. We're nearly 50% in renewable energy, even in the US in the last eight years, 85% of the new capacity that has come on stream in energy has been green energy, an economy that's now 5 trillion, that is expected to go to 15 trillion by 2030 that has created in this wonderful country, the United States, three and a half million more robust and more resilient jobs.
This is where all the growth in the economy is, and companies that understand that and that are positioned very well for that future increasingly are seeing that reflected in their market value as well.
Having a little bit of a setback or a pushback against things like ESG or DENI are to some extent healthy. It doesn't mean we need to abandon. It doesn't mean we need to stay silent. It actually means that we have to become more determined, but also think a little bit more, think a little bit more about how we make these changes. And what is very clear is in all of this, be guided by our long-term purpose and values. The long-term direction and scenario that sustainability will rebound is a given. The monetary boundaries, modern nature doesn't care who's in the White House. So this is the time that we need to look at our values, but also build bridges to these polarized communities that we now see.
Carol Cone:
When you meet with leaders and you talk about live your values and it seems to them well values might be kind of soft, what do you say to them so that they will lean into those values and be authentic to them, make them real?
Paul Polman:
We have to recognize that we need to bridge, that we need to reconcile. And I always talk now about what I call the ABCs of leadership, Carol, but more importantly than ever in today's world, we need to adapt to understand really what made these other 50% vote the way they voted, what is really on their minds and what do they really care about?
And perhaps reaching out a little bit and adapting is not so bad. The B stands for bridging. As I said, I believe 80% in the middle has more in common than social media, the newspapers make us want to believe. So can we overcome that? We've spent a lot of time in Washington talking with people that are now in office and they do care as much about a lot of things that other people care about. And I think we can move forward on many more things than what people think.
And then the C stands for cooperating. The challenges are now so big that we simply can't do it alone, so let's work it together. And what you find with politicians is that if you come constructively to them with a coalition of companies, in my case where I focus on, and you come with constructive solutions, they're the first ones to embrace that.
Carol Cone:
I love the ABCs and we'll get into storytelling a bit more because you recently wrote a blog about that and who's saying what, especially about green hushing. But I want to just shift a bit. Since we arranged this conversation unfortunately, Pope Francis passed away. And you wrote a beautiful tribute to him that we're going to post in our show notes, and I just wanted to read a little bit about it because it leans so much into leadership.
"Humanity has lost one of its courageous moral voices, but his legacy lives on in the countless lives he touched and the moments he inspired. For me, this moment is not just for mourning, but for deep gratitude that we have been fortunate to witness a rare kind of leadership at a time of widening divides," as you say, "amongst nations, within societies and between humanity and the planet. He offered a steady hand and a moral compass. In a world increasingly fractured. He reminded us of something so simple but profound that we belong to each other."
I know you met with him a number of times. How did he touch you?
Paul Polman:
Oh, tremendously. And frankly when I hear it, I still got emotionally touched because we need courageous leadership as you rightfully say, in this tumultuous time. And when it's the values that he aspired to that anchor us, this is this turbulent world of distrust, of economic insecurity, of malfunctioning institutions. If you want to strain on our natural systems. And I think he was in that sense, a moral compass or a beacon of hope, or as you rightfully say, a source of inspiration.
He reminded us that our economic systems that we live in first and foremost must uphold these dignities of people and well-being of our planet. And in his Laudato Si' or Fratelli Tutti, a home for all and frankly we are all connected, was a wonderful manifestation of that.
He was a voice for the youth. He was a voice for planet Earth. He was a voice for future generations and certainly didn't hesitate to use that moral position he was in and include other face leaders in that as well. So I was very fortunate to meet him a few times. I was very fortunate to look at some opportunities that the Vatican themselves had to be even a more important part of it.
Carol Cone:
Thank you. And I know that when you were young, you had considered entering the priesthood.
Paul Polman:
That is true. I actually wanted to be a priest. I wanted to be a doctor. I really never wanted to go into business, but my father, who didn't have much money either, made it very clear to me that I had to provide in my own living. So I'm an accidental businessman if you want to. But the more I got into the private sector by serendipity, I found that business could be, and the more I was in it, saw that business can be a force for good.
Carol Cone:
You work with so many different coalitions, whether it is food, whether it's fashion, whether it's the built environment. I know you're working on aviation fuel, things like that. And you bring a tremendous amount of leaders together. And you say that when you get these CEOs or C-suite individuals and they're in a room and they begin to collaborate more than you say, cooperate, don't compete, which I think is really interesting today.
This is a different type of leader. This is a transformative leader. Can you give any advice to our listeners again, in our volatile chaotic times, very uncertain times, what are the traits of leaders? What do they need to do to somehow guide through volatility?
Paul Polman:
So it was Rumi, a poet of the 13th century who said it very well. He said, "Yesterday, I was clever. I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise, I'm changing myself." And we just don't spend time enough in this rat race on ourselves. I've seen in my own life as well and learned the hard way at times that you cannot be sustainable as a company or purpose-driven as a company if you don't have your own sustainability or your own inner strengths and purpose.
And yet we don't spend enough time on that. We've become human doings versus human beings. And one of the reasons I created with Valerie Keller, IMAGINE is to really work on this inner core. In fact, when we put the Unilever training together over the 10 years that I had the fortune to lead that wonderful institution, we had the inner core and the outer core where we work together.
And so most of the issues that we need to solve first and foremost require our own resilience. So I tell people indeed, work on your own physical resilience, your emotional resilience, your mental resilience, and frankly your spiritual resilience or what you... what's your Purpose 360, core purpose.
So these coalitions I put together is something that I was passionate about as a next step in my life after Unilever, because CEOs themselves, when they run companies have limited bandwidth.
So when we bring them together, the first thing to make it a success where people often don't invest in is investing in trust. I have farm in the south of England, I bring them to the farm and we discuss the food policies. When we had the crisis in the Ukraine and we had the disruption in our global food supplies, we brought the major leaders of all the food companies to a farm in the Cotswold, in the UK, put the boots on, walk the land, touch the animals, and it just changes a human being.
Carol Cone:
And it softens them up. It's being in nature, which is-
Paul Polman:
It's becoming human, it's becoming human.
Carol Cone:
There you go.
Paul Polman:
It's probably... and that we are grounded and the word human and humus and humanity and humility have all the same derivatives. So anyway, it is putting that perspective in place and why that is so important.
So it's bringing humanity back to business, putting people central in all we do. If we lost something in the debate about climate change was that we forgot that it was about people. We were talking about particles in the air, we were talking about worlds falling apart, but we didn't touch the hearts and minds of people. The beauty now of biodiversity and which is a much broader issue, is that people can relate to it because instinctively we know we are part of that biodiversity.
We are one of the species in the world, and inherently we know that if 70% has already disappeared in the last five decades, that it's just a matter of time for us to be the next victims of it. So we feel more engaged by that. We feel more connected, and that's probably a better way in also to work together in this very polarizing environment that we're in.
Carol Cone:
You're wonderfully true. The question about the attacks on the words DENI and ESG, I'm sure you're asked this question many, many times. What do you recommend to companies when they're being attacked on this?
Paul Polman:
Well, so it's not easy to be honest because the attacks are fevered, the attacks are personal, the attacks are sometimes imminent. This is more, if I may say, than an attack on sustainability. This is an attack on democracy, on the values, on your constitution, on values that we have in a global normative system.
And so the first thing I think that leaders have to do in this environment is, again, be true to your values and your purpose as a company. And that is why it's so important what you are doing. But then the second thing they have to do is to be humble. And I think the first thing I would suggest is that you recognize that not everything was working before either. The DENI efforts weren't working as well as we sort of pretended or the ESG efforts when really delivering the results at the speed that was needed.
So we have to recognize that the efforts that we were doing weren't helping, weren't giving us the right results. Now, where I differ with some of the CEOs is that silence is not the answer. Silence ultimately makes you complicit and if it's difficult to be speaking up alone in some circumstances then try to do it together. And what has surprised people a little bit is the deafening silence. I think it's starting to change right now. We can talk about that, but it certainly has been too long.
The most important thing in all of this, and I'll give you some ideas what we have to do, but the more important story in all of this is that we control the narrative. Right now there is a narrative being put out that it doesn't make sense that people don't believe in electric vehicles anymore, that it's more expensive and it takes jobs away, that it's a plot from a foreign country like China to get economic supremacy above systems in the US. So there's a narrative being created here and we start to believe this narrative.
The newspapers pick up on this narrative, social media amplifies it, and that's a narrative that is being driven by a narrow self-interest. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We are moving forward, also in this country. The economics, as I said, drive it. We're moving to a society that is free from air pollution. We're moving to a society that can get affordable energy for everybody. We're moving to a society where there is political security because you are energy independent. We're moving to a society where there is better human health because there's a better eco-health and a better biodiversity. We can solve these things if we work for the interest of all of us and not for the interest of a few.
Carol Cone:
I have to say this little tiny story that you've given. You said that when you read to your children and grandchildren, there's not a single story that ends with, "And the hero gave up." So have our heroes given up or do you still feel that there's others marching with you, Paul, that are saying, "Okay, maybe we want to say DENI maybe we won't say ESG, we'll change the terminology, but we'll continue the work."
Paul Polman:
No, I tend to believe there are, and without being naive about it, there is a book, Rutger Bregman, my fellow Dutchman, who wrote a book called, Humankind. But I do believe you have to believe in the inherent goodness of people otherwise life is not worth living for.
So I haven't met CEOs who want more air pollution or more unemployment, more people going to bed hungry, more destruction of biodiversity. It simply doesn't exist. But then why collectively are we behaving like this? It's because of the boundaries in which we operate. And so we have to move these boundaries, the boundaries of short-termism in the financial market, the boundaries of not putting a value on this natural capital.
Leaders that are courageous, that are adaptive, that are anchored in the moral clarity, not just the managerial competences. And I think we have that. And right now when ESG and DENI are under attack, it is the instinct of many to retreat, I understand that, or to whisper behind closed doors or to hide the good work for what they're doing in light of the political pressures and retaliations that are there. But that is not good leadership.
That's risk aversion, dressed up as pragmatism, and we cannot afford that right now. So the Net Positive mindset that we're asking for is really the antidote to this chaos. It actually moves you from defense to offense, if I may say, from a compliance to competitiveness, from surviving this storm, which is not enough to actually shaping what comes next. And this is where we need more leaders that really are focused on the here and now, but don't get sidetracked by only the here and now, that are focused also at these longer term business cycles, that are focused on the system crisis.
And as a result, the systems changes that we need and that net positive wealth is not a luxury. That's an absolute necessity and we have a few years to get there. Now, fortunately, many more of these leaders are coming together. They understand, these leaders and they understand and their companies as well that the future of their children, their grandchildren, but also of their companies is at stake. And that especially these values they care for need to be fought for now more than ever because they actually go to the heart of the success of the businesses that they represent in the first place.
Carol Cone:
Let ask another question, and you alluded to this. What is the role of employees? You talked about not just top down, but bottom up, in the regenerative restorative and reparative journey, your net positive companies. What is the role of employees?
Paul Polman:
Well, what we have seen, I would call employees as citizens of this world. The CEOs in companies, they're being held to account by their employees. We saw that before we went into this current wave of pushback where frankly people were walking out because of government contracts or because of absence of commitments on climate change.
I can only say that that pressure is building up more now. Some of these CEOs that have moved 180 degrees as a result of an election have bent over to be in the inauguration campaign, have switched their values that were being set.
If you look at these companies, they've seen a significant drop in engagement. They've seen a higher turnover. I think they have become less of an employer brand, and whilst they might get away with it for the shorter period, whilst they sometimes might have a monopoly so it doesn't show up in the bottom line yet, over time it erodes these companies and that erosion is going faster than I think people realize.
Carol Cone:
And you also fielded that research about, and that came out with, was it conscious quitting? Can you explain the results of that? Because while some are quitting, the ones that are thinking about quitting is a huge number.
Paul Polman:
So what we found already before this last election in the US, we looked at 8,000 people in the US and the UK across different age ranges. And what we found that 30% of all these people had quit companies because the values of the people themselves was not aligned with the values of the company or the CEO. In fact, only 8% of these people thought that their CEOs were moral leaders.
Obviously the CEOs themselves gave themselves much higher scores. But the reason why we called it conscious quitting was because 60% of the employees were saying they were considering leaving the companies because of these companies not being aligned with the speed of change of what needed to be done or giving agency to their employees to be involved in it. And they said, "I don't want to work in an environment like this."
So even if they don't quit the companies, you are going to pay the price for it in a lower level of engagement undoubtedly. So that's a hidden time bomb that every company is sitting on and CEO's would be very well advised to be very mindful about that. And I think it's true for far more companies than individual CEOs realize.
Carol Cone:
I'd like to shift now as we wind down this amazing conversation to the role of humanity intertwined in business. Why is it so important for companies even today, even more so to be human?
Paul Polman:
Well, we have to. It goes back to what's our purpose in life. It goes back to why you have your 360 podcasts and why it's so important to remind people on that. Why are we here on earth? Profits or shareholder value I always say it's a little bit like white blood cells in our bodies. We need white blood cells to live. I think we understand that, but we don't live for white blood cells. You don't meet people and say, "How are white blood cells today?"
What we need to do is go back to the core of why business was here. Business was created to solve societal problems, not to create societal problems. Business started, any great business started by addressing societal issues that were affecting human beings. Lever in the Victorian age had to deal with the issues of hygiene and invented the bar soap and it served him well.
So we need to go back to what we are all about and what we are all about is the heart of the sustainable development goals, not leaving anybody behind, it is to human central. We might call them the consumers in some companies, but at the end of the day, it's the citizens of this world. So companies themselves also, I always have felt and advocated for, are made up of human beings. They're not some extract structure that has to go onto spreadsheets. They're human beings that make decisions, that work together, that have families that try to think now, but also for the future, for themselves and their communities.
So why don't you embed that into your principles in a company, a principle, a very simple principle like the golden rule should be actually an overarching principle for any business, do unto others and the planet as you would've done unto yourselves. And if you cannot justify a decision because you would not want to suffer yourself from unacceptable labor standards in your value chain, unacceptable air pollution that kills people in other parts of the world. That's what I call humanity in everything you do. What does that mean for people? Because that's ultimately why we are here, to ensure that everybody has an opportunity for a better life.
Carol Cone:
I love that. I hate to wind this down. I'm going to have to ask you back for maybe the 300th, but I want to read a quote that you stated that was so profound about purpose. "The world we want will only be achieved when we choose action over indifference, courage over comfort and solidarity over division." Paul, what would you like to end this marvelous conversation about today?
Paul Polman:
I just do a simple reminder if I have two minutes, which is that-
Carol Cone:
Of course.
Paul Polman:
... we are very fortunate and everybody that is listening to this wonderful podcast, and thanks again, Carol, we're very fortunate to be where we are. We were born in countries probably where we had a piece of bar soap and we didn't have to deal with infectious diseases that kill still 5 million children a year. We had food so we didn't have to deal with stunting of which affect 160 million children and makes them mentally scarred for the rest of their lives.
We had a toilet, so we didn't have to deal with issues of open defecation, which one and a half billion people have to deal with. We probably had access to free education, like myself, still deprived of 250 million children in this world. So in other words, we had won the lottery tickets. We have won the lottery ticket in our lives. And if we have had the wonderful fortune of having won the lottery ticket of life, whilst we frankly haven't done anything for it, we belong to the 5% of the lucky ones in this world.
Then it's our duty, it's our obligation to put ourselves to the service of the other 95%. A world that is not inclusive, where we don't ensure that more people can participate in this wonderful economic system, if you call it that way, or in this wonderful wealth is probably better, then it will never function. So we need to be very conscious about the luck that we have, but also about the obligations that it brings.
I'm looking out of the window here. I see the Statue of Liberty, and it reminds me of Victor Frankel when they built the Statue of Liberty on the east coast of the United States. They forgot to build the Statue of Responsibility on the West coast. So if there is one message in this broadcast, I think they go hand in hand.
Carol Cone:
I love that. I just love that vision and that desire. Paul, you been are so generous and I'd just like to share with our listeners, you are so generous with leading organizations, convening organizations. You do a lot in education. You're bringing new points of view to MBA students and others. We are so fortunate to have you in our lives.
Paul Polman:
No, no, likewise. What you're doing is tremendous and your 200th podcast, I'm looking for the celebration of the 1000th podcast in the not-too-distant future.
Carol Cone:
Well, that would be wonderful. Of course, I'll invite you to that, but I am just a small servant in this world where you are talking about. We are so, so fortunate to have you in our lives, Paul Polman. We are just extraordinarily appreciative and thankful for all that you've done in the world. So thank you for joining Purpose 360 and celebrating my 200th podcast.
Paul Polman:
Thanks, Carol. Be safe and thanks for the opportunity and hopefully see you soon.
Carol Cone:
This was brought to you by some amazing people and I'd love to thank them. Anne Hundertmark, and Kristin Kenny, and Carol Cone, on Purpose. Pete Wright and Andy Nelson, our crack production team at True Story FM. And you, our listener, please rate and rank us because we really want to be as high as possible as one of the top business podcasts available so that we can continue exploring together the importance and the activation of authentic purpose. Thanks so much for listening.
This transcript was exported on Apr 30, 2025 - view latest version here.
p360_200 Paul Polman RAW (Completed 04/30/25)
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