Unadulterated

Few things are more disruptive to a processing facility than losing power – especially if several weeks’ worth of work is lost each time it happens. Facing this risk helped drive Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. to embed sustainability into the way it does business. The result is a demonstration of one of the principles in my book, The 10 Principles of Food Industry Sustainability: ensuring that food and ingredient processing both requires minimal inputs and outputs and strives toward generating resources. Sierra Nevada not only lives up to this standard but also gains business advantages along the way.

My recent meeting with the Boy Scouts of America and their suppliers radically shifted my view of what the Scouts are about. My impression of the Boy Scouts was stuck in my experience as a Scout back in the ‘70s. As a middle schooler, I joined the Scouts to hang out with my friends. I loved the outdoor activities and the pursuit of merit badges.

I highly recommend this insightful article by Jeffrey Hollender, Former CEO and Co-Founder of Seventh Generation and Founder and CEO of Sustain. He challenges businesses to chart a path that is net positive, restorative and regenerative. Sharing his experiences as CEO of a sustainable condom company, he highlights the work he and I did together to develop a "roadmap to becoming net positive" by developing a framework for tracking both positive and negative impacts in four areas important to Sustain's mission.

The 10 Principles draw from Cheryl’s experience consulting on sustainability for several of the world’s leading food industry brands and retailers, her academic background and prior experience working within the food industry.

In countries such as the U.S., consumers are responsible for about one-third of food waste, more than any other part of the food chain. To combat this, Bon Appétit pioneered removing trays from dining halls resulting in up to 30 percent less consumer waste. They also educated their consumers by weighing and measuring wasted food at dish return stations.

Companies following product sustainability best practices are gaining benefits that include reduced costs, improved employee engagement and productivity, and increased consumer trust and brand enhancement.

A company may not know how it will achieve the more ambitious future goal but it knows it needs to be investing in innovation and motivating its employees to develop game-changing solutions. The longer-term targets also help ensure that the company’s short-term investments support lasting solutions, such as renewable energy or product innovations.

Just as companies evaluate their carbon, water and waste footprints, the CFP finally provides a tool that enables purchasers and brands to: benchmark and measure progress towards safer chemicals; recognize and reward suppliers for doing what matters most to retailers and customers; create greater accountability across value chains; encourage chemical information sharing; and provide a metric to compare and measure continuous improvement of suppliers.

Unfortunately, taken as a whole, the corporate response wasn’t aggressive enough, brilliant enough or visionary enough. The gulf between the scale of the challenges and the level of response is too vast, with too many companies still citing modest, multi-year reductions in emissions or water use as the sum total of their sustainability goals.

Engaging a group of suppliers through a specific product category survey is one of the most effective ways to tackle key product impacts, especially for retailers seeking to elevate the performance of an entire category of products, as opposed to select companies.

Companies should use World Food Day and the examples of these leaders as an opportunity to evaluate how they could strengthen their producer partners while improving the long-term food security of the communities they touch.

As Ben & Jerry’s and Seventh Generation demonstrate, having a clear direction that aligns with consumers’ values is an important business foundation. These companies have created loyal networks of consumers and employees and have successfully leveraged their enthusiasm in pursuing campaigns for political change.

Pure Strategies' survey of 100 global product companies, including 34 food and beverage companies, revealed that while the food sector is beginning to take key steps, more strategic work is needed for this industry to catch up to the performers in the market, across industries.

Walmart is a leading motivator for investment in product sustainability with nearly 80 percent of respondents that identified a retail-driver citing the company in an open-ended question. This was followed by Target at about 50 percent, Costco at 18 percent, and Nordstrom at 12 percent. Walmart and Target clearly stand out from crowd. These retailers’ priorities are trickling through the supply chain and influencing supplier product sustainability programs.

To make the most of this organizational alignment RB honed in on improving carbon, ingredients, packaging and water to meet this target and to keep the business focused on critical improvement opportunities. These four priorities shaped the program and the limited set of issues enabled faster training, tool development and integration into the product development process.

Keeping up with growing demands for chemical data using spreadsheets or simple databases will become increasingly unrealistic. Managers need tools that enable them to organize, analyze and make decisions about chemicals and materials in their supply chains and products — and they need to do this quickly and accurately.

Companies committed to product sustainability enjoy the benefits of manufacturing cost savings, brand enhancement, employee engagement and other important financial and organizational value.

The gripping new Showtime docu-series, Years of Living Dangerously, tackles climate change with a combination of Hollywood star power, heavyweight scientists, and frontline reporting. Sending big name such as Harrison Ford, Thomas Friedman, Lesley Stahl and Jessica Alba into the field as correspondents to document the human impact of climate change, the series conveys the issue’s urgency with drama and facts.