What after Woke? With Sue Garrard

We have a new short podcast series - What After Woke: Are we witnessing a great reset in corporate activism, DEI, and ESG – or just a glitch?

The latest interview in our series What After Woke? is with Sue Garrard. Sue was one of the masterminds behind Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan 2010-2020, and together with her then-CEO Paul Polman, made Unilever the poster child for corporate responsibility. That led her into many projects in the developing world (for example, where Unilever sourced vast quantities of palm oil) and at home (where she took on those pundits and investors who mocked Hellman’s mayonnaise for claiming it had “purpose.”)   

When I interviewed her half a decade ago, she said: “I’ve met many bosses over the years, and most actually do want to do the right thing. They feel they haven’t spent 35 years getting to the top of the greasy pole just to deliver quarterly profit targets which they live or die by and have their kids feel awkward about what their parent is doing at the office. The trouble is a massive gap exists between intent and activism. Doing something is really tough and it was always tough at Unilever. It’s a painful, iterative journey. There’s no first mover advantage in purpose and sustainability. But the irony remains that I detect business is far more up for the fight than government.”

How times have changed. With the arrival of Trump and a sluggish growth agenda the sustainability movement is now a mixture of hiding in the trenches or in full retreat. ESG and DEI have become dirty acronyms.

Sue’s analysis of what is currently going on is acute, as is her refusal to give up.