THE INTEGRATION OF SUSTAINABLE PROCUREMENT AND MARKETING - A CASE STUDY OF UNILEVER

Abstract

Today, we are living in an uncertain world with many issues such as deforestation, malnutrition, climate change, natural disaster, pollution, etc. And all of those events are not only having impacts on our lives but on the business activities all over the world. Therefore, the term ― “sustainability” has become more important than ever. As a matter of fact, integrating sustainability into business strategy and core activities of the companies can be considered as a growing trend. The two functions that are affected most by the sustainability are the procurement and marketing. Hence, this thesis aims to investigate about the relationship between procurement and marketing in the new context of sustainability. It also explores the drivers and the barriers between that relationship of marketing and procurement; and ultimately provides a theoretical framework which was built based on previous studies and which can help understanding the relationship between marketing and procurement. The empirical part was based on the case study of Unilever, one of the largest consumer goods companies in world and the pioneer in integrating sustainability to the business. Exploratory literature review was carried out by utilizing multiple sources such as articles, books and web pages.

The thesis identifies various drivers and barriers of the relationship between marketing and procurement. The case shows that Unilever is doing quite well and on the track to achieve the integration between marketing and procurement. This is happening gradually at Unilever given its size and scale and few barriers still need to be overcome. This study could be used as exemplary for other companies that want to become sustainable.