ICYMI: The FT On Unilever Combining Corporate Affairs And ESG

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Following the departure of corporate affairs chief Paul Mathews, the financial Times reports that Unilever has combined the responsibilities of its chief sustainability officer and global head of communications and corporate affairs into one role, with the two functions under the leadership of chief sustainability officer Rebecca Marmot.

There is nothing particularly unusual about the combination of the two functions. As we have noted before ,“communications-plus” roles are increasingly commonplace, and our Influence 100 list includes several CCOs with responsibility for ESG or sustainability, including Andy Pharoah at Mars, Bea Perez at Coca-Cola, Julie Kitcher at Airbus, Lisa Tremble at BA, and more.

“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,” wrote chief executive Hein Schumacher in an internal memo obtained by the FT.

That makes sense to me, but not apparently to environmental activist Jonathon Porritt, who advised Unilever on sustainability issues for 28 years.“Corporate affairs has to put the interests of the company first, and will therefore always spin accordingly,” he told the FT.“Sustainability, as a function, should always be as mindful of the interests of the world and its people as of the company. No company serious about sustainability should seek to bring these two functions together.”

I'd argue that Porritt's remarks regarding the sustainability-“should always be as mindful of the interests of the world and its people as of the company”-are just as true of the function I prefer to call public relations, but which Unilever has called corporate affairs and external communications.

If you focused on building mutually beneficial relationships between yourself and your public, then you have to be as mindful of the world and its people as you are of corporate interests. Indeed, the usefulness of the public relations function begins with a willingness to convey the interests of stakeholders to other members of the management team, and to make sure that those interests are taken into account in the decision making process.

Does public relations (or corporate affairs, or external communications or whatever we choose to call the function) always do that? Obviously, no. But I'd suggest that companies in which PR does not work that way, it's unlikely that a stand-alone sustainability function will have any greater influence.

(This also reflects one of the reasons I dislike“corporate affairs” as a euphemism for public relations, because it puts the emphasis on communicating the“corporate” perspective, rather than on the 'public” who should be the primary focus.)

A more meaningful criticism comes from an unnamed consultant, who said that the new role should be part of the company's executive committee.“If they don't have a seat at the table, then they are not impacting, just executing,” the consultant told the FT.

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