21928 PWE Autumn 2019: Unilever's HR Initiatives for Sustainability

This case study analyzes Unilever's Human Resources (HR) initiatives aimed at achieving sustainable development goals. It identifies key issues such as the implementation of HR sustainability initiatives, their authenticity through transformational partnerships, and their contribution to enhancing positive social and human outcomes within the organization. The study explores how Unilever's HR resources drive sustainable practices by appointing new leaders, linking brands to sustainability purposes, and fostering transformational partnerships. It also discusses how the outcomes of these initiatives might differ in other business contexts, highlighting the unique focus on deforestation elimination, sustainable agriculture, and water sanitation within Unilever's operations. The analysis concludes that Unilever's HR plays a critical role in driving sustainable development through strategic initiatives and partnerships, while acknowledging the potential for different approaches in other organizations. Desklib provides access to similar case studies and solved assignments for students.

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Introduction
Unilever is one of the leading global company that is following the new global strategy
that is competing with the other companies for bringing sustainability development in the
business (Laszlo and Cescau 2017). The major sectors that the business would be focusing
towards the sustainable development are the elimination of deforestation, the Sustainable
agriculture management and the water sanitation and hygiene management. This study focuses
on the identification of issues and the solutions for the sustainable development in the business.
Issues 1: Identification of HR sustainability initiatives
It is found that Unilever needs to look after the sustainable development as this would
implement the new Global strategy that is competing in the business market through the
sustainability issues (Bendell 2017). The HR looks after the sustainability initiatives for looking
after the engagement of the organization for reducing the environmental impacts for every
aspects of business thereby increasing the positive social impacts. The business is required to
look after the reinforcement of the mission that is appointing new leaders and taking new
initiatives. The HR sustainability initiatives taken by appointment of new leaders for refreshing
the USLP’s mandate (Tarrant and Walker 2018). The HR is required to look after the new
marketing SVP for linking the brands to purposes. This is so because through the brands could
be linked with the strategies for the USLP priorities. The HR initiatives looks after the
appointment of new VP of the social impact of broadening the USLP’s ambition. The HR is
required to set new goals for the new leaders and this will enable the organization to implement
new changes thereby broadening of USLP’s ambition. This encourages the transformational
partnerships in the organization and leading to sustainable development. The HR initiative also
includes the process of acquiring the new stakeholders for the investment process as this may

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ensure that the business is able to undergo the steps towards the sustainable development
(Murphy and Murphy 2018). This is considered as one of the effective business process that
ensures the business would be able to undergo the measurable steps towards the sustainable
development process.
Issues 2: Authenticity of the identified HR sustainability initiatives
The authencity of the identified HR sustainability initiatives is identified by the
implementation of the changes that includes Transformational partnerships. The new
partnerships leads to collaboration process of changes in the organization (Sim, King and Price
2016). Beyond the structural changes this is found out that the USLP’s implementation process is
benefited from the ongoing process of learning and adaption. This is evident from the
sustainability initiatives taken by HR of Unilever shows that the new partnerships brings
collaborations for changes. The HR policies also ensured that the business looks after the
strategy adjustments that is by leading the System wide transformational changes. The HR
initiatives of bringing transformational changes was deforestation and the company being the
major buyer of palm oil becomes the key driver of the problem (Morioka, Evans and de
Carvalho, 2016.). The identified HR initiatives maintains the sustainability process for measuring
the impact of the business process. The achievements and the challenges are determined for
maintaining the sustainability initiatives. The achievement shows that the elimination of
deforestation, the development of the sustainable agriculture and small holder farmers. The
Sustainability initiatives also focuses in maintaining water sanitation and hygiene.
Issues 3: Contribution of initiatives to enhancing positive social & human outcomes for the
case organization’s human resources

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The contribution of the initiatives shows the enhancement of positive social and human
outcomes in the organization’s human resources. The implementation of the new strategies and
the appointment of the new leaders was the initiatives towards the sustainable development. This
is so because the implementation of the new changes makes all the members of the organization
leads to adopt the changes (Bernon et al. 2017). The new changes would involve the strategies of
developing the effective sustainable development. The positive attitude of the business is to
regulate the entire business operations by making differences to the big issues that mostly
matters.
The outcomes of the HR resources of Unilever leads to the effective measures in the
sustainable management process. The HR resources looks after the development of the
sustainable process that leads to the development of the business models and the strategies that
comes together for delivering values for the shareholders (Weybrecht 2017). The business
models works by combining the key inputs and filtering them by the lens of the sustainable
living plans of Unilever. The HR resources ensures the proper investment of the resources to the
manufacturing of the business. The operations are considered as the effective supply chain
functions and the assets of the raw material supply factories. The outcomes also ensures that the
profitable volume growth, the cost leverage efficiency and the innovation marketing investment.
This ensures that the business will be able to develop the effective management process. The
sustainability initiatives involves the three major areas in the sustainable development process.
The major areas includes the elimination of deforestation, the sustainability management
agriculture and smallholder, farmers and the water sanitation and management (Purohit 2017).
This role of the human resources helps the organization to focus on the twin goals of combating
the climatic changes and promoting the human development process. For achieving changes the

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member of the organization requires to go beyond in what the business could achieve the
business operations with the suppliers. The partnership allowed the business to take measurable
steps for the sustainable development by becoming the best advocates of the system wide
change. Therefore it is evident from the analysis of bringing up sustainability developments in
the organizations is that the HR takes effective initiatives towards the sustainable developments
(Morris 2016).
Issues 4: How outcomes might differ for the similar initiatives in a different business
context
In the context of other business it is found that the outcomes of the HR process might
differ as it may develop the different initiatives towards the sustainable development in the
business (Weybrecht 2017). This is so because the main focus of the organization is to look
forward towards the sustainable development by mitigating the deforestation practices and water
sanitation management, since the organization is of the oil resources. In the other business
context the initiatives towards sustainable development might differ as in the other business
sectors the HR resources of different business sectors focuses on the other parts of the
sustainable development like maintaining pollutions and other resources.
Like in the business sector dealing with the technological products looks after the effects
that usually makes towards the natural resources. This also involves that the business should
focus on the recycling of the resources that might reuse the resources. The other business sectors
like the hospitality sectors should focus on the emission of substances that creates effect to the
environment that deals with the effective business process taking steps towards the sustainable
development process (Purohit 2017). Thus the outcomes of the business process would differ
from the organization chosen in this study as the HR initiatives focuses on bringing new changes

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in the organization by the implementation of the new changes (Weybrecht 2017). Along with the
new changes the business focuses in building up of the business process by the transformational
partnership that allows the business to appoint new leaders and making changes to the new
process. The partnership process also allowed Unilever to attract more investors as the
sustainable development process involves the investments for bringing more effective changes to
the business (Morris 2016). The other business sectors might not require any investments for the
sustainable development process as this may ensure that the business would look forward to
other effective strategies for sustainable development process.
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion it can be concluded that the HR resources of
Unilever follows the implication of the new changes that leads to the appointment of the new
members that leads to the development of the effective strategies for sustainable development.
This study also showed the issues that the business may face in the sustainable development
process. This study also showed that the outcome of the HR resources may become different for
other organization.

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References
Laszlo, C. and Cescau, P., 2017. Sustainable value: How the world's leading companies are
doing well by doing good. Routledge.
Bendell, J., 2017. Terms for endearment: Business, NGOs and sustainable development.
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Tarrant, D. and Walker, N., 2018. Sustainable development goals: Moving. Company
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Murphy, P.E. and Murphy, C.E., 2018. Sustainable Living: Unilever. In Progressive Business
Models (pp. 263-286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Sim, S., King, H. and Price, E., 2016. The role of science in shaping sustainable business:
unilever case study. Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology; Clift, R., Druckman, A., Eds, pp.291-
302.
Morioka, S.N., Evans, S. and de Carvalho, M.M., 2016. Sustainable business model innovation:
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Bernon, M., Baker, P., Mena, C., Palmer, A., Skipworth, H., Smart, A. and Templar, S., 2017.
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Weybrecht, G., 2017. From challenge to opportunity–Management education's crucial role in
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International Journal of Management Education, 15(2), pp.84-92.

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Purohit, H., 2017. Comprehending the Thoroughfare to Sustainable Development: The Role of
Corporate Leaders. International Journal on Leadership, 5(1), p.17.
Morris, R., 2016. Cross-sector partnerships key to sustainable development. RSM Discovery-
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