LONDON, UK — Unilever celebrated 10 years of its “Unilever Sustainable Living Plan,” also marking its final year. CEO Alan Jope reinforced Unilever’s commitment to making sustainable living commonplace for 8 billion people, calling for collective action to ensure that the crises of social inequality and climate are not neglected amidst COVID-19.
“The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan was a game-changer for our business. Some goals we have met, some we have missed, but we are a better business for trying,” Jope said, speaking at a global virtual event.
“It has required immense ingenuity, dedication and collaboration to get to where we are now. We have made very good progress, but there is still more to do.”
Jope highlighted that more than 700 million people continue to live in extreme poverty at less than $1.90 a day.
“Businesses across sectors, governments across continents, NGOs, academics, researchers, scientists… we must all come together. We can’t put climate action on hold. We can’t tell the people who live in poverty to wait. 2020 is the year in which an unthinkable amount of public money is going to be spent in support of getting the economy back on track. But we should not be seeking to get the economy ‘back to normal.’ Instead, we must emerge stronger and more resilient than we were before; ready to take decisive and definitive action to look after people and the planet,” he added.
“As the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan journey concludes, we will take everything we’ve learned and build on it. We will do more of what has worked well, we will correct what hasn’t, and we will set ourselves new challenges. And while we don’t really know what the world will look like post-COVID-19, I am convinced that there will be no future unless we double down on our commitments to look after people and the planet.”
