Unadulterated

Business relevant goals engage teams throughout the organization and make sustainability meaningful for employees from procurement specialists and product developers to sales managers and marketing teams.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Seventh Generation, the Vermont-based household goods company known for its pioneering work on ingredient disclosure, has found success linking bonuses to sustainability goals. The bonus tie-in increased employee awareness of the company’s priorities and ownership of the four sustainability goals selected — helping the company meet all of these goals in 2012, as detailed in the company’s 2012 Corporate Consciousness Report.

Sustainable Life Media recently invited me to share some thoughts on the importance of defining the level of sustainability a company desires and then devising a strategy to get there.

Tim Greiner, Managing Director of Pure Strategies, is recognized for his contributions to improving corporate sustainability in Gary Hirshberg's engaging book, Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World.