Unilever merges sustainability and external communications role
Unilever is combining the roles of Chief Sustainability Officer and Global Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs.
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Following the announcement of revisiting its environmental goals and targets, Unilever is now combining its sustainability and external communications roles, according to a Financial Times report.
According to an internal email sent by Unilever to all its staff recently, the company now plans to combine the two previously separate roles of Chief Sustainability Officer and Global Head of Communications and Corporate Affairs into one role, the FT report stated, citing access to the email.
“Given the increasing extent to which the external policy environment impacts our commercial and sustainability ambitions, I have decided to bring corporate affairs, external communications and sustainability together under one leadership role,” Schumacher has reportedly said last week. Chief Sustainability Officer Rebecca Marmot will now take on the responsibility for external affairs from Paul Matthews, Global Head of Communications & Corporate Affairs, who has stepped down from the business, as per the report.
In April, Unilever announced revisiting its environmental and social pledges. CEO Hein Schumacher had then confirmed plans to revise the company’s ethical pledges on a range of issues including plastic usage and pay.
“When you have a huge drought for a number of months but everything else is going fine, the attention is on climate. These days it’s about wars and rightly so, that’s at the forefront.
“I’m not going to shout that we’re saving the world, but I want to make sure that in everything that we do, that it is indeed better,” Schumacher said.
He insisted that the company could still make a difference in the four key areas of climate, plastics, nature and people’s livelihoods.
In the third quarter of Unilever's fiscal year 2024, the company recorded sales amounting to approximately 15.2 billion euros, down from the previous quarter, when this figure amounted to about 16 billion euros.
