Is being big, bad for conservation?

Excerpt

The title question may be equally relevant to individuals and to corporations. Unilever Bestfoods' is the world's largest single consumer of several key agricultural raw materials, like tea and tomatoes. Our products are purchased nearly 200 million times per day; therefore by sheer volume our corporate strategy makes an impact on the environment. We need agricultural produce now and in the long future. Yet we know agriculture is under pressure. Even more importantly, if world population is going to double in the next 50 years or so, how is agriculture going to meet the growing demand for food and fiber? If Unilever Bestfoods wants to grow with more than five percent per annum—and we do—how then are we going to meet our demand for agricultural raw materials?.

If the answer to either one of the questions above is, “by growing the land area under cultivation,” then growth and being big is indeed bad for conservation. So we asked ourselves the question, “How can we reverse this? How can we ensure that getting bigger as a company means we can do more for conservation, not less?”

We have set up three sustainability …