Unadulterated

The Pure Strategies report - Connecting to the Farm - outlines best practices that companies across industries can leverage to help realize cost savings, reduced risk, and new growth opportunities while building more sustainable agricultural systems with their supply chain partners.

There is a concerted and growing effort to improve our land’s soil health. The U.S. Department of Agriculture spurred this shift with financial incentives for farmers through the Conservation Stewardship Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program, among others, which require them to reduce soil loss on erosion-prone land and protect wetlands.

We recently spoke with Pure Strategies’ Co-Founders, Tim Greiner, Managing Director and Bob Kerr, Principal, to reflect on the past two decades of their experience and explore what corporate efforts may be needed to drive toward a more sustainable future.

This month, Pure Strategies celebrates twenty years of sustainability consulting leadership. The company has helped build transformative strategies, improve products and packaging, and shift supply chains toward greater environmental and social performance for industry-leading companies including Walmart, Seventh Generation, Stonyfield Farms, Ben & Jerry’s, and over 100 other organizations.  

Actively advancing social and environmental performance to create a more just and sustainable future for all.

More and more corporate leaders are looking to establish strategies aligned with SBTi. While most companies have experience with their Scope 1 and 2 emissions, Scope 3 is less familiar. However, corporate climate leaders that are ready to dig into this next frontier of climate strategy can start with a few manageable steps.

Sustainable chemical management is a critical component of a healthy and circular future. Chemical footprinting and the CFP help advance that concept and as a result, play a key role in helping us reach a healthy and circular future.

Clean Label efforts provide food manufactures and brands an opportunity to engage their supply chains and at the same time gain consumer trust and build healthier and more sustainable products. The strategy a company deploys to align its product development, quality, safety units and how it engages externally with suppliers is critical to driving clean label projects across the business.

Pallets are ubiquitous in the economy. RM2, in collaboration with AT&T and Pure Strategies, is shifting the industry, using smart design, new materials, and improved management to enhance performance and lower the impact of pallets.

Carbon farming offers a cost-effective way to draw down carbon from the atmosphere. No new technology is needed, no moon-shot innovation, just regenerative agricultural practices. Carbon farming is also key to reducing soil loss.

In tandem with the rise in interest in green chemistry, companies are increasingly looking to gain business value from sustainable chemicals management. However, shifting to a program aiming for safer materials demands program changes that many struggle to achieve.

There is a lot going on in agriculture today. We see producers focusing on increasing yields, improving animal care, and reducing the toxicity of pesticides. The pollinator protection movement is fascinating; I am also seeing an explosion of interest in healthy soils.

Consumer interest in sustainability is steadily climbing, with 78% of U.S. consumers saying that they feel better when they buy products that are sustainably produced. Is there an opportunity to bring sustainability into private brands to differentiate them and give them a needed sales boost?

CDP found that leaders have greater supply chain engagement contributing to their 67% higher return on equity and 50% lower volatility of earnings. To help companies build and improve their programs and achieve these gains, Pure Strategies is offering a June workshop that will explore best practices in sustainable sourcing and supply chain engagement.

A new Pure Strategies report, “The Power of Chemical Footprinting: Radio Flyer Unlocks Their Safer Materials Strategy,” demonstrates the power of understanding corporate chemical footprints as a platform for crafting and advancing a proactive approach to chemicals management.

National leaders in sustainable chemistry gathered at the Green Chemistry in Commerce Council (GC3) annual meeting hosted by Steelcase in Grand Rapids, MI this week to share inspiration, insights and explore the future of the field. Sally Edwards of UMass Lowell and I facilitated a workshop on the business case for The Chemical Footprint Project (CFP).

Challenges to optimize the package’s end-of-life may persist that call for collaboration and new solutions with suppliers, competitors, and waste stream partners. TSC may be able to play a role in enabling these approaches and this was explored during the workshop.

Pure Strategies’ latest research reveals growth in corporate spending in sustainability; more than 80 percent of surveyed companies expect a budget increase from 2016 to 2017 with a third anticipating double-digit growth.