Company’s footprint study breaks ground

Corporations will need to start incorporating sustainable development into their business strategies in order to control future financial risk. JSE-listed fast moving consumer goods company Unilever South Africa released its Economic Footprint study yesterday, revealing the potential impact that companies have on their environments. The report showed that for each R100 of sales in the company, R145 of value was created in the South African economy. For each person employed by the company, out of its 4382 employees in South Africa and over 3000 suppliers, another 22 people were supported down the supply chain. The firm’s economic activity generated 0.9% of South Africa’s tax revenue. Ethan Kapstein, a professor at INSEAD Business School, said: “I had been looking for a company willing to volunteer for this study for over 10 years. “The simple Input/Output method used to extract this data can be replicated by anyone in any industry or country using government figures and the company’s financial results, so it exposes the data rather than the opinion,” he said. This is the second footprint study undertaken by the company; the first was a joint effort with Oxfam in Indonesia. Gail Klintworth, the chairperson of Unilever South Africa, said: “The whole idea is to get other companies to also conduct studies on their own economic impact and to look at where deficiencies lie.” Kapstein added: “Companies need to support the local supply chain and source labour and materials locally.” Image source: unilever.com. > Continue.

News selected by Covalence | Country: South Africa | Company: Unilever | Source: Daily Dispatch