Ex-Unilever chief executive Paul Polman has launched a new global initiative, called Imagine, aimed at combatting poverty and climate change as part of efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Polman has co-founded the initiative alongside Valerie Keller, former executive director at EY and Jeff Seabright, Unilever’s chief sustainability officer. Imagine will work with corporates to help mobilise action to meet the SDGs. There is a well-known action gap between corporate aspirations and projects aligned to the Global Goals, despite 13 of the world’s biggest corporates collectively generating $233 billion of revenue by strategising in line with the goals. Polman will invest an undisclosed amount of his own personal wealth into the venture. “The imperative to eradicate poverty and inequality and stem runaway climate change has never been more acute,” Polman wrote in an email, as seen by Bloomberg. “What’s more, we still miss the collective sense of urgency to move at scale and speed.”

Posted by

Edie