A biography for Paul Polmanhasn’t been written yet.
“The planet's forests are essential for life.”
“Runaway climate change would condemn millions to a life of poverty and cause us to fail to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. This is not an acceptable outcome.”
“It is not possible to have a strong, functioning business in a world of increasing inequality, poverty, and climate change.”
“Safe working conditions, fair wages, protection from forced labor, and freedom from harassment and discrimination - these must become standard global operating conditions.”
“Our political leaders have great responsibilities, but as with many situations in life, people often rise or fall to meet your expectations. Our responsibility as citizens is to expect our leaders to lead and to give them enough support so that they may do so.”
“More and more businesses are seeing the potential of a more sustainable business model, driven both by the firm belief that business can be a force for good and by the realization that the cost of inaction often exceeds the cost of action - notably when it comes to the growing threat of climate change and water scarcity.”
“I grew up in a small town in the Netherlands which, for years, had been a center of textile production.”
“Unilever has been around for 100-plus years. We want to be around for several hundred more years.”
“Simply put, the low-carbon economy is better for growth.”
“My own fear, if I have one myself, is a fear of being obsolete. This is a world that changes very fast, and one of the main human desires is to belong to, to be part of, something. It's probably one of our greatest needs next to oxygen.”
“At Unilever, we operate in 190 countries with two billion people using our products daily. We take climate seriously because we know that it impacts those two billion people - and that means it impacts us, too.”
“If we all act together - business, governments, NGOs and citizens and, especially, the young - just imagine the good we could create.”
“I don't have a problem crying when I need to cry.”
“I see business as an ecosystem.”
“We can no longer pretend that business is immune from the rising tide of environmental or social challenges or that companies can create value in isolation from the communities of which they are a part.”
“Every few decades, we have an opportunity to make a drastic change to the way we live our lives. We get a chance to design the building blocks of our daily routines, the infrastructure that will support and accompany us for the years to come - from the trains and trams we ride, the offices we work in, to the energy that powers our homes.”
“If the short-term decisions you make damage the long term, you should resist those. But there are many short-term decisions that you need to make to be a successful manager.”
“If too many people feel excluded from the system and cannot access its benefits, they will ultimately rebel against it.”
“Business must go on reiterating its absolute commitment to embedding human rights in all it does, driving industry change through collaboration with governments, international organizations, and each other.”
“Businesses and governments need to work together and make a joint commitment if we want to address climate change effectively and quickly.”