ECR AP - The need for collaboration - ECR Community

Joint Keynote Address
Collaboration between manufacturers
and retailers to touch
lives and improve value
HARISH MANWANI, COO, UNILEVER SCOTT PRICE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, WALMART ASIA
Scott Price: I like the theme of this year’s conference – Touching
lives, Improving value. Because whether retailer or manufacturer,
that is ultimately the purpose of what we do. We touch people’s
lives.
Given challenges the world faces today – of exploding population,
higher consumption, unemployment etc. no one company
or organization can create change all by itself. We have to collaborate
with each other where possible to amplify the manner in
which we can touch and improve the lives of our customers and
consumers.
We thought it would be appropriate to share with you four key
areas where our working together can be very productive. These
areas are:
Products, Consumer Value, People and Planet
Examples we share are primarily examples from Walmart and
Unilever, but we hope this provokes fresh thoughts on how to
better collaborate and leverage the ECR Asia Pacific association
for us to make even greater impact both as individual companies
and as an Industry.
Harish Manwani: PRODUCT
Unilever was founded over 100 years ago in 1885, when William
Hesketh Lever launched the world’s first branded and packaged
laundry soap, called Sunlight. In doing so he created not just one
of the world’s first consumer brands, but also a company with
strong social values with a mission to have our brands act as an
agent of social change. He also set out a vision for his new company
: It was:
… to make cleanliness commonplace, to lessen work for women,
to foster health and contribute to personal attractiveness,
that life may be enjoyable and rewarding for the people who
use our products.
All this from a bar of soap.
That mission has not changed to this day and I’ll come on to that
in a moment. Everyday products that we make and our business
practices are more important than ever in helping tackle some of
the big issues we face as a global community .
The
world
needs
growth
By
2020,
there
will be
7.6 bn
people
in the world. 1.8 bn consumers will move up to the socioeconomic
ladder, but there will still be 2bn consumers at the bottom
of the pyramid. Many people across the world today still lack
access to basic everyday needs such as clean drinking water, good
nutrition and basic hygiene. Simple products like soup, shampoo,
tea can provide a better quality of life that these consumers deserve.
This is an opportunity to improve everyday lives of billions,
and at the same time it is an attractive business proposition.
However, growth at this scale is not without its consequences.
We need to grow differently We are today consuming resources
at a rate greater than the earth’s ability to replenish them. If the
whole world consumed at the rate that Europe does, we would
need two more planets. If we consumed at the rate of the US, we
would need five.
But we cannot wish away consumption. We cannot deny billions
of people the opportunity to improve the quality of their lives.
However, our shared vision has to be to create a future in which
people improve the quality of their lives without increasing their
environmental impact. Hence we need to grow differently. We
need to find a way to grow within the limited resources of one
planet.
No. 1 in Dow Jones sustainability Index for 14 years consecutively
Last year, we set a new vision for Unilever, it’s expressed
through our Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which just a few
weeks ago celebrated its first anniversary and published an inaugural
annual report.
Our vision is to double our business while reducing our environmental
impact and increasing our positive social impact. We
strongly believe that our brands and the way we do the business
has to be at the heart of the social change that we wish to see
around us.
Three key features distinguish the plan
First, it covers all our activities. It spans our entire portfolio of
brands and all 170 countries in which we sell our products.
Second, when it comes to the environment, the plan covers not
just the direct impacts of our factories, offices, lorries and laboratories.
It accepts that Unilever has a responsibility across the
lifecycle – from the sourcing of raw materials all the way through
to the energy and water needed by people to cook, clean and wash
with our products. We have reviewed our overall value chain so
see how we can achieve sustainability end-to-end across the value
chain. This analysis shows that our own impacts are small. 68%
of environmental impact is through people who use our brands.
This means we have to design products which allow consumers to
get the results they want with less energy and water. Changing
consumer behavior can make a big difference to global environmental
agenda.
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