A bold vision
Unilever has received a prestigious C K Prahalad Award for its leadership in sustainability from the Corporate Economic Forum (CEF).
The C K Prahalad Award was created to honour the vision and life’s work of the late Dr C K Prahalad, one of the world’s most influential business strategists.
Towards the end of his illustrious career, Prahalad focused his talent on the link between sustainability and long-term business success.
Judges honoured Unilever and its CEO Paul Polman for matching a bold vision of long-term capitalism with equally impressive action on sustainability through its Sustainable Living Plan.
“Unilever under Paul Polman’s leadership is a true pioneer of emerging ‘next practices’ in the private sector,” said Corporate Economic Forum founder M R Rangaswami.
Presented at The Ritz-Carlton, Battery Park in New York City on 25 June, other recipients of the award were Neil Hawkins of Dow Chemical and The Sustainable Apparel Coalition.
View a video about the 2012 C K Prahalad Award winners on YouTube.
Making a sustainable future
The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan aims to halve the company’s environmental impact while increasing turnover.
Goals include helping over 1 billion people take action to improve their health and well-being, and sourcing 100% of its agricultural raw materials sustainably.
“We are very honoured to receive this award in the name of C K Prahalad, a man who did so much throughout his career to promote more responsible, inclusive and equitable forms of capitalism, which the world needs now more than ever,” said Paul Polman.
“C K understood that any system in which too many people feel excluded is not going to last. Our own Unilever Sustainable Living Plan owes much of its thinking to the insights he brought to bear, including his strong belief that it is always better to innovate with low income consumers and not for low income consumers.
“That is the way to build the inclusive and sustainable business models of the future.”
The CEF brings together more than 200 senior executives from companies that represent 18 different industries and combined revenues of over $3 trillion.
The Prahalad Awards were presented at The Ritz-Carlton, Battery Park in New York City on 25 June. Other recipients of the award were Neil Hawkins of Dow Chemical and The Sustainable Apparel Coalition.