Paul Polman has been a hero of mine in business and sustainability. He has been the business leader who gave us all hope that business could lead us out of our environmental problems. He has just become the Chair of the School Board for the Oxford University Business School and last night I attended his talk at the Business School. He is a fount of knowledge about sustainability. He had some great facts: There are 3.3M jobs in green energy in the US - three times as many as in fossil fuels; 1.7Bn people in the world use 85% of the earth’s resources; 77% of Americans want to stay in the Paris agreement. Hope I noted them down correctly.
He talked about how scientists don’t use the language of certainty, and the big challenge in sustainability is communication. A shout out for all our students developing communication skills - use your school studies and your social life to develop your written and verbal skills!
My favourite take home? He said that we don’t need Business-As-Usual, we need Business-Unusual. I really hope that he will inspire the MBA students at the School, and all the other Business Schools around the world, and that business really can become the agent for change that I hoped it would be twenty years ago.
Kim Polgreen