Fortune Brainstorm Green, and the limits of corporate sustainability

Harrison Ford at Fortune Brainstorm Green

Harrison Ford at Fortune Brainstorm Green

The 2013 edition of Fortune’s Brainstorm Green conference was, by most accounts, a hit. We had a record number of attendees, including more than 50 CEOs of companies and nonprofits, big and small; plenty of entertaining and informative conversation; and a healthy dose of fun, with celebs like Harrison Ford, will.i.am and (my favorite) ultra marathon runner Scott Jurek. As co-chair of the event since the first Brainstorm Green in 2008, I love to reconnect with colleagues and sources, meet new folks and learn from and, occasionally, by inspired by our top-notch speakers. The theme of the conference has been a constant: How can business profitably help solve the world’s most important environmental problems?

Unavoidably, the challenge of an event like Brainstorm Green (as well as a conundrum for anyone who writes about corporate sustainability) turns on the question of how much to cheer or jeer the efforts of companies that are trying to “go green.” My job, as I see it, is to do both–to applaud the leaders, to prod the laggards, and to do my best to tell one from the other. That’s difficult balance to do in a conference setting where the mood is one of bonhomie, where the speakers are our “guests,” and where the presumption is that everyone is doing the best they can. The trouble is, that’s usually not good enough.

Mark Tercek at Brainstorm Green

Mark Tercek at Brainstorm Green

As Mark Tercek, the CEO of The Nature Conservancy, who I interviewed at Brainstorm Green, put it in his excellent new book, Nature’s Fortune:

Nearly every precious bit of nature–teeming coral reefs, sweeping grasslands, lush forests, the rich diversity of life istelf–is in decline. Everything humanity should reduce–suburban sprawl, deforestation, overfishing, carbon emissions–has increased.

Sad but true.

So if corporate America is changing for the better when it comes to the environment–and no doubt, many companies are–the pace of change is too slow and the ambitions of business leaders are too modest. Incremental change is not getting us where we need to go. [click to continue...]

Oxfam America: Big Food is failing the poor

fig-2-brands-72dpi-1280px-nologosNew research by Oxfam America into the social and environmental policies of the world’s 10 biggest food and beverage companies puts Nestle, Unilever and Coca-Cola at the top of the list and Associated British Foods, Kellogg’s and General Mills at the bottom. In the middle of the pack are Pepsico, Mars, Danone and Mondelez International (formerly Kraft).

Oxfam American said in a presss release that the Big 10 food and beverage companies, which together make $1 billion a day, are “failing millions of people in developing countries who supply land, labor, water and commodities needed to make their products.”

That stark accusation was tempered more than a little during a telephone news conference where Oxfam America launched a new global consumer-focused campaign called Behind the Brands.

Ray Offenheiser, the president of Oxfam America, described the big food companies as “recognized industry leaders.” Jane Nelson, a senior fellow at Harvard who specializes in corporate responsibility, went further, saying these are among the “most responsible, best managed, well governed companies” in the food sector.

So which is it, really? Are these companies industry leaders or are they failing the poor?

Maybe a little of both. [click to continue...]

A question about GMOs for Naked Juice, Silk, Cascadian Farm, Kashi and Honest Tea: Which side are you on, boys?

Naked Juice says it doesn’t use ingredients produced using biotechnology as a matter of principle.

Silk, the company that put soymilk on supermarket shelves, says:

We’re proud to participate in the Non-GMO Project, a no a nonprofit, multi-stakeholder collaboration committed to preserving and building sources of non-GMO products, educating consumers and providing verified non-GMO choices.

Cascadian Farm (“We were organic before organic was a trend”) assures consumers that “you can know when you see the “certified organic” USDA seal on the front of our package that GMO crops have not been used.”

You’ll hear much the same from Kashi (“seven of our foods are now officially Non-GMO Project Verified“) and Honest Tea, which says:

Honest Tea doesn’t use any Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOS) and supports the idea that more transparent labeling will help consumers make clear choices.

The thing is, each of these upstart brands, which tout their commitment to natural or organic product, and to transparency, is owned by a big food conglomerate that opposes GMO labeling.

Think of it this way: Naked Juice (PepsiCo.), Silk (Dean Foods), Cascadian Farm (General Mills) Kashi (Kellogg) and Honest Tea (Coca-Cola) are like kids who don’t agree with their parents.

These, though, are family arguments with big consequences for food shoppers. Big food and agriculture companies funding a campaign which has raised more than $23 million to defeat California’s Proposition 37, a ballot initiative that would mandate clear labeling of genetically engineered (GE) ingredients on food packages. PepsiCo, for example, has donated $1.7 million to defeat Prop. 37, while Coca-Cola has spent more than $1.1 million. Kellogg ($612,000), General Mills ($520,000) and Dean Foods ($253,000) are big donors, too. Biotech companies Monsanto and DuPont have given even more — $4 million apiece — according to data compiled by public TV station KCET. [click to continue...]

Anti-hunger, pro-soda: Are you kidding me?

About one in seven Americans — 46 million of us — get help from SNAP, the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps. The government spent about $78 billion on SNAP last year. Participants collect about $133 per person per month. SNAP is a valuable safety net that deserves support, for many reasons, outlined here.

But, by  some unverified estimates, about $4 billion of SNAP money [distributed via electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, cards] is spent on soda; the government won’t say how much is spent on soda, or anything else. Reasonable people can disagree about whether soda should be taxes. But it’s hard to see why we should be subsidizing it.

It’s no surprise that Coke, Pepsi and the American Beverage Association oppose efforts to stop SNAP money from being used to buy sweetened, carbonated drinks. But they are joined in their opposition by anti-hunger groups like Feeding America and the Food Research and Action Center, as writer-consultant Michele Simon noted in her recent report,  Food Stamps: Follow the Money: Are Corporations Profiting from Hungry Americans? [PDF, download]

Do these advocacy groups really believe that poor people in America will be better off if they can use SNAP benefits to buy soda?

Or are they being swayed by the money they get from the food industry? [click to continue...]

We need to fix the food system. But how?

“Today’s food system is unfair, ineffective and operates beyond ecological limits,” Mark Lee says, via email.

“Unfair in that some 925 million are malnourished…

“Ineffective in that there are enough calories out there to feed everyone, but we fail to do so (and if we fail to do so for 7 billion, how will we cope with 9-10 by mid-century?)…

“Beyond ecological limits in too many ways too count – freshwater use, soil degradation, climate impacts, you name it.”

Mark is not an environmental activist. He’s the executive director of SustainAbility, a think tank and strategy consultancy that has worked with such food industry clients as Chiquita, Coca-Cola Kellogg’s, Mars and McDonald’s, Nestle, Starbucks and Unilever. He approached me because Sustainability recently released a report called Appetite for Change, about the food industry and how to fix it.

I’ve been writing a lot about food lately because it interests me, because food and agriculture matter a great deal if you care about climate or global poverty or health, and because there’s so much debate about what the path forward should be. Organics? Farmers markets? Genetically engineered crops? Vegetarianism? Local? [click to continue...]

Justin’s Nut Butter: a squeeze play!

Little things matter.

Like squeeze packs.

I’ve surely tossed away hundreds, maybe thousands, of the little silvery plastic packs of ketchup, Gu and Power Bar gels, but I’d never thought much about the environmental impact of squeeze packs.

Then I was introduced to Justin Gold, the founder and CEO of Justin’s Nut Butter, a small but fast-growing company that sells gourmet, organic peanut, almond and hazelnut butters in 1.15 ounce on-the-go squeeze packs that retail for $0.69 to $0.99. These packs were great for business at the Boulder, Colorado-based company, which now gets about 80% of its revenues from single servings. But squeeze packs are a blight, albeit a small one, on the environment because they are made out of several layers of different materials that are welded together and can’t be recycled or composted.

Most small-company CEOs  would have shrugged their shoulders at this problem and moved on. Not Justin. [click to continue...]

Honest Tea CEO: Small isn’t beautiful

Seth Goldman, the president and Tea-e-0 of Honest Tea, made it official today:. The Coca-Cola Co. will exercise its option to buy all of Honest Tea, the Bethesda, Md., maker of organic, healthy beverages.

Coke bought 40% of the firm for a reported $43 million in 2008, a controversial move at the time for the upstart company that positioned itself as a challenger to the conventional way of doing business in the beverage industry.

Seth broke the news in a letter to his shareholders last night, in a blog post this morning and in an interview today with me at the State of Green Business Forum 2011 in Washington, arguing that his mission to “democratize organics” will be supported by Coke..

In an unusual twist to the deal–one that amounts to a vote of confidence in Seth’s leadership–Coca-Cola will allow him to repurchase most of his own equity stake in the company. His name will remain on the bottle, along with that of his co-founder, Yale prof Barry Nalebuff, and the company will continue to operate out of its offices in downtown Bethesda, a short bike ride away from Seth’s home. [Disclosure: I've known Seth for years and we attend synagogue together.]

“This is absolutely still my baby,” he said. [click to continue...]

The Power of One: Coca-Cola

“The Power of One” is a series of stories about people who have helped their companies become more sustainable. (See earlier stories on UL Environment, eBay, and Union Pacific.) They can’t do it alone, of course. But by coming up with a good idea, enlisting the help of others and making persuasive arguments, one person can change a company and, sometimes, more. Today’s story — the last in the series, at least for now — is about a manager at Coca-Cola who knows what it feels  like to have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Meet Bryan Jacob. Back in 1990, when he made the cover of Weightlifting USA, he was a 21-year-old  student at Georgia Tech, hoping to represent the United States in Olympic Games. He did so, twice–in Barcelona in 1992, when he finished 18th in the Featherweight division and in Atlanta in 1996, when he finished 8th in the  Bantamweight  competition. He was the top U.S. performer in his weight class both times. He’s still fit–with a firm handshake.

It’s a good thing that Bryan is accustomed to heavy lifting  because his current job, as energy and climate protection manager for Coca-Cola, is a big one: He leads Coke’s global effort to reduce the greenhouse gases that are emitted from the 10 million–yes, 10 million!–vending machines and coolers that are part of Coke’s global bottling system. The company and its bottling partners have begun to replace coolers that use the  most common refrigerants, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are also called   fluorinated gases (F-gases), with so-called natural refrigerants such as CO2, propane or isobutane.

Last year, the company and its bottling partners said they expected

that 100 percent of their new vending machines and coolers will be HFC-free by 2015. We’re hopeful our aggregate demand will encourage supply as a means of accelerating the transition to HFC-free refrigeration equipment. This announcement is a direct result of work with Greenpeace that began in 2000.

Yes, that’s right–Coke’s key partner on its journey to natural refrigeration is Greenpeace, which is better known for civil disobedience than corporate partnerships. “The Greenpeace relationship went from very confrontational to one of the most collaborative we have,” Bryan says.

Bryan, in fact, says he’s learned that NGO partners can deliver a lot of value when you are trying to ,spark change in a sprawling company like Coca-Cola. He’s worked with Greenpeace, WWF, the World Resources Institute and even Dr. Rajendra K. Pauchari, the sometimes-controversial chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Bryan once brought “Pachy,” as he’s called, to speak with a convention of Coke bottlers in Boca Raton.

Like politics, the environmental movement can create strange bedfellows.

I emailed Amy Larkin, who leads business partnerships for Greenpeace, to ask about her work with Bryan and Coca-Cola. She replied:

Bryan Jacob is the kind of colleague everyone wishes they had.  He is determined, indefatigable and inventive.  Bryan is also open to new ideas — even big crazy ideas that will require a huge amount of work to make real.  Maybe those are his favorite ideas…….not sure.

Greenpeace has worked with Bryan for many years on HFC-free refrigeration and some of our meetings were rather difficult.  Bryan’s entire demeanor and way of working always encourage constructive engagement and he is a central ingredient in our successful outcome with Coca-Cola.

As it happens, Bryan is not one of those environmentalists who grew up green. He figured that he’d one day build dams, bridges, highways and airports, as he worked towards a degree in civil engineering. (“Most of the time, I’m civil,” he jokes, “but when I get agitated I can get hostile.”) Instead, he took a job during college with an environmental consulting firm, got excited about the field and then found his way to Coca-Cola. [click to continue...]

A food revolution?

OgAAAOMz3dH0-HafZx1TctR2lFMwnVnyn6UpdLUHNQ_8SAcyDMFhCebvsjC51YuU8w8gRAXu46wPNy5WHetI_9W0XewA15jOjFRxqljFWwNaFDgYenGcIpUAl50UHave you noticed? A food revolution has begun—with the goal of making our food and agriculture systems better for us, better for the environment, maybe even better for workers and democracy.

So, at least, says Marion Nestle, the author, activist, NYU professor and corporate critic, who gave a rousing closing speech at Cooking for Solutions, a mind-stretching, belly-expanding conference and foodfest organized by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The revolution will be inspired, in part, from the top—symbolized by the White House organic garden, First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign and some encouraging legislation, including a requirement in the health-care law that fast food restaurants put calorie labeling on menus.

“I can’t remember every having a First Family that was interested in the issues that I’m interested in,” said Nestle, a veteran of the food wars and author of six books, including a new volume about pet food.

More important, the energy for a food revolution is being generated by diverse, decentralized grass roots (pun intended). Signs include the robust growth of organic food, albeit from a small base; the slow food movement; the rapidly increasing number of farmers markets across America; strong interest in local agriculture; Jamie Oliver’s broadcast TV prime time anti-obesity crusade; other celebrity chefs who tout “green” practices; the battle to reform school lunch programs; the campaign against bottled water; the animal welfare movement; and the obsession with food issues in so much of the media, ranging from Michael Pollan’s bestsellers to indie movies like Food Inc. to the  legions of food bloggers, many of whom came to Monterey.

When you look at it that way, there’s a lot going on. [click to continue...]

A tipping point on BPA?

Muir-Glen-Coupons-259x300So is BPA–the controversial, much-debated chemical that, right now, is almost surely lurking somewhere inside a can in your kitchen cabinet–dangerous? Or is it safe?

Scientists can’t come to agreement. Nor can regulators. Nor, unsurprisingly, can corporate America.

Fact is, it’s a daunting job for companies to figure out how to deal with BPA, as recent events at General Mills and The Coca-Cola Co. show. General Mills inched away from the chemical, by agreeing to keep it out of its Muir Glen brand of organic tomatoes. By contrast, Coca-Cola opposed a shareholder resolution asking the company to report on its plans to deal with BPA. The resolution got 22 percent of the vote at Coke’s annual meeting last week.

While the science of BPA remains clouded, there’s growing evidence that consumers aren’t willing to wait around for a decisive verdict from the lab. So smart companies at the very least should explore alternatives.

As Rich Liroff of the Investor Environmental Health Network wrote recently in a guest post here:

smart companies will change the way they communicate about BPA and as well as search for alternatives to better align themselves with consumer concerns. Some companies could gain reputational benefits and free media attention from supporting proposed legislation restricting use of BPA.

The IEHN supported the Coca-Cola resolution on BPA.

Some background for readers who haven’t followed the debate:  Bisphenol A is a chemical that’s widely used in products ranging from plastic water bottles to eyeglass lenses. As I wrote (How Wal-Mart Became The New FDA)  back in 2008:

BPA is everywhere, used to make polycarbonate, a rigid, clear plastic for bottles, bike helmets, DVDs and car headlights. It’s also an ingredient in epoxy resins, which coat the inside of food and drink cans. About 93% of Americans tested by the Centers for Disease Control had the chemical in their urine.

Since then, the debate over BPA has only intensified. Canada and Denmark have banned the [click to continue...]