Unilever and its Corporate Social Responsibility

Running Head: UNILEVER AND ITS CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
UNILEVER AND ITS CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
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UNILEVER AND ITS CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY1
Introduction
Corporate Social Responsibility (henceforth, CSR) is a model of self-regulation in
business. It attempts to make a company socially reliable and accountable for itself, its
stakeholders as well as the public. This is a management concept that looks at the social as
well as environmental factors besides correlating the interactions between the business
operations as well as the stakeholders. It is usually aimed to achieve a balance for the
company that in the aspects of economy, social imperatives, environment (the Triple-Bottom-
Line Approach) and company labor structure. The CSR of a company is responsible for
making strategic business decisions to uplift the company’s structure and market positioning
or reputation. With the advent of globalization and ease in international trade, CSR has
emerged as an essential segment of any organization, especially a multi-national company
that is large in size and holds a considerable proportion of the market share. The Small and
Medium Enterprises (henceforth, SMEs) are also promoted to adopt the CSR segments,
however, they remain extremely expensive and not all organizations are able to adopt these
initiatives. However, after the appropriation of the Triple Bottom Line (henceforth, TBL) tool
by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), it was proven that the
adoption of CSR by the SMEs in the developing nations has proven to be very helpful. These
were by meeting the standards of the society as well as the environment while striking a
balance, keeping in mind the economic structure. This does not compromise with the
competitiveness of the company or its sustainability.
Discussion
Unilever’s CSR Approach:
In case of Unilever, the CSR of the Company failed miserably as charges of sexual
harassments and environmental controversies surfaced on an international level. The article

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depicts situations where the people can surprisingly overthrow an elite government when it
fails to meet the needs of the people and chooses to satisfy their own needs before the
people’s who had voted them to power. The situation is very visible in case of Brexit and the
American Presidential election where Trump came to power (Forbes.com, 2019). It just does
not stop there, shareholders also need to protest and toss the CEOs in case they put their own
interests before the investors. This is evident from the instance where Howard Schultz, the
CEO of Starbucks put forth his personal politics before the shareholders and challenged the
various policies that has been promoted by the United States (henceforth, U. S.) President,
Donald Trump. However, it took no time for the supporters of Trump to gather and protest
against Starbucks with the slogan #boycottStarbucks that became the topmost trending
hashtag on Twitter (Forbes.com, 2019). The backlash from the Trump supporters did not
affect Howard Schultz but the CEO of Starbucks and the Company, affecting its sales.
In comparison to the Unilever CEO, Paul Polman, this was nothing as he had severe
charges pressed against him that tagged him as “a poster child of a CEO gone rogue”
(Forbes.com, 2019). He has been leading the Company since the year 2009 and is, hence,
responsible for the grave issues of environment as well as harassments at workplace across
the countries and not just in one country. The issue becomes serious when Polman refuses to
consider himself accountable for these and adopts superficial policies that only leave a ‘feel
good’ sense of things while ignoring to intake any sound decision to tackle the problem or
suit the upliftment or reputation of the business. Rather, he refuses to be shy about touting his
twisted priorities. Polman continues to be a person who seeks approval from the various
global elites. He continues to bask in the glory of being titled as a “sustainable evangelist” as
well as being crowned by the title of world saver due to his efforts in addressing global
climatic and social issues. This shows that Unilever has clearly gone off the rails.

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Reason for Unilever’s CSR Approach to be unsuccessful:
It was only a few years back that Unilever had settled down with more than 600
workers over issues relating to the exposure of mercury from a thermometer plant, which is
now shut, following a lawsuit in the year 2006. This was over the toxic release of mercury
that caught global attention only after an Indian rapper used this issue for his song, the music
of which was modified by Nicki Minaj for the tune ‘Amaconda’ where the lyrics addressed
the mercury problem (Forbes.com, 2019).
Followed by this, it was in the year 2011 when the Irish Times published a news that
surfaced the underlying sexual harassments existing in the workplace of Unilever with claims
from the African workers, stating that they had to bribe their supervisors in order to stop their
unwanted advances (Forbes.com, 2019). However, especially the Non-Governmental
Organizations (henceforth, NGOs) did not accept Polman’s efforts aimed at addressing the
claims of sexual harassments on the global front and neither did the people or other social and
not for profit organizations.
In the year 2014, there was a report by the Centre for Research on Multinational
Corporations, based in Netherlands that claimed that the existing structure of the checks and
balances has contributed to nothing when it came to stoppage of the abuses of the employees
at workplace in Unilever’s Kenyan address (Gitau, 2017). This comprised of the poor
housing conditions as well as the sexual harassments. The Competition Commission of the
country pressed the South African base of Unilever with accusations of collusion with one of
its competitors. There could have been an imposition of fines, going up to an annual
percentage of 10 on the Company’s turnover (Forbes.com, 2019). This did not take place
depicting the fact that decay begins from the top. Polman focused more on the social matters
that kept him distracted from addressing the major challenges in the business that surfaced
the international market and vehemently affected the Company’s reputation (Fraile, Jiménez,