Phil led a team of Unilever volunteers that provided the Trussell Trust – a UK charity dedicated to providing emergency food – with IT innovation and business skills training. Alongside strategic partners Salesforce, Vodafone and Sapient, he is now working to streamline the way the Trussell Trust’s foodbanks are run and help the organisation grow.
Phil’s direction is helping the Trussell Trust set up regional hubs and implement an online platform to improve relationship, donor and volunteer management.
Financial, health and environmental benefits
Phil’s unwavering passion to drive positive social change makes him a fitting Unilever hero. In recognition of his achievements, he was given the opportunity to travel to Kenya to learn about BURN Manufacturing, an innovative social enterprise supported by Unilever, Royco and Acumen that locally manufactures and sells wood-burning cookstoves designed to improve the lives of smallholder farmers and their families.
Many households across Kenya rely on inefficient traditional wood or charcoal cooking stoves which are costly and emit toxic fumes. With our help, BURN manufactures and sells highly efficient stoves to hundreds of thousands of families. Its current model reduces fuel consumption by 56%, saves farmers $100–200 a year in fuel costs – a significant sum to these families – and cuts emissions by 60–65%.
As Phil says: “This initiative will really help enhance livelihoods in whole communities. It will have a huge impact on people’s lives from a financial, health and environmental point of view.”