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28th September 2018

The B Team Welcomes Emmanuel Faber, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Danone

September 28, 2018, New York: Today The B Team, a collective of global leaders from business and civil society, announced Emmanuel Faber, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Danone, will join its effort to drive business action toward a sustainable and inclusive future.

Throughout Mr. Faber’s distinguished career, he has shown the value of engaged leadership in creating and sharing sustainable growth and impact for shareholders, his company and across society. Mr. Faber joined Danone in 1997 as Vice-President, Chief Financial Officer, Strategy. He has served as Chief Executive Officer since 2014 and was appointed Chairman of Danone in 2017. He has always kept economic performance as well as sustainability and social progress at the center of his leadership approach.

During his tenure as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Danone has advanced as a leader in health and sustainability in the food and beverage sector. In this role, he has furthered the company’s efforts to guide consumer behavior toward healthier and more sustainable eating and drinking practices. In April 2018, he presented Danone’s 2030 goals for long-term sustainable value creation and set up an innovative employee engagement model, aiming to empower all Danone employees to implement these goals and drive responsible and inclusive business models.

Danone has also set itself a great challenge: to become a Certified B Corporation® at a global level. The company remains on this journey with nine subsidiaries already certified, including Danone North America, which became the largest certified B Corp™ ever in April 2018. Under his leadership, Danone has established ambitious targets to preserve the planet’s resources, setting a carbon neutral goal by 2050, with evian aiming for neutrality by 2020, and investing in circular packaging models across its products.

Danone is also continuously raising nutritional standards and has issued six commitments by 2020 to improve its products' nutritional profiles by reducing sugar for instance, while enhancing product labeling to foster healthier choices. Mr. Faber also played a decisive role in launching the Danone Communities fund ten years ago to reduce malnutrition and facilitate access to safe drinking water. In this work, he partnered with B Team Leader Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.

Personally involved in the HeForShe movement, Mr. Faber wants Danone to become one of the leading parent-friendly companies in the world through the implementation of a global gender-neutral paid parental leave policy for all employees.

“Since its creation, The B Team played a unique role to inspire and raise awareness around responsible business models. Its ambition to improve ways of doing business for the well-being of people and the planet perfectly matches Danone’s 'One Planet. One Health' vision. Danone's dual project of pursuing both economic and social progress started as early as 1972. It is still today the driving force behind all actions we take to create value for all and have a positive impact on communities around the planet,” said Mr. Faber. “I hope this approach can contribute to the mission of The B Team. I am thankful for the trust placed in me and I will commit my very best efforts to serve the inspirational collective purpose of The B Team.”

Mr. Faber’s driven this collective purpose in partnership with several B Team Leaders. He currently serves as Vice Co-Chair of the Consumer Goods Forum Board, in collaboration with B Team Chair Paul Polman. In 2009, he also co-founded the Business and Poverty Action Tank, a French nonprofit which brings together leading multinationals, NGOs and governments to invest in social business models again working with Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. “We must move toward a world three zeros: zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero carbon emissions. We cannot do this without creating social business, a new category of business which is devoted solely to solving people's problems, rather than making money for anybody. They are non-dividend companies created only for the purpose of problem solving in a sustainable way," said Professor Muhammad Yunus, “Together with corporates we are capable of facing the challenges to achieving these three zeros head-on. Emmanuel Faber has set a powerful example of creating social businesses. I am immensely impressed by his dedication in building social businesses to achieve social objectives, which cannot be achieved through conventional businesses. He represents a unique leadership, which defines the role of business in creating a new world. With great pleasure, I welcome him to The B Team and look forward to him providing the leadership to redesign the world of business."

“Mr. Faber’s an inspiring example of the principled leadership needed to build a sustainable and inclusive future. Whether advancing gender equality, climate action or responsible consumption, his courage in building cross-sector conversations and action is invaluable,” said Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of The B Team, “We are so pleased to welcome him to The B Team and look forward to continuing to raise our ambition toward a purpose-driven private sector with him on board.”

Contact

For more information, please contact Tyler Zang at tz@bteam.org. (New York)

About The B Team

The B Team is a catalyst for bold dialogue inspiring collective courage and brave business action toward a fairer, greener and more human economy. The B Team’s global collective of business and civil society leaders are working together to build a principled and purpose-driven private sector and demonstrate that, with courageous leadership, business becomes a force for good.

The B Team was co-founded by Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz, and includes Leaders Oliver Bäte, Marc Benioff, Sharan Burrow, Kathy Calvin, Bob Collymore, David Crane, Emmanuel Faber, Christiana Figueres, Mats Granryd, Arianna Huffington, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Dr. Mo Ibrahim, Yolanda Kakabadse, Isabelle Kocher, Guilherme Leal, Andrew Liveris, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, François-Henri Pinault, Paul Polman, Mary Robinson, Ratan Tata, Hamdi Ulukaya, Zhang Yue and Professor Muhammad Yunus.