Last month, after a wounded 26-year-old veteran, Oleh Simoroz, told Unilever: “You’re paying taxes to the aggressor country and thus financing terrorism,” its latest CEO, Hein Schumacher, said he’d look at its Russia operation with “ fresh eyes”. “Does it matter? – losing your legs?/For people will always be kind.” “Dove,” said the caption, “helping to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.”īut Unilever finds it can resist, to a point reminiscent of Siegfried Sassoon’s verse, Does it Matter?, the reproaches of double amputees. Another group of activists, the Ukraine Solidarity Project, recently mocked up a huge billboard featuring a Dove-style line up of “real” models dressed in white: all of them young veterans who had lost body parts. One of these, the Moral Rating Agency, recently calculated how Unilever’s costs and taxes in Russia translate into armoury that might make Ukrainians feel unsafe or unhappy: 39 bullets every second, or one Iranian drone every 15 minutes. The ice-cream is among a range of “essential” Unilever products still produced and sold within Russia, and therefore continues, as campaigning groups have long been protesting, as a contributor to Putin’s war chest. “Guided by core values,” says Unilever, “every level of Ben & Jerry’s works to advance human rights and dignity, support social and economic justice for marginalised communities, and protect and restore the Earth’s natural systems.” In comparison, even Unilever’s inspirational Dove and Omo are, much like the Church of England, less performative ethical brands. Unilever’s then boss regretted that intervention but the company still advertises Ben & Jerry’s as the closest that a mixture of fat, sugar and sulfated polysaccharides has ever come to beatitude. On the eve of the 2022 Russian invasion, the Ben & Jerry’s team tweeted at Joe Biden (but not Putin) to stop “fanning the flames of war”. It means that even Vladimir Putin will find at Unilever, should protracted military frustration ever cause low mood, a social impact mission to suit his needs: Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream. “We are committed to creating an unbroken chain of happiness.” And why not? Only common decency says a company can’t be proudly “purpose-led”, like Unilever, at the same time as it remains on the Ukrainian government’s list of “international sponsors of war”. If you are poor, marginalised, old, young, unhappy, persecuted, fearful for the planet or just feeling ugly … the manufacturer feels your pain
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