Natura: Stakeholder Well-Being in Practice

Natura Cosméticos, a Brazil based beauty, personal care, and house hold products firm, is an outstanding example of a Beingful company. It is also often ranked among the top five sustainable companies in the world. It’s former CEO, Alessandro Carlucci, attributes this success in part to his getting in touch with his feminine side, which made him a better manager.

As Carlucci said, “Having developed a feminine soul today is not just a pleasure, it’s an opportunity. The business world is normally a more rational world, more objective, more straight to the point, and so more masculine. It’s not that men are all like that. It’s just that we have many women here. The emotional, intuitive, caring side is more present, and so I learned to work in a company where things like that are valued.” 

During his reign, Carlucci deepened the company’s already tremendous commitment to nature, even as it delivered material gain to its stakeholders. Natura’s commitment extends especially to safeguarding the Amazon forest from where it derives its ingredients, as well as to the tribes and indigenous population that live within and outside it. For Carlucci, this quest to find the right balance among these different interests begins with asking the right questions.

As he said, “Most important is not to guarantee that we are balanced, but that we are asking ourselves, what are the economic, social and environmental impacts of everything we do? The question is more important than the answer. No one knows the right balance, but we include those things in all initiatives.”

In a direct reflection of the kind of business success proposed as an anchor in this book, Carlucci and Natura believed deeply in enhancing the well-being of their stakeholders. He said, “Here at Natura, we believe that wellbeing should be felt and experienced by everybody. We believe that the value and longevity of a company is measured by its ability to promote the sustainable development of society.”

He remarked, “What motivates me the most is to see that I’m part of a group of people that wants to do business and, at the same time, contribute to the well-being of people, society and the planet.” The company’s slogan, printed in large white letters on its São Paulo headquarters’ glass walls, is “ bem estar bem ” (well being/ being well), where beauty is about everyone’s wellbeing. Nature sees itself in the business of “aesthetics and ethics,” or beauty and truth.

Natura’s focus on general well-being has also been good for the material well-being of its stakeholders. The company dominates the Brazilian market for beauty products and deploys over 1.5 million “consultants,” mostly female, who directly sell cosmetics and other beauty and hygiene products door to door in Brazil and other Latin American countries. 

Natura’s share prices have climbed steadily, and its earnings per share have often outperformed analyst expectations. Shareholder returns clearly have not suffered, even though they are only part of a broader focus on the wellbeing of all the company’s stakeholders.

In a Harvard Business Review cover story on the 100 best CEOs in the world in 2012, Carlucci was in the rarefied five percent of trend setting CEOs who delivered great financial performance while also excelling on social and environmental dimensions. According to the story, Carlucci was “a leader among CEOs who believe that alleviating poverty and inequality and protecting the environment are intimately tied to their business agendas.”