Paul Polman Quotes

You must consider the bottom line, but make it integrity before profits.

The right moral compass is trying hard to think about what customers want.

I think good companies can navigate being public and doing the right things for their customers.

Putting people before profits is how we've tried to operate from the beginning.

And also, more and more businesses really want to do the right thing. They feel better about themselves, their workers feel better, and so do their customers. I think this is equally true in the transnational corporations, but it is harder to express in those situations.

It is important to remember that all business has an impact on the lives of real people.

Just do what's right for the customer, and you'll be okay.

I believe in conscientious capitalism; that's a kind of driving force with me.

Corporate responsibility extends not only to the customers, the resources and the workers of the present, but also to those of the future.

I wear two hats. The one is business and increasing my shareholders' value; the other is social responsibility.

We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, on whose account he or she has become so rich.

Understanding how your business affects human rights and using that knowledge to shape appropriate policies and practices is crucial to achieving what should be the goal of all corporations - sustainable growth.

What is good for society is also good for business.

The role of business is to provide products and services that make people's lives better - while using fewer resources - and to act lawfully and with integrity.

It took a generation for companies to recognise their responsibilities in terms of labour practices and another generation for them to recognise their environmental obligations.

Business practices and how we treat the planet are also in desperate need of re-humanization.

A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.

I think that, too many times, business has been seen as acting in its narrow self-interest rather than, essentially, contributing more broadly to society. I think a lot of that is unintentional; I don't think that many managers are deliberately trying to be unethical or are not trying to be sensitive to social needs.

I try to create businesses that I think are not hurtful.

So much business is based on the belief that we should do whatever we can within legal limits to make as much money as we can. Ben & Jerry's was based on values, and we try to operate a business that not just sells ice cream but partners with all our stakeholders - whether that's suppliers or customers - to bring about a more sustainable world.

At a lot of companies founded on principles, the notion of making money is almost antithetical to the ethos of the place. From the very beginning, our business has existed to meet the needs and desires of multiple constituencies: customers, team members, vendors, shareholders, the community.

It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large.

In the final analysis, finding a way to do clean business and not to pay bribes actually improves your bottom line.

Whole Foods Market tries to embody all of the principles of conscious capitalism all the time, but like any person or company, we sometimes fall short.

Business must be the solution, not the problem.