UK Edition
When Unilever boss Hein Schumacher arrived at the imposing headquarters of his new employer on Monday, he could have been forgiven for turning round and heading straight back home.
Outside the office was a giant billboard with graphic images of wounded Ukrainian soldiers, along with their names and ages. There were several double amputees.
One had lost an arm. Another was wearing an eye patch. The display had been mocked up in the style of adverts used to promote Unilever’s Dove soap brand, and the Dove logo had been adapted to look like a Russian tank.
Next to it, a caption read: “Dove – helping to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Below that was another for those who hadn’t yet understood the message. “Dove is owned by Unilever which paid an estimated $331m in taxes in Russia in 2022.”
The publicity stunt was the work of activists collaborating under the Ukraine Solidarity Project. It could not fail to stop even the most hurried City worker dead in their tracks.
The question of course is whether public shaming can be successful in ending what is considered Unilever’s de facto support for Vladimir Putin’s war.
The company will no doubt take issue with its characterisation, Bosses can take that up with the Ukrainian government, whose National Agency on Corruption Prevention has officially placed Unilever on its International Sponsors of War list – a hall of shame, if ever there was one.
Unilever may also take issue with being singled out. After all, there are plenty of other Western multinationals that are still profiting from Putin’s war, many of them having made the same promises to get out of Russia only to quickly and repeatedly come up with the same tired excuses for staying put.
However, Unilever stands out like a sore thumb simply because of its self-proclaimed, endlessly championed and utterly nauseating ethical credentials. Its corporate website is an endless stream of virtue-signalling platitudes, with visitors greeted by the not-insubstantial boast that Unilever’s brands “are on a mission to create a better planet and society”.
So how does that bold mission statement square with the company’s continued presence in Russia, almost 18 months after Moscow’s bombs and missiles began raining down on Ukrainian cities and villages, and its soldiers started carrying out unimaginable war crimes in the country?
The answer is simple: it doesn’t. But then a big part of the problem is that Unilever’s ethical posturing never really stacked up because much of it was so painfully flimsy.
The very idea that everything a company does and produces is imbued with some sort of heroic social purpose simply isn’t in the slightest bit credible – even less so when that same corporation produces something as mundane as toiletries, household cleaner, and run-of-the-mill kitchen cupboard staples.
Seriously, how much “good” can bleach or mayonnaise really bring to the world beyond simply making your toilet smell nice, or your sandwich a little less dry?
Unfortunately it took the horror of war to expose the whole silly charade for what it really was.
After all, this is an organisation that has continued to operate in Russia on the basis that Dove shampoo, Knorr stock cubes, and even Magnum and Ben & Jerry’s ice creams are integral to the lives of ordinary Russians who don’t deserve to be punished for the illegal actions of the country’s corrupt elites.
Leaving aside the fact that most polls show support for the war is widespread among the Russian people, it is obviously preposterous for Unilever to suggest that its goods amount to a fundamental human right.
But Unilever’s continued presence also makes a mockery of several pledges that it made in response to the invasion. As campaigners point out, despite a promise to both “review” its Russian operation and to no longer profit from its presence, the business doesn’t just still exist, it is thriving.
The latest group financial figures show that turnover doubled, so too nearly did net profit nearly from RUB4.9bn (£43m) to RUB9.2bn in 2022.
Meanwhile, its tax contributions for the year are estimated at over $331m (£261m), so it’s hard to argue when one soldier featured in the ad campaign accuses Unilever of being “complicit in the torture of Ukrainians…complicit in the whole mess that Putin’s military is making in our country”.
In response to repeated questions about its failure to exit Russia, Unilever has flip-flopped.
Having claimed that it had a duty to stick around, it later tried to argue that its departure risked leaving behind valuable assets that could fall into the hands of the Russian state and therefore be used to fund Vladimir Putin’s war.
With the company subject to a new Russian law obliging all large businesses to contribute directly to the war effort, including potentially through the conscription of its 3,000-strong workforce, there could be far worse to come, campaigners point out.
Not for the first time, the impression is that all the endless touchy-feely stuff goes out of the window when presented with hard commercial decisions.
Unilever has also been forced to defend itself against accusations of profiteering during the cost-of-living crisis after forcing through price rises of 11pc in the first quarter of the year alone.
If the FTSE-100 giant still harbours ambitions of being taken seriously as an ethical champion, then pulling out of Russia has to be Schumacher’s number one priority.
Unilever is a ‘war sponsor’ – not an ethical champion
Conglomerate's progressive messaging clashes with commercial realities in Russia