NEW VOICES: Former Unilever CEO Says Business Leaders Should Take Stand Against Death Penalty

Saying that ​“the pri­vate sec­tor can no longer be a silent bystander in the soci­ety it inhab­its,” for­mer Unilever CEO Paul Polman, has called on busi­ness lead­ers around the world to take a stand against the death penalty. 

“The death penal­ty has to go,” Polman wrote in a May 12, 2021 com­men­tary in Business Insider. ​“Business has a vital part to play.”

Polman, the co-founder and co-chair of IMAGINE, a glob­al busi­ness con­sul­tan­cy pro­mot­ing struc­tur­al and insti­tu­tion­al changes in cor­po­rate prac­tices to affect trans­for­ma­tive social and envi­ron­men­tal change, is one of 42 cur­rent sig­na­to­ries to the Business Leaders’ Declaration Against the Death Penalty. ​“We are at a cru­cial moment in the fight to end America’s long and trou­bled his­to­ry of using cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” he writes. ​“What peo­ple expect from respon­si­ble busi­ness has changed. Joining this fight is a way to make good on so many com­mit­ments to be ethical.” 

In March 2021, a group of 21 glob­al busi­ness lead­ers, led by Virgin Air chair­man Richard Branson, launched Business Leaders Against the Death Penalty, a glob­al busi­ness ini­tia­tive against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. At the time, Branson called the death penal­ty ​“bro­ken beyond repair and … marred by cru­el­ty, waste, inef­fec­tive­ness, dis­crim­i­na­tion and an unac­cept­able risk of error.” He said that “[b]y speak­ing out at this cru­cial moment, busi­ness lead­ers have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to help end this inhu­mane and flawed practice.”

Polman was among a sec­ond set of 21 glob­al busi­ness lead­ers that also includ­ed Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Alan Jope, Polman’s suc­ces­sor as Unilever’s CEO, and Bayer CEO Werner Baumann, to add their names to the dec­la­ra­tion in ear­ly May. ​“The pan­dem­ic, mass anti-racism protests, attacks on democ­ra­cy, grow­ing inequal­i­ty and the con­tin­u­ing destruc­tion of our plan­et have recast the role of respon­si­ble busi­ness,” Polman wrote. ​“Business lead­ers have spo­ken out on issues from de-foresta­tion to vot­ing laws to LGBTQ rights. Bluntly, the pri­vate sec­tor can no longer be a silent bystander in the soci­ety it inhab­its. Not if it wants to pro­mote the sta­bil­i­ty and inclu­sive­ness on which a strong econ­o­my and suc­cess­ful business depend.”

Citing a University of Washington study that found that jurors in Washington were three times more like­ly to rec­om­mend a death sen­tence for a black defen­dant than for a white one in a sim­i­lar case, and that killers of white vic­tims are exe­cut­ed at a rate 17 times greater than those whose vic­tims are black, Polman decried cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as ​“bla­tant­ly racist.” That 27 U.S. states ​“still legal­ly autho­rize exe­cu­tions … should be intol­er­a­ble in a coun­try still reel­ing from the bru­tal mur­der of George Floyd,” Polman wrote. 

Referring to the busi­ness lead­ers’ anti-death-penal­ty dec­la­ra­tion, Polman said “[t]he aim here is not sim­ply to pro­duce well-mean­ing state­ments. Corporate activism, when it aligns with calls for reform from civ­il soci­ety, can and does embold­en law­mak­ers to braver action. … Given the his­toric momen­tum on Capitol Hill,” he wrote, ​“the ques­tion now lands at every CEO’s door: will you stand on the side­lines, or stand togeth­er with your coura­geous peers for a more just and humane world?”