Tim Greiner and Bob Kerr founded Pure Strategies in 1998 intent on transforming business to create a more sustainable future. 2020 presented unforeseen challenges that prompted us to re-affirm our core values and further define the vision that drives our sustainability work. Our vision is a world where the climate is stabilized, nature is restored, and we have achieved a safe and socially equitable world.

We achieved B Corp certification to deepen and make public our commitment to B Corp values and ideals while striving to meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.

Advancing Transparency and B Corp Values

Although B Corp re-certification was delayed in 2020 due to the pandemic, we remained steadfast to B Corp ideals and are proud to share our progress with you over the past year.

Client Impact

In 2020, we helped our clients, representing more than $880 billion in annual revenue, advance their sustainability programs and make positive environmental impact. For example, we calculated the carbon footprint of Panera meals to determine which menu items can be verified as Cool Food Meals through the new World Resources Council program. Panera is the first national restaurant company to do so. Our team also supported sustainability work for Ahold Delhaize USA, Everlane, MegaFood, Seventh Generation, Timberland, Walmart, and many others.

We featured some of our client work through our new Pure Strategies Conversations webinar series that brought leading voices in corporate sustainability to share best practices. We provided insight on how Ben & Jerry’s has been working to advance its social mission; Walmart’s strategic approach to sustainable packaging; climate activism with Seventh Generation, and the importance of setting science-based targets for nature.

Industry leadership

In 2020, we signed on as a pioneer member of the Science Based Targets Network Corporate Engagement Program to advance goals to protect and restore nature and biodiversity. In addition, we collaborated on a research project and created a report to help companies advance their climate strategies.

We shared our expertise in sustainability through virtual presentations, webinars, and articles, including well-received pieces in GreenBiz on Scope 3 emissions considerations for setting science-based targets for climate and sustainable packaging as a keystone issue for corporate sustainability. We were also an early signatory to the Business for Nature Call to Action.

Earlier in the year, we acknowledged Earth Day ’20 by donating to Trees for The Future to support the Forest Garden Program that helps farmers plant thousands of trees and regenerate their land. In addition, we estimated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across our value chain and purchased carbon offsets for GHG emissions from our business activities. Pure Strategies works with NativeEnergy, a public benefit corporation and certified B Corp, to purchase GHG offsets, including those for the Montana Improved Grazing Project.

Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)

Internally, we focused on company practices to advance employee, community, and environmental improvements. We developed an employee-led group to investigate Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) issues and made this a regular discussion topic for our company meetings. Employees lead these JEDI conversations and shared articles, resources, and ideas for engaging more deeply on the subject. We encouraged employees to complete the 21-day challenge to continue to educate, learn, share resources, and push for change for racial equity.

We signed the American Sustainable Business Council’s campaign to confront racism and solidarity for equity, diversity, and inclusion and revamped our internship requirements and qualifications to open the candidate pool and support greater diversity in the sustainability field.

Employee Engagement

We increased our corporate activism by providing paid time off to employees to vote on November 4 and encouraged employees to volunteer, with many working the polls and call centers to help raise awareness about important campaign issues.

Spurred by the B Corp Inclusive Economy Challenge (IEC) to create opportunities for all workers, we also improved benefits and policies, enhanced our sick leave policy, provided flexibility for staff to manage new challenges due to the pandemic, and updated our candidate evaluation criteria to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in our hiring processes.

Donations

Our corporate giving and employee matching programs tripled its impact during a year where the need was so great. The largest single donation that Pure Strategies made in 2020, and one that we are quite proud of, is a donation that helped develop, fund, and launch a new program to advance a thriving BIPOC regenerative farming community in the Fredericksburg, VA region. This is an innovative program that we conceptualized and worked to get off the ground. The official program kicked-off in January 2021 at Downtown Greens, an organization that is connected to the broader farming community in the region.

As the pandemic swept our country, we also donated two large contributions where our team is centered to The Capital Area Food Bank (a member of Feeding America) and My Brother's Table. In March, we matched gifts up to $100 per employee to organizations where they felt made the most impact during the pandemic, donating to the Fredericksburg Food Bank, Oxford County Mental Health Services, Greater Boston Food Bank, Americares, homeless shelters, and others.

Each year our company volunteers a day to support healthy food systems. Since Covid-19 prevented us from doing onsite work in the fields, we gave donations to local organizations - including The Food Project to help weather the pandemic and continue their important youth and community programs. In December, we again offered to match employee donations up to $100 per employee and had 100% participation. This resulted in donations to the Cape Ann Emergency Relief Fund, Forests for Monarchs, Wildlands Trust, Inc., Save the Children, Shelter House, Inc., The Lazarus House, and others.

Hope for the Future

Despite the challenges that many of us faced in 2020, we continue to be amazed by the progress our clients made on their sustainability commitments. We look to 2021 with renewed purpose to continue to work with our clients and staff to promote B Corp values and work to stabilize the climate, restore nature, and help to build a safe and equitable world.

Bob Kerr, Co-Founder and Principal at Pure Strategies.

Yola Carlough, Pure Strategies’ Benefits Corporation Board Member, oversees the company’s Benefits Report and implementation of B Corp social and environmental values across the company.

Yola joined B Lab in 2011. Her work as Senior Associate in Community Development facilitates entry into the global B Corp community for businesses that aspire to build a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable economy. She retired from B Lab in 2017 and currently operates a private consulting initiative in the field of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. She serves on the Board of Directors of Vermont Business for Social Responsibility (VBSR). Prior to her work with B Lab, she was Director of Sustainability at Burt’s Bees natural personal care products and before that, was Director of Social Mission at Ben & Jerry’s.