迎著英格蘭北部寒冷的毛毛雨，步入利物浦郊外的聯合利華(Unilever)工廠。明亮的自動化裝配線閃閃發光，與外面的陰暗形成鮮明對比。數以千計的瓶子沿著一條傳送帶咔嗒咔嗒地奔涌向前，猶如一道明亮的紫色光帶。仔細些看，你會發現一個重要的細節。相較于另一條裝配線上高挑的老款，新瓶子更加粗壯，分發器更小。其標簽解釋稱，這款金紡(Comfort)織物柔順劑適用于38次洗滌，較上一代包裝的33次顯著增加。訊息再明確不過：廣大客戶需要幫助節省地球上最寶貴的資源——水。

這看上去可能是這家全球頂級消費品公司一個頗具心思的營銷手段。當然是，這一點毫無疑問。但對于聯合利華來說，其更新版濃縮液體也是一個關鍵創新。它是這家英荷公司在全球300多家工廠中進行的無數調整之一。聯合利華旗下擁有400多個品牌，服務于25億客戶。這個令人驚嘆的數字意味著，地球上每三個人中就有一個人在使用聯合利華的產品。聯合利華決心借助這些變化，向投資者和其他公司傳達一條信息：大公司需要迅速改變其營商方式，否則它們將穩步萎縮，直至死亡。

當大多數消費者一邊在超市轉悠，一邊將本杰瑞冰淇淋(Ben & Jerry’s)、多芬香皂(Dove)、立頓茶(Lipton)、好樂門蛋黃醬(Hellmann’s)和其他聯合利華產品扔進手推車的時候，他們最不關心的可能就是這個星球的處境。很難想象，生態災難有可能導致這些物品在將來某一天從貨架上消失。但對于為解決危機而生的聯合利華來說，災難襲來的可能性似乎足夠真切。19世紀80年代，聯合利華從這個風景如畫，位于利物浦郊外的紅磚村莊陽光港(Port Sunlight)——它得名自該公司創始產品：世界上第一款有包裝的品牌香皂——邁出第一步。彼時正值極度貧困，污穢不堪的維多利亞時代。因此，從創建之日起，這家公司就背負著遏制流行病和兒童死亡的重任。近130年后，聯合利華仍然敏銳地感覺到，這個世界需要修復。

60歲的保羅·波爾曼是這種緊迫感的首要營造者。過去八年來，這位身材高大，聲音柔和的荷蘭人一直擔任聯合利華首席執行官。在利物浦以南200英里，位于泰晤士河畔的倫敦總部，波爾曼端坐在一張扶手椅上，飛快地說出一連串經常回蕩在聯合國大會上的數字。它們似乎不該出自一家年銷售額高達580億美元的公司掌門人之口。事實上，法國政府在去年11月份授予波爾曼一枚騎士勛章，并不是為了表彰他推動公司利潤的能力，而是對他在全球各地竭力遏制氣候變化的嘉獎。

當我在2月份一個寒冷的早晨見到波爾曼時，他剛剛在幾天前發布了聯合利華2016年的收益報告。但他似乎對討論公司業績不太感興趣。（2016年，聯合利華的銷售額增長放緩，共錄得57億美元凈利潤。）在他看來，另一組很可能讓聯合利華和其他公司陷入危險的數據來得更為緊迫。他說，世界上有1.6億兒童營養不良。每年有800萬人死于污染。世界上最富有的10億人消耗了75%的自然資源。“我們正在浪費世界上30%到40%的食物，而數百萬人每天還餓著肚子睡覺。”這一幕似乎讓他非常驚訝。“為什么我們沒有道德勇氣去攻擊這種現象呢？”

波爾曼遞了一份文件讓我看。這是商業與可持續發展委員會發布的一份報告。該組織由首席執行官和非政府組織組成，旨在倡導通過實施聯合國發展目標來推動業務增長。2012年，時任聯合國秘書長潘基文選擇波爾曼加入一個26人團體，為該組織制定17項目標——他是其中唯一一位商界領袖。聯合國于2015年發布的可持續發展目標(SDG) 包括消除貧困和性別不平等。當我問波爾曼，相較于游說政客和國家元首，或者在非政府組織、世界經濟論壇、斯坦福大學商學院和其他機構發表演講，他通常在聯合利華的業務上花費多長時間時，他一臉茫然。“對我來說，這是一回事。”他抿了口綠茶。“我不會把這兩件事分開。我認為這是經營企業的一部分。”

證明這一點現已成為波爾曼和聯合利華的主要挑戰。有充分的證據表明世界陷入大麻煩。本世紀，全球變暖的趨勢驟然加速，貧富差距急劇擴大。但目前不太清楚的是，波爾曼是否可以成功地讓其他商界領袖相信，解決這些問題是他們的職責所在——或者至少說，他能否在聯合利華CEO的剩余任期做到這一點。當該公司去年任命馬爾金·德克斯出任新董事長時，投資者普遍認為，其首要職責就是為波爾曼找一位接班人。

如果波爾曼很在意他的工作地位的話，他并沒有顯露出來——也許是因為他正在聚精會神地推動其發展戰略見到成效。作為一位CEO，他的邏輯似乎無可辯駁。從存儲數據，到制造洗滌劑，再到種植茶葉，對于業務運營的幾乎每一個部分來說，環境風險和貧困現象都是一個根本性問題。他相信，越來越多的客戶將開始回避那些認識不到這一點的公司，而那些實踐性別平等和環境保護的企業將不可避免地變得更加有利可圖。就這個意義而言，他認為聯合利華可以指引其他公司沿著最佳路徑前行。“你知道的，我們討論的可不是一家慈善機構。我們在經營一家企業。”

波爾曼堅持以可持續發展作為核心管理原則，由此顯著提升了聯合利華的國際聲譽。在2017年度《財富》全球最受贊賞的50強公司榜單上，這家消費品公司位列第38位，較2016年的第41名有所提升。今年是聯合利華連續第六年躋身這份根據對數千名高管和分析師的調查結果而確定的榜單。

但在無情的股市世界，相較于盈虧底線，聯合利華的良好意愿幾乎可以忽略不計。在過去12個月，該公司股價下跌2%以上，而標準普爾500指數同期則上漲25%。“我交談過的少數投資者根本不在乎聯合利華的可持續生活計劃。” 杰富瑞集團駐倫敦分析師馬丁·德布這樣說道。2010年，波爾曼為聯合利華制定了這項簡稱為USLP的發展藍圖。現如今，它已滲透到該公司全球業務的方方面面。USLP包含50項令人眼花繚亂的目標，比如讓所有無害廢物不再進入垃圾填埋場，培訓500萬名婦女，將工廠廢水減少一半，等等。

德布說，過去兩年來，由于全球經濟停滯不前，聯合利華的銷售額增速隨之放緩。一些投資者開始質疑該戰略是否應該優于其他因素。聯合利華表示，80%的投資者認為這種策略有助于提高該公司的長期價值。盡管如此，德布暗示他覺得波爾曼已經演變為經典的達沃斯人，更專注于解決全球性問題，而不是業務運營的細節。事實上，波爾曼本人也是這樣說的：“我真的對發展問題更感興趣。就推動發展而言，沒有比借助公司的力量更好的方式了。”至于他的老板身份，波爾曼說，“我從來不想成為一位CEO，我真的不在乎這個頭銜。”他多次拒絕增加其127萬美元的底薪。

Step out of the frigid drizzle into Unilever’s factory outside Liverpool in northern England, and the brightly lit, automated assembly line gleams in stark contrast to the gloom outside. Thousands of bottles shoot down a conveyor belt with a click-clack sound, in a streak of bright purple. Look more closely, and there is an important detail. The new bottle is squatter than the older, taller style on another assembly line, with a smaller dispenser and a label explaining that this version of Comfort brand fabric conditioner is good for 38 washes, rather than the 33 of the last-generation package. The message is clear: Customers need to help save one of earth’s most precious resources—water.

This might appear to be a clever bit of marketing by one of the world’s biggest consumer product companies, and marketing it surely is. But to Unilever, its updated, concentrated liquid is also a crucial innovation. It’s one of countless tweaks underway by the Anglo-Dutch company in its more than 300 factories across the world, which churn out more than 400 brands for 2.5 billion or so customers—an astonishing one in every three people on the planet. Central to these changes is a message Unilever is determined to convey to its investors, as well as to other companies: Big corporations need to change the way they do business, fast, or they will steadily shrink and die.

To most of Unilever’s customers, the state of the world is probably the last thing on their minds as they push their shopping carts through the supermarket, tossing in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Dove soap, Lipton tea, Hellmann’s mayonnaise, and other Unilever products. It’s hard to imagine that eco-disasters might someday lead to those items disappearing from shelves. But to Unilever, which was born as a solution to a crisis, the potential for calamity seems real enough. The company got its start in the 1880s, right here in this picture-perfect redbrick village near Liverpool called Port Sunlight—named after the world’s first packaged, branded bar of soap and the company’s founding product. It was created in an effort to stop rampant epidemics and child deaths amid the grinding poverty and squalor of Victorian England. Nearly 130 years later, there is still an acute sense at Unilever that the world needs fixing.

The person most responsible for that feeling of urgency is 60-year-old Paul Polman, the tall, soft-spoken Dutchman who has led Unilever as CEO for the past eight years. Folded into an armchair more than 200 miles south of Liverpool, in the company’s London headquarters on the Thames River, Polman rattles off figures more commonly heard in the UN General Assembly than the C-suite of a company with $58 billion in sales. Indeed, this past November the French government pinned a knighthood on him, not for his ability to drive profits but for his vociferous global campaigning to rein in climate change.

When I meet Polman on a chilly February morning, it’s just a few days after he has released Unilever’s 2016 earnings. Yet he is not particularly interested in discussing the results. (Unilever reported $5.7 billion in net profit for the year on slowing sales growth.) The figures that seem more pressing to him are ones that he’s convinced have greater potential to put his and other companies in peril. More than 160 million children in the world are stunted from malnutrition, he says. Eight million people die prematurely each year from pollution. The world’s richest 1 billion people consume 75% of its natural resources. “We’re wasting 30% to 40% of the food in this world, whilst millions of people go to bed hungry,” he says, as if amazed that the situation is even possible. “Why do we not have the moral courage to attack that?”

Polman hands me just one document to read: a report of the Business & Sustainable Development Commission, a group of CEOs and NGOs that advocates business growth by applying the UN’s development goals. In 2012, Ban Ki-moon, then the UN Secretary-General, picked Polman as one of 26 people to craft 17 goals for the world body—the only business executive in the group. Introduced in 2015, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, include eliminating poverty and gender inequality. When I ask Polman how much time he spends on Unilever business compared with lobbying politicians and heads of state or addressing NGOs, the World Economic Forum, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and others, he draws a blank. “To me it is the same,” he says, sipping a cup of green tea. “I don’t separate that. I think it is an integral part of the way we run our business.”

Proving that point is now Polman’s—and Unilever’s—major challenge. There is certainly ample evidence that the world is in trouble. This century has seen an acceleration of global warming trends, as well as an extreme widening of the gap between the world’s richest and its poorest. But it is less clear whether Polman can succeed in convincing his peers in the business world that it’s their job to fix those problems—or at least, whether he can succeed in doing that during his remaining time as CEO of Unilever. When the company named Marijn Dekkers as its new chairman last year, investors concluded that his first task would be to find a successor to Polman.

If Polman is concerned about his job status, he doesn’t show it—perhaps because he is so intent on making his development strategy work. To the CEO, his logic seems irrefutable. Environmental risks and poverty are fundamental problems for almost every part of business operations, from storing data to manufacturing laundry detergent to growing tea. More customers will begin to shun companies that fail to grasp that, he believes, while businesses that practice gender equality and environmental preservation will inevitably become more profitable. In that sense, he thinks that Unilever can play a vital role in showing other companies the best path forward. “This is not a charity we’re talking about here, you know,” he says. “We are running a business.”

Polman’s embrace of sustainability as a core management principle has helped bolster Unilever’s reputation globally. The consumer goods company ranks No. 38 this year on Fortune’s list of the World’s Most Admired Companies Top 50 All-Stars, up from No. 41 in 2016. It’s the sixth straight year Unilever has made the list, which is determined by surveying thousands of executives and analysts.

But in the unsentimental world of markets, Unilever’s good intentions count for little compared with its bottom line. And over the past 12 months, the company’s stock has slipped by more than 2% while the S&P 500 has soared 25%. “A minority of investors I speak to give two hoots about Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan,” says Jefferies analyst Martin Deboo in London, referring to Polman’s signature blueprint for Unilever, dubbed USLP. Polman introduced the plan in 2010, and it now informs every aspect of the company’s sprawling worldwide operations. The dizzying array of 50 goals includes stopping all nonhazardous waste going to landfills, training 5 million women, and halving the water waste in its factories.

As a stagnant global economy has hit Unilever’s growth during the past two years, Deboo says, some investors have begun to question whether the strategy should trump other factors. Unilever says 80% of its investors see the approach as boosting long-term value. Still, Deboo suggests that there’s a sense Polman has morphed into the classic Davos Man, more intently focused on fixing global problems than the nitty-gritty details of operations. Indeed, Polman says as much. “I am really more interested in development,” he says. “And there is no better way than using companies like this to drive development.” As for being the boss, Polman, who has refused increases on his base salary of $1.27 million, says, “I never wanted to be a CEO, and I don’t really care about that.”

盡管這番話可能發自肺腑，但它也可能向投資者表明，波爾曼的精力并非完全專注于他的公司。“前幾年，當財報數字很好看的時候，人們聽任聯合利華實施它的USLP計劃。現在，他們想聽到一些與收入和回報相關，更強有力的語言。”

在聯合利華任職近十年后，波爾曼的宏偉計劃究竟影響幾何，目前仍無定論。他是否可以在竭力拯救世界的同時，還能銷售足夠多的肥皂、零食和其他產品，以取悅股東？他的聯合利華版本是否會成為跨國公司的新榜樣？

氣候變化

最讓波爾曼激情澎湃的，當屬氣候變化問題。在2015年12月于巴黎舉行的全球氣候談判期間，波爾曼向商界領袖和政治家竭力灌輸一個觀點：企業要想生存下去，就必須設法避免環境災難。波爾曼相信，否定者正在輸掉這場大討論——盡管特朗普政府對氣候變化持懷疑態度。他將其歸功于強烈關注地球命運，時常上網，有見解的年輕一代。他也注意到，CEO群體的態度也在發生戲劇性變化。波爾曼說，“五年前，我無法讓任何一位CEO參加氣候變化小組討論。他們擔心被那些留著長胡子，拖著涼鞋的嬉皮士攻擊。現在，許多人都在討論氣候變化。”

即使如此，許多公司還需要在心理上邁過一道坎，才有可能皈依波爾曼的主張（即幫助解決這些問題是企業界的責任）。大多數公司通常會把環境和貧困等問題與創收業務分開，轉而將其納入企業社會責任計劃(CSR)。在波爾曼看來，這種區分毫無意義。2009年，在金融危機最嚴重的時刻，他從瑞士競爭對手雀巢集團空降聯合利華，出任CEO。剛一上任，他就廢除了CSR部門，并指示16.9萬名員工將該公司的社會承諾嵌入其業務目標之中。正如聯合利華可持續發展計劃主管基斯·韋德在一個LinkedIn帖子中描述的那樣，這項戰略擴展到該公司的“每個品牌、每個市場。沒有例外。”

這是一項大膽改造計劃的組成部分。波爾曼說，他的目標是將收入從400億美元增加到800億美元，同時將公司的環境足跡減半。聯合利華表示，這些積極的目標為公司上下灌輸了一種“增長心態”；盡管目前還沒有實現翻一番的目標，但自波爾曼到來后，聯合利華的收入已增加了100億歐元以上。（但其中約有40億美元源自劇烈的匯率波動。）

波爾曼很快就明白，USLP計劃需要歷經多年才能顯現切實的成果。此外，其中一些目標也可能與增長背道而馳。因此，他決定不再向投資者發布季度業績指引，他說這種制度“極其荒唐可笑”。波爾曼支持其他抨擊者的觀點，即嚴酷的季度目標誘使上市公司持續不斷地為投資者提高股價，進而犧牲了更長期、更復雜的使命，比如改善工作條件和環境。

“你的問題是，‘你是不是在為社會經營這家公司？’”波爾曼說。“企業的真實使命向來是拿出對社會有意義，讓社會變得更美好的解決方案。”

完美村莊

在聯合利華的倫敦總部，激勵性壁報和健康食品餐廳隨處可見。數千英里之外，波爾曼的戰略正在實時展開。活生生的現實不僅揭示了他所說的不可避免的增長潛力，也暴露了這種戰略面臨的巨大障礙。

在一些歧視性政策由來已久，有害于環境的經營方式普遍存在的國家，這些障礙尤為嚴峻。聯合利華擁有約7.6萬家供應商，在190個國家從事生產或銷售（全球僅有6個國家除外）。近60%的營業額來自亞洲、拉丁美洲和非洲的新興市場——這項比重遠高于它的宿敵，總部位于辛辛那提的寶潔公司（不到40%）。這些地區擁有人數急劇飆升的中產階級購物者，他們代表著聯合利華一大塊增長潛力。但同樣是在這些區域，聯合利華的可持續發展目標面臨最棘手的考驗。

While that might be sincere, it could also suggest to investors that Polman’s energy is not entirely focused on his company. “People indulged Unilever on USLP in the early years when the reporting numbers were going well,” Deboo says. “Now they want to hear more muscular language about earnings and returns.”

Nearly a decade into his tenure at Unilever, the jury is still out on the lasting impact of Polman’s grand plan. Can he help save the world and still sell enough soap, snacks, and other goods to please shareholders? And is his version of Unilever going to be the new model for successful multinationals?

It is on the subject of climate change that Polman is most passionate. During the global climate talks in Paris in December 2015, Polman drummed home the point to business leaders and politicians that companies’ survival depended on averting environmental catastrophe. Polman believes that naysayers are losing the argument on climate change—notwithstanding the climate skeptics in President Trump’s administration. He credits a wired, savvy younger generation that’s intensely concerned about the planet. Among CEOs, too, Polman says he has noticed a dramatic change in attitude. “Five years ago I could not get a single CEO to be on a panel about climate change,” he says. “They were worried about being attacked by people in beards and sandals. Now many can talk about climate change.”

Even so, Polman’s argument that it is the job of businesses to help fix these problems requires a mental shift for many companies. Typically, most have carved off issues like the environment and poverty into corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, separating them from revenue-generating business. To Polman the distinction makes no sense. In 2009, when he landed as CEO at Unilever from its Swiss competitor Nestlé in the depths of the financial crisis, he scrapped the CSR department, instructing Unilever’s 169,000 employees instead to embed the company’s extensive social commitments into their business targets. The strategy extends companywide, to “every brand, every market. No exceptions,” as Keith Weed, who heads Unilever’s sustainability program, described it in a LinkedIn post.

It was part of a bold makeover. Polman said his goal was to double revenues from $40 billion to $80 billion, while halving the company’s environmental footprint. Unilever staff say that the aggressive targets helped instill a “growth mentality” within the company and that, although revenues have not doubled, they have increased more than 10 billion euros since Polman arrived. (But only about $4 billion because of dramatic currency fluctuations.)

Polman quickly understood that it would take years for the company’s sustainability plan, the USLP, to show concrete results, and that some of its targets could run counter to growth. So he scrapped quarterly earnings guidance for investors, a system he calls “absolutely ridiculous.” Polman sides with those who argue that the tyranny of quarterly goals traps public companies into continually trying to drive up share prices for investors, while downgrading more long-term, complicated missions, like improving working conditions and the environment.

“The question you ask is, ‘Do you run this for society or not?’” Polman says. “The real purpose of business has always been to come up with solutions that are relevant to society, to make society better.”

Thousands of miles from the London headquarters, with its motivational wall posters and health-food canteen, Polman’s strategy is playing out in real time, exposing not only the growth potential he says is inevitable, but also the big obstacles to making it work.

The hurdles are especially steep in countries with a long history of discrimination and environmentally bad practices. Unilever has about 76,000 suppliers, and it produces or sells in 190 countries—all but six in the world. Nearly 60% of its turnover now comes from emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, and Africa (compared with under 40% for Cincinnati-based competitor P&G). Those regions are home to a soaring number of middle-class shoppers, who represent much of Unilever’s growth potential. They’re also places where putting Unilever’s sustainability goals into action has proved tricky.

在波爾曼到達聯合利華后不久，非營利性組織樂施會開始調查該公司工廠的工作條件。它選擇越南作為測試案例——早在1995年，聯合利華就開始在該國運營業務。今天，大約有1.5萬名越南工人為聯合利華制造衛寶香皂(Lifebuoy)和家樂濃湯寶(Knorr)等產品。樂施會于2013年發表的研究結果顯示，這些工廠常常忽視聯合利華宣稱的原則，包括為工人支付體面的薪酬。該研究項目主管瑞秋·威爾肖指出，“人們掙的錢遠遠低于他們擺脫貧困所需。”他說。許多工人不得不打第二份，甚至第三份工，才能勉強維持生計。這項發現讓聯合利華大吃一驚，它原以為所有工人都在享受公平的待遇。“聯合利華不明白的是，盡管他們開的薪酬高于最低法定工資，但還遠遠不夠糊口。”

盡管波爾曼懷抱著良好的意圖，但讓供應商遵守倫敦總部的指南并非易事。2015年，在波爾曼的推動下，聯合利華發布了其首份工廠人權報告——非常類似于美國國務院發布的年度人權報告。在印度的承包商中，該公司發現數百個工廠的健康和安全條件非常差，還存在少付工資現象。根據聯合利華的報告，只有13%的案例得以解決。

工會官員和非政府組織都表示，聯合利華似乎在認真地解決這些在跨國公司生產鏈中屢見不鮮的問題。在樂施會的越南報告發布之后，該公司悉心審視了全球各地工廠的工資水平，并對供應商提出了更嚴格的要求。威爾肖對此稱贊有加。她說，“由于最高領導層極為重視，這家公司始終用開放的心態對待我們提出的問題。”

樂施會的報告沒有提及的是，這些改進可能也會提高聯合利華在越南的銷售額。在這樣一個擁有9000萬人口，中產階級迅速成長的國家，聯合利華可能無法承受惡劣工作條件引發的公眾不滿。開拓類似越南這樣擁有數百萬新客戶的市場，是這家消費品公司在新興市場實現增長的關鍵所在。三年前，聯合利華與越南政府合作，推出了一項名為“完美村莊”的計劃。在大約1000個村莊，它通過一系列以衛生為主題的活動推廣其產品。其措施包括向當地學校免費發放廁所清潔劑和牙膏等產品，建設游樂場，升級診所，不一而足。聯合利華越南公司客戶開發副總裁阮氏碧表示，“我們的影響力和品牌滲透率由此獲得大幅提升。”在這些完美村莊，聯合利華的銷售額增速遠快于該國的其他地區。比如，在學校，“我們教孩子們使用產品。”回到家后，他們經常“和媽媽討論這些品牌。”

一邊做善事，一邊推廣產品，并非聯合利華獨有的策略。對于該公司來說，它的應用范圍遠不止越南。2008年，聯合利華在50多個國家啟動了全球“洗手日”活動。波爾曼親力親為，經常飛赴農村地區，用香皂洗手——當然是聯合利華的香皂，其香皂品牌衛寶現已跟全球“洗手日”緊密地聯系在一起。到2020年，聯合利華希望抵達10億消費者，該目標據說已完成了近一半。在南非，一場嚴重干旱讓許多社區遭受重創。聯合利華隨即建立起一批用桶裝水制作的“陽光”廣告牌，并將這些水分配到干旱地區——此處的關鍵訊息是這個洗潔精品牌。

這種戰略讓人回想起利弗勛爵在1880年代為該公司設計的首個商業模式，其目的是改善英國家庭的衛生狀況。彼時的成果令人印象深刻，利弗獲得的利潤亦是如此。聯合利華希望歷史重演。“當時的衛生問題相當可怕，”波爾曼說。“今天，世人才剛剛開始關注撒哈拉以南非洲和印度的衛生狀況。”

千禧一代

要想打敗競爭對手，聯合利華需要做的，遠不止在新興市場銷售洗衣皂和廁所清潔劑那么簡單。投資者表示，最重要的是，聯合利華要設法吸引成熟市場的千禧一代。從紐約到柏林，再到東京，數百萬年輕人以閃電般的速度，徹底顛覆了幾十年來的消費習慣。他們越來越多地選擇本地小品牌，而不是傳統的大眾市場產品，而到目前為止，聯合利華的大部分產品恰恰屬于后者。盡管聯合利華每年的研發預算超過10億美元——包括最初的陽光港研發中心在內，它在全球擁有六個研究中心——該公司根本無法發明足夠的新產品來滿足其增長需求。因此，波爾曼越來越傾向于通過收購實現增長。

在過去兩年中，聯合利華動用其充沛的自由現金儲備（去年約為51億美元）收購了一系列零售價更高的小品牌。2015年，該公司相繼收購美國高端護膚藥妝品牌Murad和Dermalogica。聯合利華表示，這兩家加州公司去年均實現了兩位數增長。去年7月份，它斥資10億美元收購位于加州威尼斯的男性護理品按月定購服務商Dollar Shave Club。9月份，聯合利華再次出手，收購總部位于佛蒙特州的環保洗滌劑和清潔產品制造商Seventh Generation公司。一位知情人士當時向《財富》透露稱，這樁交易價值6億到7億美元。

盡管這些收購案令人振奮，但在1月下旬的分析師電話會議上，當波爾曼公布該公司2016年度盈利狀況時，他聽上去幾乎有些沉悶。當天早上，各大報章都在興高采烈地宣布道瓊斯指數前日突破2萬點大關的消息。但聯合利華的收入同比下降1%。（該公司表示，剔除美元走強等匯率變化因素之后，其銷售額增長了4.3%。）該公司希望今年削減10億美元成本。聆聽完電話會議后，一些投資者總結稱，在一定程度上，聯合利華正在通過提高利潤率，而不是提高銷量的方式推動增長。法國興業銀行駐倫敦分析師沃倫·阿克曼指出，“聯合利華的問題是，他們擁有一個主要面向大眾市場的消費產品組合。”除了獲得Seventh Generation等公司的高端產品之外，“他們真的需要創新來增加銷量。”

Soon after Polman began at Unilever, the nonprofit Oxfam began investigating working conditions in the company’s factories. It picked as its test case Vietnam, where the company had operated since 1995. Today about 15,000 Vietnamese work for Unilever making products like Lifebuoy soap and Knorr broth granules. Oxfam’s findings, published in 2013, showed that factories routinely ignored Unilever’s stated principles, including Polman’s dictate of paying workers decently. “People were earning much less than they ought to have been to work their way out of poverty,” says Rachel Wilshaw of Oxfam, which led the study. Many workers pieced together second or third jobs to make ends meet, she says—a surprise to Unilever, which believed it was treating its workforce fairly. “The company didn’t understand that though they were paying above the minimum legal wage, it was far below a living wage.”

For all of Polman’s good intentions, getting suppliers to comply with guidelines from London has not been easy. Driven by Polman, Unilever issued its first human rights report on its operations in 2015—much as the U.S. State Department does each year. Among its contractors in India the company found hundreds of cases of poor health and safety conditions in factories, as well as workers being underpaid. Only 13% of cases were resolved, according to Unilever’s report.

Both union officials and NGOs say Unilever seems serious about tackling the problems, which are common in the supply chains of giant corporations producing across the globe. After Oxfam’s Vietnam report appeared, the company reviewed its factory workers’ wages globally and introduced tougher requirements for suppliers, according to Oxfam, which published a follow-up study last year. For that, Wilshaw credits Polman. “Here was a company where, because of the leadership, it was open to the problems we threw at them,” she says.

Absent from Oxfam’s report was just how those improvements might also boost Unilever’s sales in Vietnam. There, with 90 million people and a fast-growing middle class, Unilever could ill afford a public backlash over poor labor conditions. Tapping into those millions of new customers in markets like Vietnam is key to growth in emerging markets. Three years ago Unilever rolled out a program in Vietnam it called “perfect villages,” in partnership with the Communist government there. In about 1,000 rural communities it now promotes products through programs around hygiene—for example, by handing out free packages to schools that include toilet cleanser and toothpaste while building playgrounds and upgrading clinics. “You can see the impact in terms of more penetration of our brands,” says Van Nguyen Thi Bich, Unilever’s vice president of customer development in Vietnam. The perfect villages, she says, are much faster-growing markets for Unilever than other parts of the country. At the schools, for example, “we teach them to use the products,” and children then “talk about that with their moms.”

The tactic of pushing its products while doing good is hardly unique to Unilever, and for the company it extends far beyond Vietnam. In 2008 it helped launch a global “handwashing day” in more than 50 countries. To promote the effort, Polman regularly flies into rural areas and scrubs his hands with soap—Unilever soap, whose Lifebuoy brand is now closely identified with the campaign. The company aims to reach 1 billion people by 2020, and says it has already reached nearly half that number. In South Africa, where a severe drought has devastated many communities, the company erected Sunlight billboards made from drums of water—essential, of course, to using Unilever’s soap—and distributed the water to drought-stricken areas.

The strategy harks back to the company’s first business model, crafted by Lord Lever in Liverpool in the 1880s to help improve hygiene among English families. The results back then were impressive, as were Lever’s profits. The company is hoping history will repeat itself. “The problems were horrendous,” Polman says. “Today they have just moved to sub-Saharan Africa and India.”

For Unilever to beat its competitors, it will need to do a lot more than sell laundry soap and toilet cleanser in emerging markets. Crucial, say investors, is appealing to millions of millennials with money to spend, from New York to Berlin to Tokyo, whose demands have upturned decades of consumer habits at lightning speed. Increasingly they are opting for local, smaller brands rather than the traditional mass-market items that until now have constituted most of Unilever’s offerings. Despite Unilever’s more than $1 billion annual R&D budget—it has six research centers around the world, including the original one in Port Sunlight—the company simply cannot invent enough new products to match its growth demands. So Polman has increasingly turned to acquisitions.

In the past two years, Unilever has used its mountain of free cash (about $5.1 billion last year) to snap up small brands—ones that sell for higher prices in stores. In 2015 it bought Murad and Dermalogica, a pair of California skin-care companies, both of which Unilever says had double-digit growth last year. In July it spent $1 billion to buy Dollar Shave Club, a Venice, Calif., company that mails its subscribers monthly shaving products. And in September it bought Seventh Generation, a Vermont company producing eco-friendly detergents and cleaning products, in a deal worth between $600 million and $700 million, according to one source who spoke to Fortune at the time.

For all that excitement, Polman sounded almost somber on the telephone with analysts in late January when he announced the company’s 2016 earnings. The newspapers that morning were giddy about the Dow breaking 20,000 the day before. But Unilever’s revenues were down 1% year over year. (Unilever says corrected for currency moves such as a strengthening dollar, its sales grew 4.3%.) The company hopes to cut $1 billion in costs this year. After listening in on the call, some investors concluded the company was partly driving up growth from higher margins rather than higher volume. “For Unilever, their issue is that they have quite a mass-market consumer products portfolio,” says Warren Ackerman, an analyst at Société Générale in London. In addition to acquiring high-end products from companies like Seventh Generation, he says, “they really need innovation to grow volume.”

但這僅僅是挑戰之一。在電話會議上，波爾曼告訴分析師，聯合利華正在遭受一些似乎從天而降的事件的鞭笞。去年5月的英國脫歐公投導致英鎊兌歐元和美元匯率暴跌20%。幾個月以來，作為聯合利華的一大市場，巴西一直在經歷經濟動蕩。去年11月，印度政府廢除了許多人用來購買日常生活用品的500和1000面額盧比紙鈔。據波爾曼預測，未來還將涌現一系列其他問題。他向投資者列舉了其中一些：“經濟增長緩慢，地緣政治形勢日趨緊張，反全球化和技術浪潮，地球環境壓力加劇，消費趨勢、購物渠道和媒體的分裂化。”在隨后的幾小時內，在倫敦上市的聯合利華股價下跌了4.4%。

幾天后，我問波爾曼，為什么他會勾勒出一幅如此嚴酷的世界圖景。他回答說，“沒什么新鮮事吧？大家如此吃驚，反倒讓我覺得很驚訝。”

在他看來，旨在遏制氣候變化和改善工作條件的運動似乎還不夠——還有更大的問題正在威脅企業的生計。其中一大問題是，全球金融系統似乎只是讓少數人受益。樂施會在1月份報告稱，全球最富裕的8個人現在擁有世界一半人口的財富之和。波爾曼認為，這個系統注定要失敗。他說，現在需要的是“一種更好的資本主義形式。”

“全球治理已然破裂。自金融危機以來，我們向全球經濟注入63萬億美元。但如此巨額的資金壓根就未能帶動增長。”波爾曼說。

盡管這一切聽起來令人陰郁，但波爾曼仍然對未來抱有樂觀的期許。他仍然堅信，聯合利華的可持續發展計劃，包括勞工權利和零碳排放等方面的倡議，將不可避免地推動業務增長，即使這兩項使命并非總是保持同步。

樂施會的調查團隊清楚地意識到，波爾曼的美好愿景需要一種很難把握的平衡術。在越南，一些供應商似乎不確定聯合利華的哪項要求處于優先地位：究竟應該以迅速且便宜的方式，還是以有利于可持續發展的方式交付產品。“聯合利華希望在恰好的交貨時間，以非常實惠的價格獲得產品，他們也希望工人享有更好的工作條件和薪資水平。”樂施會的威爾肖說。“但這兩項要求并不能完美融合。”通常情況下，“最終贏出的還是商業要求。”

威爾肖認為，在波爾曼離開聯合利華之前，他應該獎勵那些改善勞動標準的供應商——這可能會產生顯著的影響。然而，她懷疑該公司最終能夠實現波爾曼所說的“更好的資本主義形式”。

“說到底，聯合利華畢竟是一家由股東擁有的企業，而股東們對利潤的渴望是無止境的。”她說。

波爾曼修復世界的使命還遠遠沒有完成。但這需要時間。就連實現聯合利華的可持續發展計劃目標，也是一個非常復雜的長期任務。去年，該公司承認直到2030年，它才能將其排放的溫室氣體減少一半，大約比原本期望的時間延長了十年。

到那時，波爾曼早已掛印而去。然而，他仍然相信他的理念最終將改善該公司的業務形態。他說，聯合利華已經在招聘千禧一代方面取得了巨大成功。這些年輕人希望為一家致力于改善世界的公司工作。他說，聯合利華每年收到大約180萬份求職申請。

在我們的談話臨近結束之際，波爾曼再次強調，他的經濟發展目標肯定會改善聯合利華的運勢。一個尤為重要的原因是，該公司的命運取決于數億人是否有足夠錢購買生活用品。他說，“如果8億人不再挨餓，這將是我們銷售食物的大好機會。如果我們竭力改善他們的處境，并產生好的結果，我們的股東也將斬獲足夠好的收益。” 哪怕這需要花費許多年。（財富中文網）

作者：Vivienne Walt

譯者：Kevin

That is just one challenge, however. Polman told analysts on the call that Unilever was being whipsawed by events that seemed to come from nowhere. The Brexit vote last May caused the British pound to plunge 20% against the euro and dollar. There have been months of economic upheaval in Brazil, a big market for Unilever. And in November, India’s government scrapped the 500- and 1,000-rupee notes, which many people used to pay for regular household products. Polman foresaw a litany of other problems ahead, he told investors, listing these: “subdued economic growth, geopolitical tension, the resultant backlash against globalization and technology, a planet under increasing environmental stress, and the fragmentation of consumer trends, shopping channels, and media.” Within hours the share price plunged 4.4% on the London Stock Exchange.

When I ask Polman a few days later why he painted such a stark picture of the world, he replies, “What’s new? I’m surprised that people are surprised.”

For him, the campaign to rein in climate change and improve working conditions no longer seems enough—there are even bigger problems threatening businesses. Those include the way global financial systems appear to benefit a minority of people. In January, Oxfam reported that the richest eight people now hold as much combined wealth as half the world’s population. To Polman, the system seems doomed. What is needed, he says, is “a better form of capitalism.”

“Global governance is broken,” says Polman. “Since the financial crisis we have put $63 trillion into the global economy. We have got zilch back in growth.”

As gloomy as all that sounds, Polman is nevertheless optimistic about the future. He remains convinced that Unilever’s sustainability plan—including the initiatives on labor rights and zero carbon emissions—will inevitably lead to business growth, even if the two imperatives are not always in sync.

The difficult balancing act that Polman’s vision requires became clear to the team that investigated the company’s Vietnam operations, where some suppliers seemed uncertain which Unilever demand took precedence: delivering quickly and cheaply or delivering sustainably. “Unilever wants a product at a very good price at a good delivery time, and they want better standards for their workers,” Oxfam’s Wilshaw says. “But these two don’t fit together neatly.” Usually, she says, “the commercial demands win out.”

Wilshaw believes that before Polman leaves Unilever he should try to reward suppliers who improve labor standards—something that might have a marked impact. Still, she doubts that the company can ultimately deliver what Polman calls “a better form of capitalism.”

“At the end of the day Unilever is a shareholder-owned business, and shareholders are voracious for profits,” she says.

Polman is nowhere done trying to fix the world. But it will take time. Even achieving Unilever’s sustainability plan goals is an intensely complicated, long-term task. Last year the company admitted it would take until 2030 to halve its greenhouse gases, about a decade longer than it had hoped.

By then, Polman will be long gone. Yet he remains convinced his ideas will leave business in better shape. Already, he says, Unilever has seen big success in recruiting millennials, who want to work for a company that is engaged in the world; he says the company receives 1.8 million applications a year.

As our conversation wraps up, Polman emphasizes again that his economic development goals will certainly boost Unilever’s fortunes too, especially since the company depends on hundreds of millions of people having enough money to buy staple items. “If 800 million people no longer go hungry, that is a big opportunity for us to sell our food,” he says. “If we fight for them and do it well, our shareholders will do well.” Even if that takes many years more.