The single global mafia's bid for 'transformational change'

Paul Polman first drew my attention in 2019 when he was one of the “business leaders” who publicly voiced their support for Extinction Rebellion, the UK-based “climate” campaign group.

For me, and many others, the appearance of an “XR Business” website, and an associated letter to The Times, utterly demolished the plausibility of this supposedly grassroots environmentalist movement.

As I wrote at the time: “This is now officially an ex-Rebellion, shorn of all pretence of radicalism.

“Instead, what we find is a list of ‘business leaders’ who have identified environmental catastrophe as yet another get-rich opportunity.

“And they are prepared to hijack and exploit people’s real love for life and nature in order to push their profiteering agenda”. [205]

What I missed in April 2019 was that a month previously Polman had been appointed to the Rockefeller Foundation board of trustees, alongside Patty Stonesifer, former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The press release celebrating the arrival of these “two global leaders” stated: “Paul Polman is Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), The B Team and Vice-Chair of the UN Global Compact.

“Paul previously served as the CEO of Unilever (2009-2018) and amassed extensive experience as a leader in the consumer goods industry while serving in senior leadership roles at both Nestle and Procter & Gamble.

“Mr. Polman was appointed to the UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel that developed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and continues to serve as a UN-appointed SDG Advocate”. [206]

Polman himself announced: “I am absolutely delighted to join the Board of Trustees to help support the Foundation’s drive for even higher ambition in delivering transformational change”. [207]

“Even higher ambition in delivering transformational change”. That sounds to me like a threat!

Let’s have a little look at some of “global leader” Polman’s listed affiliations.

The International Chamber of Commerce describes itself as “the world’s most networked business organisation reaching over 45 million companies in more than 170 countries”. [208]

It boasts that it has “access to governments” and that it carries influence “on all aspects of business including trade, investment, sustainability, taxation, competition law and intellectual property”. [209]

Its 1919 founders were apparently known as the “merchants of peace” and “recognized the powerful role trade and investment could play in fostering peace and prosperity among nations”. [210]

In the words of Wikipedia: “The International Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1919 to serve world business by promoting trade and investment, open markets for goods and services, and the free flow of capital”. [211]

This, says the body itself, was “a time when no world system of rules governed trade, investment, finance or commercial relations”. [212]

Imagine that! What a nightmare!

Today, the International Chamber of Commerce is interested in “delivering solutions” – “from accelerating sustainability and climate action to shaping an open, trusted and interoperable digital economy”. [213]

It declares: “Our purpose is to enable business to secure peace, prosperity and opportunity for all”. [214]

Somebody pass the sick bucket, please.

The B Team, with which Polman has also been involved, was co-founded by Virgin’s Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz (former CEO of Puma SE) in 2013. [215]

Investigative journalist Cory Morningstar reported in 2019 that its major funders included the Ford Foundation, Kering Group, Guilherme Leal, Strive Masiyiwa, Joann McPike, The Tiffany and Co. Foundation and Virgin Unite – along with Unilever and The Rockefeller Foundation. [216]

It was one of the founding partners of We Mean Business, together with Business for Social Responsibility, CDP, Ceres, The Climate Group, The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

As Morningstar wrote: “Together, these organizations represent the most powerful – and ruthless – corporations on the planet, groups salivating to unleash 100 trillion dollars to fuel the fourth industrial revolution”.

The UN Global Compact, of which Polman was vice-chair, was announced by then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1999.

Note that everything we are seeing today has been planned for decades.

Annan warned: “Globalization is a fact of life. But I believe we have underestimated its fragility”. [217]

The global system was, he explained in a subsequent press release, “vulnerable to backlash from all the ‘isms’ of our post-cold-war world: protectionism; populism; nationalism; ethnic chauvinism; fanaticism; and terrorism”. [218]

It was in order to strengthen the grip of that system, essentially against outbreaks of democratic resistance, that the totalitarian global infrastructure based on the UNSDGs was subsequently built up – with Polman’s involvement, as we have heard. [219]

Polman’s Rockefeller Foundation profile reveals that he also works with a business called Systemiq – “We unlock system change by developing trusted, wholehearted partnerships with leaders in civil society, innovative investors, government, business, and finance”. [220][221]

But he is best known for his stint as CEO of the massive UK-based multinational business Unilever plc.

It boasted in 2012, while he was in charge: “Unilever is one of the leading suppliers of fast-moving consumer goods, with products on sale in more than 190 countries. Our strong portfolio of foods, home and personal care brands is trusted by consumers the world over – they buy 170 billion packs of our products every year.

“We make some of the world’s best known brands, with leadership positions in many of the categories in which we compete.

“Our top 14 brands with sales of more than 1 billion euros are Axe/Lynx, Dove, Dirt is Good laundry, Becel/Flora, Heartbrand ice creams, Hellmann’s, Knorr, Lipton, Lux, Magnum, Rama, Rexona, Sunsilk and Surf.

“We are the world’s number one in categories such as savoury, dressings, tea, ice cream, spreads, deodorants and mass skincare and the world number two in laundry and daily hair care. We hold strong local positions in oral care and household cleaning”. [222]

The “Uni” in Unilever comes from Naamloze Vennootschap Margarine Unie, a Dutch company formed in 1927 by the merger of four margarine companies.

And the “Lever” comes from Lever Brothers, the soapmakers who in turn merged with Margarine Unie two years later. [223]

William Lever (pictured) “was an advocate for expansion of the British Empire, particularly in Africa and Asia, which supplied palm oil, a key ingredient in Lever’s product line”. [224]

Unilever’s path to imperial global glory has not come without controversy.

In 2001 it was forced to shut its thermometer factory in Tamil Nadu, India, because of contamination of adjacent land by dumped mercury waste.

The union representing some of the factory workers alleged that 45 employees and 18 children had died due to the toxic effects, with others suffering from long-term renal, brain and neurological disorders.

It took years to get any compensation from Unilever, who tried to deny that anything had happened, but they eventually coughed up in 2016, 15 years on, reaching a settlement with 591 former employees and their families. [225]

In 2007 the firm was accused of failing to protect workers and their families on one of its tea plantations in Kenya.

After seven were killed, 50 raped and many injured in an outbreak of violence, the firm simply “temporarily closed the plantation, sent workers home and failed to pay them for six months”. [226]

Unilever is accused of “relentlessly hiding behind its corporate structure” to avoid legal redress in this case. [227]

In 2011, Unilever and Procter & Gamble were fined 315 million euros by the European Commission for operating a price-fixing cartel for washing powder in eight European countries. [228]

In 2019, the Food and Allied Workers’ Union reported that security forces hired by Unilever had attacked striking workers with rubber bullets, pepper spray and paint balls while they were peacefully picketing a Unilever facility in Durban, South Africa. [229]

In November 2024 the controversy turned to Israel, with ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s filing a lawsuit against Unilever for gagging its attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees. [230]

According to the lawsuit: “Ben & Jerry’s has on four occasions attempted to publicly speak out in support of peace and human rights. Unilever has silenced each of these efforts”.

It states that Ben & Jerry’s has tried to call for a ceasefire, support the safe passage of Palestinian refugees, back students protesting at US colleges against civilian deaths in Gaza, and advocate for a halt in US military aid to Israel, “but has been blocked by Unilever”.

Ben & Jerry’s is threatening to dismantle Unilever’s board and sue its members over the issue, and is demanding $5 million in payments to Ben & Jerry’s for the brand to make donations to human rights groups of its choosing. [231]

The lawsuit is the escalation of a long-running dispute.

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Jewish co-founders of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, sold their namesake company to Unilever in 2000 for $326 million. [232]

As part of the acquisition agreement, Cohen and Greenfield still had the right to take decisions about the brand’s social mission and they announced in 2021 that their products would no longer be sold in the West Bank and parts of disputed East Jerusalem.

This did not go down well at Unilever, which eventually got round the issue by selling its Israeli Ben & Jerry’s division to its local franchisee, who was able to carry on selling the product under the famed brand name to customers in both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. [233]

The New York Post reported in 2022: “The Israeli government hailed the move as a ‘victory over anti-Semites'”. [234]

The same message was coming from Unilever in 2024, with its head of ice crime Peter ter Kulve apparently arguing that allowing Cohen and Greenfield free speech over what is happening in Gaza risked “continued perception of anti-Semitism”. [235]

[Audio version]

The above article is an extract from my new 100-page booklet, The Single Global Mafia: The Rockefeller Foundation’s multiple links to Zionism and military-industrial-financial neo-imperialism, which can be downloaded free here for reading, safekeeping and the widest possible sharing.

[205] https://winteroak.org.uk/2019/04/23/rebellion-extinction-a-capitalist-scam-to-hijack-our-resistance/
[206]
https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/news/rockefeller-foundation-appoints-two-global-leaders-board-trustees/
[207] Ibid.
[208] https://iccwbo.org/become-a-member/
[209] Ibid.
[210] https://iccwbo.org/news-publications/news/icc-merchants-peace-recognised/
[211] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Chamber_of_Commerce
[212]
https://iccwbo.org/about-icc-2/our-mission-history-and-values/
[213] https://iccwbo.org/

[214] Ibid.
[215]
https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/09/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-they-mean-business-volume-ii-act-iv/
[216] Ibid.
[217] https://press.un.org/en/1999/19990201.sgsm6881.html
[218]
https://press.un.org/en/1999/19990201.sgsm6881.html
[219] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Global_Compact
[220] https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/profile/paul-polman/
[221] https://www.systemiq.earth/

[222]
https://web.archive.org/web/20140402110549/http://unilever.com/sustainable-living/ourapproach/ourbusinessataglance/
[223] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilever
[224] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lever,_1st_Viscount_Leverhulme
[225] https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/unilever-still-failing-respect-its-workers-rights
[226] Ibid.
[227] Ibid.
[228] https://web.archive.org/web/20180420172853/http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13064928
[229]
https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/food-drink/unilever-still-failing-respect-its-workers-rights
[230] https://nypost.com/2024/11/14/business/ben-amp-jerrys-sues-unilever-for-silencing-pro-palestinian-support/
[231] Ibid.
[232] https://web.archive.org/web/20090422164423/https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/13/business/ben-jerry-s-to-unilever-with-attitude.html
[233] https://nypost.com/2022/06/29/israel-declares-victory-over-anti-semites-after-unilever-sells-ben-jerrys/
[234] Ibid.
[235] https://nypost.com/2024/11/14/business/ben-amp-jerrys-sues-unilever-for-silencing-pro-palestinian-support/