PWC Unilever Integrated Reporting Interview PDF

Corporate Reporting Interviews
Unilever: Is your business model safe without IR?

Charles Nichols, group controller at Unilever, tells Jessica Fries why integrated
reporting is critical for companies and investors to be able to take a longer-term
view of their business model and properly assess its performance
How does integrated reporting How have you attempted to I think that this is a unique opportunity
support your business model? overcome some of the barriers? to shape something that’s probably
It’s really about the needs of our We’ve taken a fairly phased approach. We going to happen anyway and really
business. We live in a very volatile world launched our Unilever Sustainable Living start to shape this thing for the future.
where businesses such as Unilever face Plan a few years ago and developed a If companies don’t get their act
issues that need long-term solutions. number of metrics to measure our together, then sooner or later the
I think it’s natural that we should be performance on it. So far, we’ve been regulators are going to do it for us.
thinking in terms of how we talk about trying to improve the robustness and
our long-term perspective internally and the maturity of those metrics, ready to But are investors really asking
the way we tell our story externally. offer them up for independent assurance.
questions?
Is IR already having an impact We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that If they’re not, then they should be. There
on internal decisions and we spent 150 years developing our are enough highly-publicised examples of
external reporting? market failures where companies have
months trying to do the same on the destroyed inordinate amounts of value
Yes. One thing you’ll notice is that in
because investors, and in some cases, the
our 2012 annual report, we talk about
boards, haven’t really understood the
our business model more holistically. business model and been able to ask the
Do you see a role for assurance?
Internally, there’s a growing recognition right questions at the right time.
that sustainability isn’t just about I think there is a role for independent
corporate social responsibility, but is assurance. It provides credibility to
A passive approach risks losing control
actually a fundamental economic external stakeholders – there is some
of this agenda, so I would encourage
business issue. We’re not only thinking degree of scepticism out there – so
companies and investors to respond.
about what outcomes we’re looking
that’s being reported is important.
So what’s your vision for the
performance, but also in terms of our future of integrated reporting?
impact on the environment and society. It also raises the bar in terms of the
rigour and discipline of our own internal It would be nice to think that in the
not too distant future we will have one
Do you see any barriers to single approach to corporate reporting
integrated reporting? you’re responsible for is going to be
subject to external assurance, that’s a across the world. It might be wishful
pretty high motivation to do a good job. thinking, but standardised non-
we could get a proliferation of
regulation with stakeholders pushing different companies and across the
development in different directions, world, would be nice to have.
which would be a great shame. information will become an ever more
important part of our corporate One of the most important components
I think fear is another barrier. Inherently, narrative – so we might as well get our for ‘nirvana’, as it were, is a shift away
companies are more comfortable with ducks in a row now. And we need the from the short term and the backward
kind of rigour that assurance provides. view of life, towards something that is
rather than forward-looking non- more forward looking and longer term.
So far, the IIRC has adopted
are understandable concerns about www.pwc.com/gx/en/corporate-
a market-led approach.
exactly how much transparency is reporting/integrated-reporting/
Do you think that without a
appropriate before you start providing what-is-the-ir-framework-and-why-is-it-
‘regulatory stick’, integrated
more information to the competition important.jhtml
reporting will become the
than you would normally wish to share. norm for how companies
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Corporate Reporting Interviews

Unilever: Is your business model safe without IR?

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