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Farm Girl from South Africa and Unilever's CEO Conspire To Change The World

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A Series of Forbes Insights Profiles of Thought Leaders Changing the Business Landscape:  Sarah Collins, Founder of Wonderbag and Paul Polman, CEO, Unilver...

The unlikely pairing of South African social entrepreneur Sarah Collins, inventor and founder of Wonderbag and the CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman, just might be the impetus towards building sustainable business models that start a revolution in slow cooking, lifts rural women in emerging markets out of poverty and provides profits to Unilever's shareholders.  How is that possible?

Polman refers to it as "Capitalism 2.0."  Since taking the helm of Unilever in 2009, Polman has led the transformation of the global food, beauty and beverage giant with more than 173,000 employees and nearly $70 billion in sales into a more transparent and eco-friendly steward of resources.

"It's part of Unilever's sustainable living plan. We want to grow our business and create jobs and opportunities for many people that didn't have the same chance as you and me, but do it in a more equitable and sustainable way.  I've always been interested in these young entrepreneurs because they have a different risk profile.  They see things differently, and they come with creative models that sometimes are difficult to develop in bigger companies," says Polman.  Along the way Polman has driven a 30% growth in sales and the company's stock recently was trending up over the course of this year to date.

Sarah Collins story is even more remarkable. “I grew up in rural South Africa under Apartheid and realized that equality was a problem.  I always wanted to change the status quo, especially for women and children. Women are the backbone of these communities,” says Collins.

Collins was looking for something that would have a lasting impact. She realized that the cooking duties for rural South African women was a cause of both health issues and an inefficient use of their time that helps to perpetuate a cycle of subsidence living.

"A woman can spend eight hours a day over a smoky fire with a baby on her back.  I wanted to find a way to change that. I remembered how my grandmother used to cook with cushions and blankets over a slow cooking pot.  I tried it and it worked,” says Collins.  Thus was born the Wonderbag.

The genius behind Sarah's simple but profound invention is that the Wonderbag is a non-electric, heat-retention cooker that allows food that has been brought to a boil, to continue cooking after it has been removed from the fuel source.  Today, due to Sarah's passion, energy, and perseverance, 750,000 bags have been distributed, first round of carbon credits registered and issued, production capabilities in Rwanda, Mexico and Turkey with launches in Kenya, Nigeria and Somaliland.  14,000 bags have been sold in the UK, Europe and USA, with a buy-one-give-one model to support getting Wonderbags into humanitarian relief.

There is a certain sense of destiny behind Sarah and Paul's meeting.  “Our office was in Durban as was Unilever’s South Africa headquarters located. I had followed Paul’s move into the CEO ranks and what he was trying to accomplish.  But I had no understanding of corporate politics and just asked for a meeting. Paul was in for the World Cup, when we were running our first pilot program with 100,000 bags as part of a promotional package,” says Collins.

The Unilever brand managers were skeptical—they thought a 10% increase would be good.  But the growth rate was 247% in the first weeks alone.  That caught Paul’s attention. “They wanted to see if it was a ‘white witch doctor’ behind it and put me on a plane and brought me to the UK,” says Collins.

The beginning of 2011 started a serious relationship and that has been growing strong ever since. “Paul has the unique ability to help people achieve their potential. The Wonderbag is all about grass roots innovation.  Here is innovation in cooking and nutrition coming from rural South Africa. Paul even invited me to Davos. I was a farm girl, now here I was presenting to heads of state and companies. The Dutch Prime Minister was presenting at Davos and had a prepared speech that he threw away and asked me to come on stage to talk about the Wonderbag. Because I am so passionate about it and believe it works, it’s been a bit easier to talk in front of groups,” continues Collins.

Berkeley recently came out with a study on the economic benefit of the Wonderbag program. "Wonderbag shows that you can attack these social causes with models that are economically viable.  We endeavor to enroll these social entrepreneurs to make our model work as well. Sarah is one of them, but personally I have about 15 of those on my radar screen, and the company obviously is connected to many more.  Sixty percent of our business is now in these emerging markets.  We're dealing with the bottom 2.5 billion on the planet, many of whom have no access to water or hygiene or all the issues around food security, with a billion people going to bed hungry.  We cannot reach them alone," says Polman

"We can link it to our businesses and help them scale it, protect our vision and so make it more successful but also driving solutions for future generations.  That's for me equally important, to be honest.  So this is a perfect match for us, and if you met Sarah, you fall in love with her," continues Polman.

To support these efforts, Unilever instituted the Young Entrepreneur Award, which was recently celebrated at Buckingham Palace.  "We asked the Prince of Wales to be the patron. Out of 500 applications, we selected 5 major ones.  We then provide coaching with our team and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership," says Polman.

Polman positions his company's sustainability efforts as no mere corporate responsibility program, but central to the company's very survival. "If no action is taken in 50 years' time or 30 years' time, the food industry's profits would be wiped out. The question really is, what happens if  we don't take these actions? We have not found any compromise in Unilever by having a more responsible business model.  In fact, we find many more opportunities emerging that help our business be very successful.  We've had a hundred percent shareholder return in the last five years," says Polman.

Not surprisingly Sarah is a big fan of Unilever and Polman. “I’ve got a great team and Unilever has been wonderful. It’s been the most extraordinary journey of my life. I look back and see that that night when I watched my grandmother cooking with a cushion and first had that insight about how this could help change the lives of the rural poor in South Africa, I knew that this was going to be my destiny in life. Nothing has shaken my belief that this is where I had to be,” says Collins

“My hope is to bring slow cooking into the mainstream and be a catalyst in bridging the relationship between corporations and entrepreneurs in their effort to change the world for the better. It’s taken us three years of hard work to start to fulfill that potential. The Wonderbag gets into people’s hearts,” continues Collins.

“The world is short of trees and leaders,” concludes Polman, in reference to the need to develop sustainable business practices and find leaders like Sarah Collins.  One could add the need to find more CEOs like Polman to that list as well.

Bruce H. Rogers is the co-author of the recently published book Profitable Brilliance: How Professional Service Firms Become Thought Leaders now available on Amazon http://amzn.to/OETmMz