WEBVTT

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The entire model of capitalism

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and the economic model that you and I

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did business in,

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and, in fact, continue to do business in,

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was built around what probably Milton Friedman

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put more succinctly.

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And Adam Smith, of course, 
the father of modern economics

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actually said many, many years ago,

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"the invisible hand."

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Which is if you continue to operate

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in your own self-interest

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you will do the best good for society.

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, capitalism has done a lot of good things

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and I've talked about a lot of good 
things that have happened,

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but equally, it has not been able to meet up

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with some of the challenges that we've seen

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in society.

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The model that at least I was brought up in

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and a lot of us doing
business were brought up in

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was one which talked about

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what I call the three G's of growth:

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growth that is consistent,


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quarter on quarter;

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growth that is competitive,

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better than the other person;

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and growth that is profitable,

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so you continue to make

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more and more shareholder value.

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And I'm afraid this is not going to be good enough

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and we have to move from this 3G model

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to a model of what I call

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the fourth G:

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the G of growth that is responsible.

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And it is this that has to become

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a very important part

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of creating value.

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Of not just creating economic value

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but creating social value.

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And companies that will thrive are those

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that will actually embrace the fourth G.

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And the model of 4G is quite simple:

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Companies cannot afford 
to be just innocent bystanders

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in what's happening around in society.

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They have to begin to play their role

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in terms of serving the communities

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which actually sustain them.

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And we have to move to a model

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of an "and/and" model which is

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how do we make money and do good?

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How do we make sure

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that we have a great business

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but we also have a great environment around us?

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And that model

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is all about doing well and doing good.

NOTE Paragraph

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But the question is easier said than done.

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But how do we actually get that done?

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And I do believe

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that the answer to that is going to be leadership.

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It is going to be to redefine

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the new business models

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which understand

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that the only license to operate

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is to combine these things.

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And for that you need businesses

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that can actually define their role

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in society

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in terms of a much larger purpose

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than the products and brands that they sell.

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And companies that actually define a true north,

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things that are nonnegotiable

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whether times are good, bad, ugly --

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doesn't matter.

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There are things that you stand for.

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Values and purpose are going to be the two

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drivers of software

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that are going to create

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the companies of tomorrow.

NOTE Paragraph

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And I'm going to now shift

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to talking a little bit about my own experiences.

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I joined Unilever in 1976

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as a management trainee in India.

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And on my first day of work

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I walked in and my boss tells me,

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"Do you know why you're here?"

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I said, "I'm here to sell a lot of soap."

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And he said, 
"No, you're here to change lives."

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You're here to change lives.

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You know, I thought it was rather facetious.

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We are a company that sells soap and soup.

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What are we doing about changing lives?

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And it's then I realized

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that simple acts

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like selling a bar of soap

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can save more lives

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than pharmaceutical companies.

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I don't know how many of you know

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that five million children don't reach the age of five

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because of simple infections that can be prevented

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by an act of washing their hands with soap.

NOTE Paragraph

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We run the largest

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hand-washing program

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in the world.

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We are running a program on hygiene and health

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that now touches half a billion people.

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It's not about selling soap,

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there is a larger purpose out there.

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And brands indeed can be

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at the forefront of social change.

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And the reason for that is,

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when two billion people use your brands

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that's the amplifier.

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Small actions can make a big difference.

NOTE Paragraph

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Take another example,

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I was walking around in 
one of our villages in India.

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Now those of you who have done this

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will realize that this is no walk in the park.

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And we had this lady

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who was one of our small distributors --

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beautiful, very, very modest, her home --

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and she was out there,

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dressed nicely,

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her husband in the back, her mother-in-law behind

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and her sister-in-law behind her.

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The social order was changing

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because this lady

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is part of our Project Shakti

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that is actually teaching women

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how to do small business

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and how to carry the message

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of nutrition and hygiene.

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We have 60,000 such woman

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now in India.

NOTE Paragraph

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It's not about selling soap,

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it's about making sure

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that in the process of doing so

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you can change people's lives.

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Small actions, big difference.

NOTE Paragraph

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Our R&D folks

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are not only working to give us 
some fantastic detergents,

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but they're working to make sure we use less water.

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A product that we've just launched recently,

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One Rinse product that allows you to save water

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every time you wash your clothes.

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And if we can convert all our users to using this,

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that's 500 billion liters of water.

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By the way, that's equivalent to one month of water

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for a whole huge continent.

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So just think about it.

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There are small actions that 
can make a big difference.

NOTE Paragraph

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And I can go on and on.

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Our food chain, our brilliant products --

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and I'm sorry I'm giving you 
a word from the sponsors --

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Knorr, Hellman's and all those wonderful products.

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We are committed to making sure that

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all our agricultural raw materials

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are sourced from sustainable sources,

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100-percent sustainable sources.

NOTE Paragraph

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We were the first

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to say we are going to buy all of our palm oil

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from sustainable sources.

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I don't know how many of you know that palm oil,

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and not buying it from sustainable sources,

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can create deforestation that is responsible

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for 20 percent of the greenhouse gasses in the world.

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We were the first to embrace that

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and it's all because we market soap and soup.

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And the point I'm making here

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is that companies like yours, companies like mine

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have to define a purpose

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which embraces responsibility

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and understands that we have to play our part

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in the communities in which we operate.

NOTE Paragraph

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We introduced something called

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The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which said,

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"Our purpose is to make 
sustainable living commonplace,

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and we are gong to change the lives

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of one billion people over 2020."

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Now the question here is,

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where do we go from here?

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And the answer to that is very simple:

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We're not going to change the world alone.

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There are plenty of you and plenty of us

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who understand this.

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The question is,

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we need partnerships, we need coalitions

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and importantly, we need that leadership

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that will allow us to take this from here

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and to be the change

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that we want to see around us.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)