In 1970, the economist Milton Friedman wrote a controversial piece for the New York Times Magazine entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business Is To Increase Its Profits." During the ensuing “greed is good" era of runaway American capitalism, many a titan of industry has quoted these words to rationalize dubious business practices. With a planet in peril and investors and consumers better informed than ever, isn't it time big business develop a conscience? Our guest this week on Sea Change Radio is Andrew Winston, a sustainability expert and author whose latest book, “Net Positive,” maps corporate social responsibility trends through a case study of the multinational Unilever. We examine the path forged by former Unilever CEO (and Winston's co-author) Paul Polman, discuss how the pandemic has affected corporate sustainability efforts, and look at the nexus of government, business, and philanthropy in the evolution of social impact.

Narrator  0:01  This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise

Andrew Winston   0:23 We're facing bigger and bigger challenges, which means you need large scale action that's public and private. It's not one or the other business has to be part of the solution, but it's can't do it alone and vice versa.

Narrator 0:36  In 1970, the economist Milton Friedman wrote a controversial piece for the New York Times Magazine entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business Is To Increase Its Profits." During the ensuing “greed is good" era of runaway American capitalism, many a titan of industry has quoted these words to rationalize dubious business practices. With a planet in peril and investors and consumers better informed than ever, isn't it time big business develop a conscience? Our guest this week on Sea Change Radio is Andrew Winston, a sustainability expert and author whose latest book, “Net Positive,” maps corporate social responsibility trends through a case study of the multinational Unilever. We examine the path forged by former Unilever CEO (and Winston's co-author) Paul Polman, discuss how the pandemic has affected corporate sustainability efforts, and look at the nexus of government, business, and philanthropy in the evolution of social impact.

Alex Wise  1:53  I'm joined now on Sea Change Radio by Andrew Winston. He's an author, advisor and speaker on sustainability. Andrew, welcome back to Sea Change Radio.

Andrew Winston   2:02  Good to be here, Alex. Thanks for having me.

Alex Wise  2:04  So your new book that you co wrote with former Unilever CEO Paul Polman is called net positive, how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take. Why don't you give us the genesis of the project, if you will?

Andrew Winston   2:19  Yeah, well Paul reached out to me and it was fall of 2019, like climate week in New York, and we had dinner and you know, he, he had never really wanted to write a book. And he talks about this in the, in the preface, because he kind of felt like sometimes CEOs are just out there like tooting their horn, and it's not really his style. But we spent a couple years we started we started having meetings, and then you know, for a few months, and then the pandemic hit. And I don't know if it really changed the content that much. But it certainly you know, framed the urgency or the role of business in society, I think that's what's really changed pretty dramatically in the last, it's been changing for years, but the last two years have really accelerated it. So I think it kind of framed, you know why we need this really badly why we need to be providing a map for how do you build a company that serves the world? And that's fundamentally what net positive is about, you know, how do you?