Unilever and PepsiCo are among the companies that have agreed to develop an online “platform” to share ways to tackle “development and sustainability challenges”.

The platform – to be found at www.paragonpartnerships.com – will be launched this spring. Coca-Cola Co., Kantar, Nielsen and Save The Children have also signed up to the initiative.

Stan Sthanunathan, ‎senior vice president for consumer and market insights at Unilever, said the companies could work together “for solutions that have greater scale and impact globally”.

“In a rapidly changing world, we cannot operate in silos. The past year has set the precedent with highly ambitious goals and frameworks created to address the global sustainability and development challenges that we all face. It is time to accelerate efforts to move towards achieving these goals and Paragon will allow us to share learning, data and insight, and encourages other businesses and industries to address these critical challenges affecting us all,” Sthanunathan added.