Unilever pursues sustainability through grassoots approach

Minh Tri was one of five communes selected for Unilever’s Perfect Village model during the pilot phase

Unilever Vietnam’s well-known Perfect Village model represents a new rural development public-private partnership that has been strategically developed in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) since 2013.

“This model’s success reflects Unilever’s public-private partnership initiatives with Vietnam’s governmental agencies,” said Unilever Vietnam chairman JV Raman.

Piloted from October 2013 to June 2014, the model was deployed in five communes including Minh Tri in Hanoi’s Soc Son district, Thanh Nguyen in the northern province of Ha Nam’s Thanh Liem district, Dien Lac in the central province of Khanh Hoa’s Dien Khanh district, Binh Phuc Nhat in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang’s Cho Gao district, and Trung Hieu in the southern province of Vinh Long’s Vung Liem district.

The project stakeholders and Unilever in these communes worked together to enhance local livelihoods and improve education and training, health care, infrastructure, culture, the environment and communications in line with Vietnam’s national new rural development targets.

The model will be implemented in 150 communes nationwide by 2015 and about 1,000 communes by 2020, according to Unilever Vietnam.

This roadmap will enable Unilever to fulfil its commitment to improving the livelihoods of millions of Vietnamese people. It will also help the company to reap higher growth and make a major contribution to the Vietnamese government’s national new rural development programme.

Contributions to local communities

The Perfect Village model is one of Unilever Vietnam’s corporate social responsibility activities carried out in partnership with local and central governmental agencies over the past two years.

Other projects include For a Healthy Vietnam organised with the Ministry of Health, Enhancing Women’s Empowerment in conjunction with the Vietnam Women’s Union, the Green Clean Healthy School programme in association with the Ministry of Education and Training, New Rural Development and Sustainable Tea Sourcing with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Protecting and Saving Water Resources campaign held in partnership with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Raman said these partnership programmes would have been impossible without the great support provided by local authorities.

“Their success wasn’t only thanks to ministry leaders, it was made possible through the great efforts people made to mobilise the community in local communes. The activities widely featured public consultation, ensuring that people’s feedback and comments about the programmes were incorporated to ensure the programmes were tailored to the needs of local conditions,” he stressed, adding that he was delighted that Unilever had made such a major contribution.

“We are proud to play a part in helping Vietnam boost economic growth and protect the environment via our sustainable living plan. Besides the Perfect Village model, we are also working with local agencies to implement many more community-oriented programmes. This will help successfully implement our sustainable development plan in the country, while also increasing our business here,” Raman stressed.

“We also look forward to working more closely with the Vietnamese government, with our customers and partners, with our consumers and with our employees for the common goal of making Vietnamese lives better,” he continued.

Since starting operations in Vietnam in 1995, Unilever Vietnam has achieved annual double-digit growth. It has created direct employment for more than 1,600 people and work for 10,000 others.

A strong vision

These CSR programmes are part of Unilever’s vision, and underline the firm’s commitment to double its efforts to promote positive social values while reducing its impact on the environment.

To turn this vision into a reality, Unilever announced its new development strategy or sustainable living development plan initiated in 2010.

Under the plan - a major element of Unilever’s business strategy globally - the firm set three key targets for 2020, including helping more than one billion people in the world improve their health, hygiene and living conditions. The firm also included a commitment to half the impact of its operations on the environment and source 100 per cent of raw farm produce from sustainable supplies.

Raman said by 2020, there would be another billion people on the planet. While this opened up opportunities for Unilever’s brands to meet changing consumer needs, it also meant people would be faced with even more acute challenges on health, hygiene and nutrition, including sourcing drinking water and sustainable resources, mitigating the effects of climate change and securing better livelihoods.

Those challenges required businesses to operate differently due to the challenges posed by a context of diminishing natural resources, and require businesses and governments to work more closely together.

In order to implement its sustainable living development plan in Vietnam, in September 2011, Unilever also officially announced its 2012-2020 targets, which are aimed to improve hygiene and health conditions for 20 million Vietnamese people, reduce the company’s impact on the environment via water and waste savings and a reduction in waste and material consumption.

“At Unilever, we have recognised that growth at any cost is not viable. We must find a new way of doing business that decouples growth from environmental impacts, while increasing the positive social impact of our brands,” Raman said.

He said in the context of diminishing resources, businesses had a very important role to play. “If enterprises are not sustainable, they can’t succeed in the future,” he said.