Sustainability Today -- Spring 2020

OUR FOOD SUPPLY CHALLENGE MAKING IT HEALTHIER & MORE SUSTAINABLE

PLUS: TOWARD REGENERATION: CONVERSATION WITH SUSTAINABLE BRANDS CEO KOANN SKRZYNIARZ EAT, DRINK & ROCK SUSTAINABLY: HOW R.CUP BRINGS ECOLOGY TO CONCESSIONS 50 YEARS OF EARTH DAY: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

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FROM THE EDITOR

Now that the world is bouncing back up from the most devastating pandemic in a century, we are starting to get on with some semblance of our former lives. So is business, which is ramping up at rates ranging from very slowly to full speed ahead, depending on the industry and seriousness with which employers and employees treat community spread of Coronavirus.

It’s been a brutal winter and spring for the economy and our lives — no doubt about it. None have been hurt worse than the friends and families of the more than 100,000 Americans and 350,000 people worldwide who have died. Our lives have suffered, our businesses have suffered, and the way we socialize, communicate and work has been altered greatly, possibly forever.

“ The absence of daily industrial activity, travel and humans abuzz with our busy lives gave the planet a chance to take a deep breath.”

And yet, amidst all this pandemic tragedy, something quite different happened to the Earth: it began to heal. The absence of daily industrial activity, travel and humans abuzz with our busy lives gave the planet a chance to take a deep breath. A much cleaner breath, too: global emissions were down 17 percent the first four months of the year.

Within this blessing in disguise comes a sharp reminder, delivered by nature herself: if given half a chance, nature will in time regulate the climate, clean up air, ocean and waterways, and restore many of the resources we’ve leached for our business use.

It also shows why sustainability, and sustainable business practices, should be the law of the land — not practices carried out by some industries, corporations and small businesses but not others. After a hopeful past decade, showcased by the ever-growing numbers at Sustainable Brands conferences and many major corporations taking on big energy-saving and resourcepreserving commitments, we now have the opportunity to bake in sustainability as the country learns to do business in a world where Coronavirus is not just going to vanish. At least, not until most are vaccinated.

This begins with a concerted effort by corporations and industries to allow environmental regulations to become gospel, not the ping-pong ball batted back and forth by Democrats and Republicans. We need environmental regulations to maintain breathable and less overheated air, clean water, and conserve resources. Along with that, we need to bring solar, wind and other alternative, inexhaustible forms of energy to the forefront, and continue reducing our reliance on oil and gas. Many corporations, utility companies and communities deploy solar and wind, but now, we need to give it the same seat at the energy table that is currently occupied by oil and gas companies. It will assure cleaner air and water, more efficient use of resources, and eventually cheaper fuel for all — hallmarks of sustainable practices.

This is the perfect time to act — when we’re figuring out a new way forward. Meantime, we at Sustainability Today hope you stay well, get back on your economic feet soon, and continue practicing environmentally conscious, sustainable living at work and home.

Robert Yehling Executive Editor

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

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PUBLISHER/ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Charles Warner cwarner@goipw.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Shane Brisson shane@goipw.com

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Robert Yehling

MANAGING EDITORS Alex Moersen

Patricia Miller

Joe Toppe

ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR

Erin James

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Beth Covington Brooke Robinson Renee Yardley

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

Mary Roche

SENIOR VIDEO EDITOR

VIDEO EDITOR

PROJECT DIRECTOR

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Adam Saldaña Evan Kelley Dave Van Niel Steven Higgins

Special Thanks: Hallie Beyer/Sustainable Brands Dr. Noel Sauer/CIBUS Kevin Hurd/Media Minefield Dr. Gayle Madeleine Randall An extended Special Thanks and Best Wishes to Marie Perriard, for six years of working with the Sustainability Today and Innovation & Tech Today teams on behalf of Sustainable Brands.

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

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contents

COVER STORY:

18 Our Food Supply Challenge

By Robert Yehling Cover Photo: iStockphoto.com/industryview

8 Envirobits 12 A Conversation with Ko Ann Skrzyniarz, CEO/Founder, Sustainable Brands 20 Creating Plants to Feed a ClimateChanging World 24 Sustaining Our Food Supply — Naturally 30 The Meat and Food Supply Breakdown 34 10 Sustainable Food Companies 36 50 Years of Earth Day: What Have We Learned?

40 r.Cup: Eat, Drink & Rock Sustainably 44 Investment Group: “Do More to Fight Climate Change” 45 The Most Sustainable Companies in the World 46 Coming Next Issue

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

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envirobits

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Looking into the Senate Energy Innovation Bill

Photo: iStockphoto/rarrarorro

Finding bipartisan support in these times is challenging — which makes the brewing Senate Energy Innovation Bill even more intriguing and impressive. The sweeping bill, which boosts support for everything from renewable energy to cybersecurity, is getting support from both sides, led by Senate Natural Resources Committee leaders Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Joe Manchin (D-WV).

The renewable energy support is but one of 50 measures in the omnibus bill, which bundles together issues debated over the past year. Most measures focus on small changes to existing programs, but amount to what Sen. Manchin called “a down payment on technologies cutting emissions.”

The key issues in the bill concern keeping energy affordable, making energy cleaner, strengthening cybersecurity, and increasing competitiveness.

While the bill focuses on incremental climate change and sustainability actions, rather than the big, sweeping changes that would be found in, say, the Green New Deal, it does show the first significant legislative step forward since 2016. Both the National Mining Association and Nature Conservancy are backing it, while groups like Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club say it does not offer any largescale benefits.

What are our top 10 engineering challenges in the 2020s?

Photo: iStockphoto/JayLazarin

As we continue to ramp up domestic production, and seek a sustainable balance in resource use, emissions, and protecting our waterways and land, we’re facing another daunting challenge — vast engineering projects to infrastructures throughout the world. That begins in the U.S., where our existing infrastructure scores a lowly D+ after decades of underfunded repair and replacement efforts.

Not surprisingly, the Top 10 list includes alternative energy, green economy and smart city concerns, all huge components of a truly sustainable society moving forward. According to global information analytics provider Elsevier, these are the top 10 engineering challenges for the new decade: • Upgrading the sagging U.S. infrastructure. Estimated cost: $3.6 trillion • Educating first-world engineers to solve third-world problems • Promoting green engineering to improve sustainability and reduce the carbon footprint in manufacturing • Identifying viable alternative energy sources. According to BP, alternative energies will comprise 45% of all fuel output by 2035 • Rethinking how the city looks and works — the push to smart cities • Making STEM more appealing to young student.

• Safeguarding our personal data • Addressing climate change through engineering innovations • Feeding our growing population through cutting edge engineering and agricultural innovations (see our special focus on Food, beginning on page16) • Improving our life and well-being through life sciences, nanotechnology and bio-engineering

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

Carbon dioxide hits record highs Just three years after we appeared to be progressing into a more environmentally friendly, alternative fuel use approach to climate change, we now face the largest concentration of carbon dioxide ever recorded on the planet.

The just-ended decade saw global carbon dioxide emissions hit 37 billion tons — the third consecutive record year. This comes after three straight years of slight reductions in emissions. With the global temperature nearly to its 1.5 degree C increase since the Industrial Revolution, the Paris Agreement signatories’ goal of holding it to 2 degrees C by century’s end has become unattainable.

During the 2010s, global emissions increased by 11%, according to the U.N.’s scientific panel on climate change. Not coincidentally, we had seven of the 10 hottest years on record during the 2010s, and the Winter of 2020 saw massive above-average readings in the Northern Hemisphere.

The reasons are many, but predominately, the runaway production and use of natural gas globally is to blame. So is the United States’ decision to back out of the 2015 Paris Agreement. While the U.S. is the only sovereign nation not in the agreement, the Trump Administration’s disdain for environmental policy and regulations, and obsession with fossil fuels, is sending a message to other nations that they, too, can throw out greener fuel plans. This flies directly in the face of sustainability plans for corporations and nations alike.

In 2019, the U.S. was responsible for 15% of all global emissions, up 2.8% year-to-year and second to China’s 28%. The U.S. levels are far ahead of the environmentally conscious, 29-nation European Union, which came in at 9%.

Two bits of good news, though: domestic and global use of solar, wind and other alternate energies also increased in 2019. And, the U.S. is now projecting a major 11% emissions decline in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, according to Forbes.

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The recycling crisis and need to repurpose used plastics It’s good news, bad news on the plastic recycling front. The good: More companies than ever are now using post-consumer plastic in primary manufacturing operations, ranging from jewelry made from collected plastic to materials extruded from recyclables.

The Association of Plastic Recyclers is taking it further, announcing a certification program for postconsumer plastic in mid-February. With plastic production still through the roof, and waste plastic one of the planet’s most serious pollution concerns, a combination of recycling and re-use is the established pathway to increase sustainability and improve the environment.

Which leads to the bad news: most of the plastics we’re putting into recycling bins are not being recycled at all, according to Greenpeace. In a survey of 367 recycling recovering facilities, none processed coffee pods, and fewer than 15% accepted plastic clamshells, like pre-packaged salad or fruit containers.

Plastic cups, bags and trays also are being recycled at a perilously low rate. The report adds that, except for plastics labeled #1 or #2 (such as milk jugs and water bottles), the ability to recycle has fallen off sharply.

Photo: iStockphoto/cinoby

There’s plenty of hope on the horizon. Kate Bailey, a manager for Eco-Cycle Solutions in Boulder, CO, told The Guardian that Eco-Cycle has found outlets to process most of its mixed plastic. Its combination of hi-tech machinery and a strong customer base provide the ability to sort the material into unusually clean bales, she said, adding it is a major challenge for many recyclers, since the materials currently fetch record low prices. She added that the problems caused by China’s decision will lead to long-term improvements in the U.S. “The silver lining is that we’re starting to have some conversations about who should be paying for recycling,” she said. “Turning to cities and residents to pay for recycling is not the way it should be going.”

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

UN: We have 10 years to save earth’s biodiversity

We’re in a mass extinction event. Make no mistake about it. The collective loss of clean water and biodiverse land, climate change, deep rollback of environmental regulations in the U.S. and other nations, and growing pollution and emissions has sent more species into endangered or extinct status than at any time in recorded history. According to geologic records, we’ve only seen comparable levels of life shift on the planet in five previous mass extinction events.

According to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, it’s going to take drastic measures to slow this runaway train, one about which we’ve been warned into action since the 1980s — and yet, here we are. The UN estimates we will need to cut pollution in half and protect at least one-third of the Earth by 2030 to save our remaining wildlife. Only if we do this, the UN says, will we be able to allow ecosystems to start recovering toward a long-term future of “living in harmony with nature” — how all of civilization largely lived until the Industrial Revolution.

“Biodiversity, and the benefits it provides, is fundamental to human well-being and a healthy planet,” the report stated. “Despite ongoing efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide, and this decline is projected to continue or worsen under business-as-usual scenarios.”

The UN’s plan lists 20 targets, and spreads out the responsibility for moving forward between personal attention and change, corporate sustainability, general business practices, environmental and land use policy, greater sustainability to economic sectors and individual consumption, and cutting use of plastics, pesticides and other pollutants. Another major target: providing cleaner water, safer food, and more nutrients in food, to promote higher quality life.

At issue? China has largely refused to accept US plastics for recycling, part of their initial blowback to President Trump’s announcement of a trade war.

Consequently, after years of improving results, plastics are returning to landfills in massive numbers.

When they enacted the ban in 2018, it seriously disrupted America’s recycling industry.

Also, despite being advertised as recyclable, many of America’s plastics are truly not — including cups, bags, trays, plates and cutlery. Further, at this time, less than 5% of these so-called “mixed plastics” are reused in manufacturing.

envirobits

Using biofuel to enhance a wastewater treatment facility

Photo: iStockphoto/Toa55

Derry Township, home of the world-famous Hershey’s chocolate factory, is transforming its Clearwater Road Wastewater Treatment Facility into a highly sustainable operation via a $15 million energy enhancement program.

Upgrades at the facility involve ramping up the production and reuse of biogas as its fuel source, propelling the area’s future sustainability. Construction will begin in Fall 2020.

Already accepting organic waste from third-party carriers, the Derry Township Municipal Authority is developing long-range plans to maximize the capability to receive additional organic wastes.

Under DTMA’s $15 million energy enhancement program at the WWTF, Brown and Caldwell will lead the design of a combined heat and power (CHP) facility capable of burning biogas that will power two generator engines. After pairing with a new gas conditioning system for high-quality fuel production, the CHP facility will integrate into the WWTF’s existing electrical and heating system to provide electricity and heat throughout.

Other improvements include a conveyance system to transport gas throughout the facility, sludge blending tank enhancements to maximize energy recovery via biogas generation, and secondary digester modifications for future conversion to a primary digester.

“Increasing the production and beneficial use of anaerobic digester biogas as our fuel source to provide power and heat is significantly more efficient and environmentally sustainable than using electrical power from the grid or fossil fuels,” said DTMA Executive Director Wayne Schutz.

Upon completion of improvements, the WWTF will increase biogas power generation from 280 to 1,600 kilowatts per hour, significantly reducing the facility’s carbon footprint.

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Towards Regeneration: A Virtual Conference, A Longer View Produced in partnership with

A Conversation with KoAnn Skrzyniarz, CEO/Founder, Sustainable Brands Interview by Robert Yehling Produced in partnership with

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N

othing throws the spotlight onto how we treat each other, do our business and use our resources like a pandemic. Especially when it comes to finding better, more sustainable ways to move forward as a people and business community.

However, COVID-19 halted the conference, as it did thousands of others in all industries.

But first, Sustainable Brands is taking its originally scheduled pre-conference Leadership Summit and bringing it online. On June 1-2, the SB Leadership Summit will bring together CEOs, CSOs (Chief Sustainability Officers) and CMOs to take stock of where we are, and talk about how we can move forward together to deliver a healthier, more sustainable, and even regenerative future. Virtual attendees can register, click in and watch a pair of half-day seasons that speak to the theme Sustainable Brands has rolled out for the 2020s: “The Road to Regeneration.”

That conference has been rescheduled for Nov. 30-Dec. 3 in Long Beach, CA. “We’re hoping it’s

KoAnn discussed with us the virtual conference and Sustainable Brands’ focus during

This is the situation and opportunity facing all of us right now, and one Sustainable Brands is broadcasting through its corporate members and events. Early June was to be the annual Sustainable Brands conference, which draws thousands of businesses, thought and policy leaders and attendees to discuss and adopt latest practices in a greener, more sustainable way of doing business and living.

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going to be a huge opportunity to celebrate,” says Sustainable Brands CEO/Founder KoAnn Skrzyniarz, breaking into a full smile on Zoom at the thought of everyone being able to get together again.

SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

these early days of slowly rolling out and moving forward, as the global economy reawakens from three months of COVID-19 lockdown.

Sustainability Today: Tell us about the SB Leadership Summit, and the new format with its move to a virtual setting.

KoAnn Skrzyniarz: We’re basically going virtual with a half-day leadership conference we had planned to run the day before the actual event. The intention was to bring together CSOs and CMOs, specifically, to inspire and engage more CMOs to understand and leverage environmental and social good to strengthen their brands in a changing marketplace. We’ve been moving in that direction for quite some time with our ‘Brands for Good’ initiative. The content is really intended to be inspirational and challenging for people who have longstanding knowledge of the sustainability space, as well as those who are fairly new.

ST: How will you split up the sessions and discussion points between the two days?

KS: There are two content segments, split into two days. On the first day, Andrew Winston, well-known author of Green to Gold and The Great Pivot, will speak with Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature and founder of Biomimicry 3.8, and Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money, on ‘How Did We Get Here?’ It’ll be a rich and hardhitting conversation about what we’ve done to degrade our environment, and how we’ve become confused about the role of money in society.

Evelyn Webster, CEO of the Guardian US & Australia, will then host a segment on “How Should We Lead?” where we’ve invited three very creative CEOs who are breaking the mold to address serious social and environmental issues in meaningful ways through their businesses.

On Day Two, we’re delighted to share how leading CMO’s and CSO’s partner with each other, as well as collaborate with other brands in our community, to enable accelerated action to drive organizational change designed to embed sustainability into the core of their brands and business, and inspire culture change for a better future. Our speakers are quite impressive, and include CMOs and CSO’s from P&G, Pepsi, Target, SAP, Visa, Nestle, General Mills, Dentsu Aegis, Clorox and more!

There will be plenty of dialogue throughout, with plenty of Q&A, breakout sessions with speakers and other industry leaders, hospitality/ networking lounges and more. Our aim is to deliver the same cross section of inspiration, tangible learning, relationship building/ networking and collaboration that we have become known and valued for around the world.

ST: You held a couple of prior virtual events this year. Are you finding this a successful way to conduct conferences and summits, given SB’s large membership from all points of the nation and world?

KS: Yes. We have tested two virtual events since COVID happened and we’ve all had to adjust to stay-at-home work. We held our normal spring Corporate Member meeting, usually a face-to-face event, as a virtual meeting

in early April. It was exceptional. We actually had a bigger turnout than we normally get from our face-to-face meetings — almost double the turnout. People stayed throughout the whole two days, we had a workshop the second day that was very well received, and we were able to have conversations in this setting, not just broadcasting content from our end. We received an NPS score from that meeting of 63 — basically 9s and 10s across the board, when we asked people if they’d recommend corporate membership based on this experience. We also did a webinar on consumer research with our partners at Porter-Novelli on how consumers are feeling on the role of brands in the COVID world, which was exceptionally well attended.

ST: What were the takeaways of that webinar? Anything we can turn into action steps moving forward?

KS: Yes. Porter Novelli shared a good deal of helpful data that those interested can find in the recap on our website. The three takeaways I shared to close that session were that brands should be human, be helpful, and be humble.

One of the things coming out of this situation that I find beautiful is that everybody is enjoying and appreciating talking to each other from our homes, and letting our hair down in ways that are less common. We’ve been talking about authenticity and vulnerability at Sustainable Brands for years. Now, all of a sudden, people don’t have a choice, and they are discovering that it’s actually quite a delight to be in more real human relationships with others. The ‘be humble’ piece recognizes we don’t have the answers, that what we’re experiencing with COVID and this moment is a symptom, not the root of the problem. We have to start asking more powerful questions and redouble our

efforts to get at the roots rather than allowing ourselves — and this is the temptation — to just throw a lot of philanthropy at solving the current crisis, which I would characterize a little bit as putting your thumb in a dike.

ST: That’s a really good point. Philanthropy is certainly helping address immediate concerns, but there are deeper systemic problems that it took a global pandemic to expose.

KS: I think one of the strong messages we want to see amplified right now is that COVID19 is another of many increasingly concerning symptoms of the breakdown of the environmental ecosystems our economy relies on. It also highlights the reality of environmental and social inequities that place unequal pressure on people of color and other economically (Continued on page 14)

Signing up for the SB Leadership Conference Want to attend the virtual Sustainable Brands Leadership Conference on June 1-2, and hear how some of the nation’s top business leaders and sustainable practices innovators are planning to move forward in the post-COVID environment?

Here are a few resources to help you register and get prepared for the two half-days of keynotes, talks, breakouts and other activities: Registration: https://sustainablebrands.com/ conferences/sustainablebrands-2020/program/ virtual-leadership-summit/#register About the Event: https://sustainablebrands. com/conferences/sustainablebrands-2020/ program/virtual-leadership-summit/ SPRING 2020 | SUSTAINABILITY TODAY

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Highlighted speakers for the event include; Top (l to r) Andrew Winston, Virginie Helias, and Marc Pritchard, Bottom (l to r) Janine Benyus, Simon Lowden, Amanda Nusz, and Rick Gomez.

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disadvantaged parts of our society. It’s not just a new virus that’s going to come and go, and we return to normal. This is exposing all sorts of deeper problems. This has all led up to, and is speeding up the regeneration conversation that we’re launching this year.

ST: Has the current situation with COVID19 changed at all the way you’re positioning Sustainable Brands this year and into the future?

KS: In terms of our mission and the work we feel needs to be done, not at all. In fact, many of our stakeholders who participate in our upcoming Leadership Summit have stressed to us that their commitment to driving forward the sustainability agenda is ‘unwavering’, and perhaps even accelerating, as a function of COVID. Their need for our work is greater than ever. We, like others, will continue to be alert to how best to pivot our operations and the fulfillment of our mission in the face of COVID, but we are not wavering in our focus on continuing to deliver insights, tools and a community of collaborators that when working in concert can have a huge impact in our collective future.

ST: Wouldn’t this be a great opportunity for those companies that have been at the forefront of sustainability policy and business practices for the last decade or two to assert themselves in an even more influential way on business and industry at large, since they’ve proven can address the

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

root problems you have mentioned?

KS: Some of them already are. Obviously, it’s going to depend on the industry and the business implications of the fallout from the virus. I mean, Alaska Airlines is one of our closest partners and corporate members, and they’re 90 percent down on their business to date from last year. That will not change their level of commitment — but it will impact their resource availability and the staging of their work. That’s true for our hospitality clients and others, too. But if you’re a Procter and Gamble or a Bayer or a GlaxoSmithKline, or another of our sectors thriving during this time, like 3M, these companies are well-positioned to lean in to momentum they’re already generating and do even more, faster, together.

What we’re really hearing from people in our membership circle is that while they may take a pause to evaluate the situation and understand the scale of the financial impacts to their business short-term, they are going to stick to their (sustainable practices) commitments, and band together to look for opportunities to speed up. We’re seeing new companies like Clorox, HP Graphics, General Mills and others step in to become Corporate Members and join our Brands for Good since COVID hit. That should give us all comfort.

ST: What significance will the current U.S. environmental regulation rollbacks have moving forward?

KS: Our constituency, by and large, recognizes the challenges to their business outlook in the future. They’d love to have the regulatory support to level the playing field, but if they’re not going to get the leadership they need from the government, they’re going to take it on themselves. They’re stepping in together, banding together, making commitments together, and are going to set the leadership context.

ST: When you talk to SB corporate members, and other business and industry leaders, what ideas do they share about moving forward with an even greater focus on sustainable practices, greater investment in a green economy, and tackling the root of our overall economic and social inequality and general misuse of resources?

KS: I’m not sure people are ready yet to articulate how we’re going to emerge from COVID-19 in the future; most are trying to figure out how to respond in the moment.

However, our theme is that this is the year we need to pivot to a new focus on regeneration rather than just sustainability, and we see this as rightly timed and increasingly important. We definitely will be saying, “COVID is just another signal in the landscape that really is forcing us to double down on restoring our ecosystems, economy and societies. The point is the future, and what we’re going to do about it going forward.” 

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The Road to Regeneration: A Virtual Conference • June 1-2, 2020

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: MONDAY, June 1

TUESDAY, JUNE 2

11:15 a.m. EDT Session #1: W hat’s Wrong With The World and How Do We Fix It?

11:08 a.m. EDT Session #3: Future Proofing Our Brands: The Power of the CMO + CSO Connection

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Moderator: Andrew Winston, Author, The Big Pivot and Green to Gold

Moderator: KoAnn Skryzniarz

Speakers: Janine Benyus, Co-Founder, Biomimicry3.8; and Lynne Twist, Founder & President, The Soul of Money Institute

Speakers: Marc Pritchard, Chief Branding Officer, P&G, Virginie Helias, Chief Sustainability Officer, P&G, Rick Gomez, EVP, Chief Marketing Officer, Target, Amanda Nusz, VP, Corporate Responsibility & President of the Target Foundation, Simon Lowden, Chief Sustainability Officer, Pepsico

All of a sudden, the world seems to have erupted into chaos. Coronavirus has captured the attention of the world, and all of us, including the companies we represent and support, are scrambling to understand how to respond.

There is no more perfect time for the Sustainable Brands community to begin a global exploration of what’s happening to our world and how we can fix it as together we seek to explore and act to construct the next, more regenerative economy of the future.

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12:00 Noon • Q&A and Videos 12:15 p.m.

Session #2: How Shall We Then Lead?

Moderator: Evelyn Webster, CEO, Guardian Speakers: Narhalie Green, CEO, Doconomy; Rick Shadyak, CEO, St. Jude’s Hospital; and Richard Bergfors, CEO, Max Burgers, Sweden Leadership in this new world will require courage and vision -- and a commitment to staying focused on the needs of the future rather than those of the past. Hear from some of those leaders committed to thinking differently about the role their organizations can play in redesigning for a regenerative future -- one focused on the value in real beauty, diversity, circularity, and more.

12:57 p.m. • Q&A and Videos 1:07 p.m. • Networking, Yoga Break, Lunch Break 1:27 p.m. • Breakout Rooms 1. Getting to the Next Level of Maturity in Your Sustainability Work 2. Communication in a Covid World 3. If and How Goals Might Evolve in a Changing Context 4. Engaging All Departments 2:27 p.m. • Closing Call to Action with KoAnn Skrzyniarz

One of the most powerful connections we see in business today is the emerging connection between the CSO and CMO. The way this connection has, and is taking shape is different from company to company. SB community leaders share the catalysts and choices they’ve made as they have brought these two key stakeholders in to closer collaboration, learn the rationale for their decisions, obstacles they’ve encountered and how they’ve overcome them, and tips for making the most out of the relationship.

12:08 p.m. • Q&A and Videos 12:28 p.m. • Session #4: The BFG Response (2 hours) Moderator: Etienne White, Vice President, Brands for Good Speakers: Brand Innovation: Using Sustainability as an Innovation Driver Pepe Gorbea – HP Graphics, Joanne Dwyer – CVS Health, Yumi ClevengerLee – Nestle Waters Lifestyle Innovation: The Role of Employee Engagement as Behavior Change Driver Cesc Bordas – PepsiCo, Kirsten Allegri Williams – SAP, Doug Sabo – Visa Impact Metrics: Marketing Needs Robust, Shared Tools to Measure Change Jennifer Betka – Indigo Ag, Emma De Szoeke – PepsiCo, Manu Madeddu CMO Perspective: Embedding Sustainability for the Long Term Lynne Biggar – VISA Learn how major brands, including CVS, Pepsi, P&G, Target, Nestle, SAP, Visa, and others, are coming together to collaborate on using brand influence to support behavior change for a better world.

12:38 p.m. • Breakout Rooms 1. Getting to the Next Level of Maturity in Your Sustainability Work 2. Communication in a Covid World 3. If and How Goals Might Evolve in a Changing Context 4. Engaging All Departments 2:38 p.m. • Closing Call to Action with KoAnn Skrzyniarz

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

Electric Car Charging Safety Some of the best-selling EV Charging Stations are not safety-tested and certified

A

fter deciding to buy a plug-in electric vehicle, often the next decision is to purchase a Level 2 charging station for faster charging at home. The technical name as defined in the National Electric Code for these products is EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment), commonly called charging stations.

Safety might not be the first consideration when selecting a charging station, but safety is actually the most important thing to consider. The primary function of a plug-in vehicle charging station is to provide electrical safety for the operator and electrical infrastructure throughout the charging process and specifically to address the risks of fire and electric shock.

The good news is charging an electric vehicle is actually very safe and easy when done with proper, independently safety-certified equipment. The challenge is that not all charging stations on the market are independently safety tested and certified.

When a charging station manufacturer develops a new product, or makes even a minor change to an existing product, they should send samples to a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL), such as Intertek (ETL mark) or Underwriter’s Laboratory (UL mark). Safety engineers at these labs perform months of extensive safety testing that the products must pass before they can be safety certified and made available to the public for sale. Only products with these marks appearing on the manufactured product’s rating plate are safety certified.

Look for these (ETL or UL) certification marks on the station itself when shopping for a charging station:

Do a quick experiment in your own home: look around at the electrical appliances purchased from a reputable source and you will see they are all marked with a safety label. If you find a product that plugs into the wall that is not marked, you might want to consider not using it.

Be Cautious of These Things:

Deceptive Markings - Some manufacturers use officiallooking marks such as the CE logo. If you only see a CE mark then the product has not been independently certified. CE is a self-certifying mark and it should not be trusted in the US, Canada, and Mexico. A CE mark in addition to the UL or ETL mark is acceptable.

Do NOT use a product that only has a CE mark.

Uncertified Products are being sold by what seems like a reputable seller - Buying the product from what seems to be a reputable seller doesn’t mean the charging station has been safety certified. Most large home improvement retailer stores like Lowes and Home Depot have standards in place that require NRTL certification for electrical appliances. However, there are online retailers, such as Amazon, direct sellers, and sources from outside the United States that DO carry and sell unlisted products.

Deceptive Claims - When selecting a charging station, if you are unsure about the NRTL certification status of a product, reach out to the product supplier and ask them to provide confirmation that the product you are interested in is NRTL (UL or ETL) certified.

Non-Grounded Plugs - If you are purchasing a plug-in charging station, NEVER buy a station with a NEMA 10-30 or 10-50 plug. The NEMA 10-30 and NEMA 10-50 style outlets do not have an earth ground connection.

There is NO possibility that a charging station delivered with one of these plugs is properly NRTL safety certified.

One of the key safety functions of a charging station is providing an earth ground connection to the vehicle.

This assures the vehicle body is safely grounded during charging.

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Feeding A Warming Planet

Our Food Supply Produced in partnership with

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

The United States produces more food than any country in the world. Yet, when it comes to sustainable practices, distribution, re-distribution and ability to withstand disruption, we have a long way to go.

y Challenge Written and Compiled By Robert Yehling

The Coronavirus pandemic makes this readily apparent. The nation’s forced shuttering of doors cost many industries dearly, and created unemployment numbers not seen since the Great Depression. It disrupted the food supply chain to the point of sharply higher prices, lack of basic goods on store shelves, and a question on the minds of many: “Was there ever a Plan B in case of a national disaster or pandemic?” It also showed the perils and limits of a food supply built on the backs of the meat industry, centralized farming, coast-to-coast distribution and reliance on imported goods — all of which lack the basic principles of sustainability.

We’ve seen meat packing plants close due to massive COVID-19 outbreaks — then reopen under the pressure of a Presidential directive, though many have closed since to undertake thorough cleanings and safety measures. We’ve seen store runs on basics that looked like a cicada swarm’s first stop after 17 years of hibernation — and a struggle to re-supply. We’ve seen farmers kill pigs, chickens and cattle by the millions, unable to process and put into market. And we’ve seen others dump milk, soybeans and other cash crops because the distribution chain is so stressed, even broken in some cases. Not to mention dealing with the altered weather and pest issues associated with climate change.

It’s a serious situation, one that calls into question our way of distributing food — and growing and processing it.

However, with every difficulty or catastrophe comes an opportunity. We highlight new ways that scientists and farmers are working together to create stronger, hardier crops and ways of distributing more sustainably. We also look at how more and more North Americans are re-evaluating their food choices, by considering the resource cost of our traditional core food supply, namely meat and dairy.

Photo: iStockphoto/stevanovicigor

As we slowly re-emerge from months of Coronavirus lockdown, the time is at hand to bring more sustainable growing, packing and distribution practices online. It’s now time to go beyond the visions and practices of our forerunners — like Lundberg Family Farms, Organic Valley, Nature’s Path, Seventh Generation and Stonyfield — and bake sustainable practices into our entire food supply. This will ensure more are fed nutritiously, we will eat fresh food from our local areas when possible, and we can better weather the next storm.  SPRING 2020 | SUSTAINABILITY TODAY

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Creating Plants to Feed a Climate-Changing World Produced in partnership with

80 scientists at Cibus are fortifying the world’s most prominent food crops, using the plant’s own cell biology — a triumph in sustainability

By Robert Yehling

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When Dr. Noel Sauer decided to forego a career in academic research to jump into the front lines of plant biology, she had no idea she’d be literally helping to feed the world amidst a rapidly changing world. Yet, the Vice President of Research at Cibus finds herself in exactly that position.

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“I was divided between doing academic research and getting into biotech, but I chose biotech because you can take the science you learned and quickly apply it to make everything better — people, the environment,” she said. “It became my passion to try to make things better.

Different experiences along the way helped navigate me in the right direction. I didn’t box myself in, but followed my heart to what excited me. Which is what I’m doing today.”

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What Dr. Sauer is doing today is leading a team of 80 scientists to strengthen the natural cell biologies of the most important food crops in the world — canola, rice, corn, flax, soybeans, wheat and potatoes.

By using an innovative process she calls “making DNA spelling changes,” she and the Cibus team are working with the plants’ stem cells to create stronger, hardier and more adaptable varieties to feed a growing population (estimated by the UN to be 10 billion by 2050) in an increasingly harsh environment. Best of all? This nontransgenic process does not introduce GMOs or other foreign substances into the native DNA.

to shifting weather patterns. Cibus wants to be part of that solution by developing plants that can thrive and provide higher yields despite these changes.

bringing into crops enable the plants to

“Climate change is a defining issue of our time,” Dr. Sauer said. “For agriculture, that means understanding how plants can adapt

“With climate change, the key issue is drought tolerance, as things get hotter and drier. The traits we’re developing and

plants that are both disease resistant and

SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

grow in drier conditions, and are also more adaptable in non-familiar regions, with greater water use efficiencies. We want drought tolerant, so we put in traits the plant needs to flourish in that changing

Feeding A Warming Planet

environment. We want to provide this for the world. This is our vision as a company.”

Cibus’ efforts are among the most important in national and global agriculture today. It begins with the #2 protein meal and #3 vegetable oil product in the world, canola, which is grown in colder climates like Canada, Minnesota, the Dakotas and Europe. In North America alone, that amounts to 46 million acres.

Cibus has identified and added three specific traits, which combine to provide plants that can better withstand all three outcomes of climate change — drier conditions, warmer temperatures, and a growing problem with weeds and insects.

“We work with the seeds in canola pods,” Dr. Sauer explained. “Due to changing weather and soil conditions, many pods now fall to the ground pre-harvest, reducing yields up to 40 percent. We want to increase yields, which we need between climate change and the increasing population. Another trait we’re developing makes canola resistant to white mold, something that can reduce yield by up to 50 percent. With this resistance, we can

reduce the use of fungicides and control the disease. We’re also developing a new system for weed control, which also increases yield.”

Cibus is furthest along with their canola work, now made available to farmers through Falco Seeds, a Canadian company.

They’re also working with a partner to distribute their enhanced varieties of rice, in which they’ve added two traits to increase yield and build tolerance against herbicides.

“Rice needs to globally sustain in order to feed 1 billion people; it’s the most valuable, consumed crop in the world,” Dr. Sauer said.

“Rice and other crops have to compete with weeds for nutrients and sunlight. It’s really important to have natural weed control, to feed more people.”

Another effort moving toward market comes with wheat, which involves yet another specific process within the plant’s cell biology. As Dr. Sauer explained, “We actually make spelling changes in the protoplast (the plant’s stem cells) to germinate stronger plants, and we can develop its clone. We work in a single-cell environment, working with protoplast in

both rice and flax.”

The deeper science behind all of Cibus’ efforts concerns making “spelling changes” within the plants’ DNA, without adding any outside material. “We’re making plants hardier, optimizing their use of water better, and increasing sustainability by optimizing the plant itself,” Dr. Sauer said.

Cibus scientists can change any A,T, C, or G characteristic in plant genomes to another A, T, C or G of their choosing.

Rather than making these changes in the lab, they work with actual varieties of the crop plant to create elite, more sustainable varieties.

The biggest benefits? According to Dr. Sauer, the process pushes the crop plant’s natural evolution forward while also fortifying it for these times. “We don’t interbreed over the course of, say, a decade, which is how botanists would create hardier plants,” she said. “We make the changes in elite varieties to eliminate breeding, which cuts down the time to get it to market. Instead of a decade, it can be a few years.

SPRING 2020 | SUSTAINABILITY TODAY

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“Evolution can’t keep up with climate change at its present pace, but technology can help plants keep up and improve them so they don’t go extinct,” she added.

Minnesota and Canada – the heart of canola country. Cibus began 20 years ago, with most of its key researchers and plant scientists on the team for a decade or more.

As Dr. Sauer explained, Cibus’ small size and team expertise has enabled it to pivot and adapt in ways a larger agribusiness concern cannot. Think of it as the difference in maneuverability between a speedboat and a cargo ship.

All of this is happening not in a megalithic operation like Monsanto, but in a small San Diego-based company with 120 employees, with other offices in

“We’ve spent a lot of time optimizing our technology. Because of that, we were ready to be really innovative as a small company, ready to tackle a huge worldwide problem

SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

— feeding the world in a time of climate change. It’s really exciting to be on the front lines, and our company is in the right place with our technology at the right time.”

Cibus’ canola efforts are already apparent in increasing crop yields in North America.

The next major rollout will come with rice, followed by wheat and the other core food crops. The company believes that, as the decade continues, their science will not only produce hardier plants, but also make a monumental difference in how many people and animals can be fed with more nutritious and naturally-grown crops. 

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Sustaining Our Food Supply — Naturally Regenerative Agriculture is starting to catch on throughout the country — bringing with it organic meat and produce, and restored environments

By Beth Covington

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

Feeding A Warming Planet Timothy Kercheville shakes his head every summer, when he looks upon millions of picture postcardperfect fields of corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, sorghum and other commodity crops that spread throughout his native Western Kentucky. He shakes his head not at the visual beauty of the fields, but how they became like that — at a hard health cost to land and consumer.

“Looks beautiful, doesn’t it?”

Kercheville, the owner of Festina Lente Farms, says. “There are millions of acres of farmland in our country just like this and it’s actually more horrific than many of us could imagine.”

It really is hard to imagine — until this regenerative agriculture specialist breaks it down. “Growing annual corn and soybeans and wheat over so many millions of acres, whether one uses chemicals or not, is destructive to prairie-savannah ecosystems, and a disastrous replacement for the deep, variegated, perennial and annual root systems of the prairie,” he explained.

“These shallow-rooted commodity crops are not able to sequester carbon, build soil organic matter, or infiltrate water. We simply cannot do this to such vast ecosystems and expect ecologically sound or economically just results.”

Kercheville is one of the leading figures in regenerative agriculture, a way of farming that works to bring the land back to its original state, using primarily biomimickry — in this case, to mimic the natural predator/prey relationship. By doing so, he and other farmers in Kentucky, California, and other states are restoring nutrients, deeper roots and natural habitat, bringing back animal and bird species long native to these regions.

They are also producing organic, pasture-fed beef, pork, chicken and

vegetable crops that feed the earth and environment — rather than leech from it, as has been the case since World War II. In a world languishing environmentally from the impact of agribusiness, and a health system taxed by diseases linked to pesticides, chemicals and an ever-weakening food supply, Kercheville and other regenerative farmers are creating one of the most sustainable forms of farming we’ve seen since our pioneer ancestors first started breaking ground.

“All of the animals we sang about in ‘Old McDonald’s Farm’ as schoolkids — cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, ducks, and others — are all together, on an open farm,” says Dr. Gayle Madeleine Randall, MD, author of Soul Doctoring and a long-time integrative and functional medicine specialist, and natural food proponent who interacts with California-based regenerative farms like Primal Pastures and Kiss the Ground, and sits on the board of another next-gen food operation, ONEPOINTONE. “By restoring farms to their natural states, and by moving the animals from area to area on a farm, we also restore the grasslands, which not only produces organic product, but also replenishes oxygen and reduces carbon dioxide.”

Regenerative farming’s benefits start at the heart of our climate change problem — trying to keep carbon out of the atmosphere. By using natural processes, farmers create the ultimate form of sustainable farming.

Regenerative farming can slow carbon emissions and hold in place carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, by locking it within the soil and plants. Since farmers do not till their soil, but rely on composting, cover crops and crop rotation, the carbon in soil does not release to the atmosphere. Farmers also use hedges and windbreaks to reduce carbon loss.

Photo: iStockphoto/mycola

SPRING 2020 | SUSTAINABILITY TODAY

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Feeding A Warming Planet

The end result in a farming season? Increased crop yields and livestock health, while building more resistance to drought, erosion and flooding, and retaining more water in the soil. When these factors are in play, Kercheville says, synthetic fertilizers are no longer needed.

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All of these are increasingly critical as climate change continues to throw harder and more destructive storms our way.

The other obvious benefit is the quality of food. Our healthcare system is overwhelmed by food-borne (or, to be more accurate, food processing and chemically-added food-borne) diseases — even before the Coronavirus epidemic. Our resources are stretched to the limits by overgrazing and our national addiction to meat. Bring in regenerative farm produce, which includes organic meat and vegetables, both of which are absent growth hormones, chemicals and other toxins, while being substantially more nutritious.

Kercheville and other regenerative farmers also are looking at the economics of the farming industry, figuring out how farmers can take this highly sustainable, long-lasting practice to their farms and make appreciable money at it. That’s not easy; most U.S. farmers only get by because they are subsidized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That puts them in a troubling feedback loop, as it hooks them to agribusiness and its “maximum yield, maximum land use” mantra through pesticides, fertilizers and production of shallow-rooted commodity crops. The $867 billion farm bill passed by Congress in 2019 is largely eaten up by farm subsidies — at taxpayers’ expense.

What if taxpayers could save some of that money? And eat better food? Produced by farmers who could make a living? And not be bound by USDA rules? While restoring farmland and the lands surrounding it to their pristine state before industrialized farming began taking over?

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Photo: iStockphoto/fcafotodigital

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“Timothy persuaded some local governments to support regenerative farms that provide food for the people of Kentucky,” Dr. Randall pointed out after interviewing Kercheville for her Vibrant Health radio show. “’Grow local, buy local’: it is the healthiest way we can eat meat and produce, because the product goes from farm to table, without trucks, warehouses and agepreservatives wearing down the nutritional value.”

Kercheville and other regenerative farmers are creating an agricultural model that shines with sustainable features. The locally-grown food is regionally exported (rather than nationally or internationally), saving thousands of gallons of fuel and other transportation costs (not to mention release of diesel exhaust) per harvest. Grasslands and forests surrounding the farms are being restored through agro-forestry — sometimes by letting nature take its course and reclaiming farmlands. Since yields are higher, and farmers don’t have to meet commodity requirements by overgrowing food, they don’t need as much land. Carbon is retained by plants and soil, lessening the greenhouse warming effect. The food is healthier, which leads to greater public health in both urban and rural settings, productivity, and an easing of the healthcare overload — and cost.

The bottom line? It’s too soon to tell, but regenerative agriculture could be the magic bullet to restore our land and our national health — and do it with business practices that are the epitome of sustainability.  Photo: iStockphoto/irina_girich

Why Our Farmlands Are Eroding Why are our farmlands eroding in both levels of topsoil and quality of food? The easy answer would be the intensified floods, droughts, heat and cold waves perpetrated by climate change, but the real issue grows much deeper.

It directly involves root systems. Prior to industrialized farming, crops grew deep roots that reached layers of soil rich in nutrients. Not so much anymore. For one thing, we dig six inches into topsoil annually to find soil nutritious enough to sustain our food supply. Not long ago, that nutrition was in the top few inches. Second, we’ve lost at least a foot of topsoil to erosion and farming methods during the era of agribusiness. It takes nature approximately 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil due to erosion.

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

Other reasons, according to Farmer’s Footprint, a resource for natural farming: • Chemical herbicide planting systems are used for annual commodity crops.

• The underground world disconnects.

• The roots cannot reach the vast diversity in the soil needed to bring nutrients to the crops.

• Nodes cannot be created to sequester carbon and fix nitrogen • The crops lack nutrients, the soil loses diversity and ability to withstand wind, drought, and heavy rains.

• Topsoil gets washed and blown away, along with any pesticides and chemicals within it.

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The Meat and Food Supply Breakdown Produced in partnership with

The Coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the health, environmental and human cost of our meat packing facilities — and heralded a call for an even stronger plant-based food supply Produced in partnership with

By Robert Yehling One of the biggest tragedies of our tragic battle against Coronavirus occurred within the nation’s massive network of meat packing facilities. When Smithfield’s Sioux Falls, SD facility announced in April hundreds of positive cases, shut down for 2 ½ weeks of deep cleaning, and then announced hundreds of thousands of animals were being slaughtered weekly because they couldn’t be processed, a whole slew of issues spilled into the public eye.

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Photo: iStockphoto/dangarneau

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

The first was the fickleness of our national food supply chain itself. The meat packing plants were already stressed because of a run on meat and dairy products by panicked buyers when the Coronavirus lockdown began.

Companies struggled to process more food to be distributed, in overcrowded worker conditions far from hygienic, where social distancing was a pipe dream. Not surprisingly, they were hit by waves of positive Coronavirus

cases from coast to coast — hundreds per plant, in some cases.

Many plants closed down to deep clean, for days to weeks, throwing down the second nail on the food supply. Suddenly, meat, dairy and cheese products shot up 25% or more — if you could find them. Worse, farmers were forced to slaughter millions of animals over a month-long span, which will be felt in the food supply in the coming months.

Feeding A Warming Planet Photo: iStockphoto/andresr

In late April, President Trump used the Defense Production Act to require meat packing plants to open, a decision that called into question what was more important: the food supply? Or the health of 130,000 workers?

Many plants remained closed to continue cleaning, with each passing day showing how exposed and prone to disruption our food supply is, in a nation where meat and dairy reign supreme.

The second tragedy was the plight of the workers. While some meat packing plants work hard at creating sustainable solutions, the vast majority run old-style assembly-line factories.

Workers stand next to each other, engaged in the most gruesome and least sanitary jobs in our food supply — turning whole animals into food products. These women and men already take their health into their own hands as they kill, cut and process the cows, pigs and chickens at the backbone of our food supply. This exposes them to countless animal-borne diseases (Coronavirus is another example of an animalborne disease).

To their vast credit, most of the 130 or so different meat processing companies, including the big guns — JBS Holdings, Tyson Foods, Cargill Meat Solutions, SYSCO Corp., Smithfield, Hormel, Oscar-Meyer, and Perdue Farms — came out of their shutdowns with safer, more hygienic plants that also accounted for social distancing and other basic worker safety features. Increased sustainability, though, is another matter. It is a dynamic, ongoing problem: as recently as May 18, Farbest poultry processing plant in Indiana shut down after 100 workers tested positive.

As of our late May deadline, almost half of U.S. Coronavirus hotspots exist in meat packing facilities, reported The Guardian. Chances are, until there is a vaccine, meat packing plants will be one of the most vulnerable workplaces on earth for contracting COVID-19.

The plants have had to adapt. When the Coronavirus reached the U.S., none of these facilities were equipped with ways to mitigate the fast-spreading virus — social distancing,

regular sanitizing of hands and workspaces, personal protection equipment, etc. Not surprisingly, the virus raced through the packing plants at warp speed, the percentage of workers infected far higher than the national average. As of May 25, more than 17,000 out of 130,000 total employees tested positive for COVID-19 in 213 plants, according to the CDC and the Food and Environment Reporting Network.

“The pandemic has shone a light on the meat industry where for years workers have been exploited in these plants including being penalized for not showing up even when they are sick or injured,” Tony Corbo, senior lobbyist at the not-for-profit Food & Water Watch, said.

“Even now, it’s taken plants to be shut down for companies to provide protective gear for workers.”

The thousands with Coronavirus weren’t the only ones to suffer. While store shelves were stripped of meat products, and the meat-centric food supply was squeezed, farmers started slaughtering or euthanizing millions of cows, SPRING 2020 | SUSTAINABILITY TODAY

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pigs and chickens because they couldn’t be brought to a meat processing plant to be killed for food. On top of that, Reuters reported that, as of April 27, farmers were killing 700,000 pigs per week.

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Meanwhile, meat and dairy products have become more of a premium on grocery shelves — and food banks and free distribution programs are stressed due to the more than 35 million out of work. Imagine a food supply protocol, or Plan B, where farmers could safely process meat and re-distribute locally or regionally to stores, farmer’s markets and food banks. It used to be that way in North America, before agribusiness centralized our food supply.

Now, only 8 percent of U.S. farms distribute locally.

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The other core food supply issue that has emerged from the pandemic concerns the health and sustainability of our food itself. Just how healthy is our food? In two words, not very. Our reliance on meat and dairy comes at an enormous resource cost to the environment; for instance, it takes 100 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, but only one gallon to produce one pound of plant-based food.

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Photo: iStockphoto/roibu

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

Feeding A Warming Planet Further, our food supply is spiked with highfructose corn syrup to preserve and enliven its taste, causing all sorts of long-standing health issues. Our means of distributing food, on trucks or trains from coast-to-coast, is both logistically and environmentally stressed. We often do not eat foods grown in our local areas, which makes us less immune to disease.

What is the solution? How can we fully emerge into a post-COVID-19 world with a far more efficient and healthier food supply chain?

First, thanks to COVID-19, meat processing plants will become safer and cleaner, at least in the short run. Second, grocery shelf shortages and focus on health have prompted many more people to consider partial or entire plant-based diets, which eliminate all of the dangers posed by the meat and dairy industry.

The implications could be vast. Worldwide, more than 60 percent of people live on plantbased diets — while only 15 to 20 percent of Americans do. Our food production system currently uses 50 percent of the total US land area (90 percent of that for our 9 billion livestock and their feed grains — corn and

soybeans), 80 percent of fresh water and 17 percent of fossil fuel, according to The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Our meat dependency, and the gutting of the environment to produce it, has been called out for decades; Earth Save founder John Robbins (who renounced his inherited Baskin-Robbins ice cream fortune because of the use of dairy to build it) started an activist group and wrote a bestselling book about the problem, Diet for a New America, in the late 1980s. Now, at this crisis point for the food supply, plant-based diets are taking on a new life, for both ease of acquiring and health benefits.

Regardless, the way forward with our food supply will be with healthier and more sustainable practices, such as those practiced by ten of the nation’s finest sustainable food companies (see story on page 34). A more regional distribution system will also alleviate systemic breakdowns like we saw in March and April, and the shortages that followed. With practices like these, and a focus on healthier eating in general, we can create a postCOVID-19 food supply that truly has the public health interest in mind. 

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Feeding A Warming Planet

Sustainable Food Companies How do we get from massive resource use and an ever more toxic food supply to sustainable, healthy foods that conserve our resources? These ten companies offer longstanding examples that would serve farmers well and transform agribusiness as we know it — leading to healthier meals and minimizing carbon footprints and impact to climate change.

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Back to the Roots: Back to the Roots makes its cereals from a minimum number of ingredients, which they source directly from organic, biodynamic farmers. One of their ongoing projects is to replace sugary cereals in New York City public schools.

Barnana: Barnana discovered that organic banana farmers were losing up to 20% of their yield annually because the bananas didn’t look “perfect”. Farmers would throw away the bananas, which causes another set of problems for the environment — let alone depriving food to many.

They created a product from the “imperfect” bananas.

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Justin’s: We don’t think about it often, but bees are responsible for 1 in 3 bites of food that we eat – including almonds and honey.

Those are key ingredients in Justin’s nut butters. Besides making highly nutritious and sustainable products, Justin’s also is actively working to restore bee populations in California, which are critical to the nation’s food supply.

Lundberg Family Farms: Lundberg is the one sustainable food company today whose origins trace back to the last time America mass-farmed organically — the years just prior to World War II. They started out in 1937 by growing rice in a way that supports healthy air, soil, water, and the ecosystem. Their founder’s motto? “Leave the land better than you found it.”

New Belgium: You might be surprised to see a craft brewer on a sustainable food company list, but New Belgium, a three-time “Best of the Environment” recipient, has made an art of repurposing its waste — 99.9% of which never sees a landfill. Their commitment to brewing with highest water quality while reducing carbon emissions makes them the most sustainable brewery in the world.

Nature’s Path: Nature’s Path, a 100% organic company, is an example of what happens when innovation extends past food products and into the lifecycle of the product, packaging and all. Nearly all of their waste is reused, recycled or composted, as part of a larger commitment to conserve resources, maintain carbon neutrality, and improve the environmental quality around them. Consequently, two of Nature’s Path’s three facilities have achieved Zero Waste Certification.

— Original Source: Eating Made Easy

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One Degree Foods: Wouldn’t it be nice to know which farm or ranch your food was grown on, so you can know the way it was grown? One Degree Foods makes that commitment to its customers, who can trace all ingredients to the farm where they were grown. The company uses only plant-based ingredients grown on sustainable, organic farms, and uses a less environmentally impactful distribution system.

Organic Valley: The key to Organic Valley is simple: all cows are raised in pastures, not feed lots or factories, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere rather than spiking carbon and methane levels. They also receive their natural diet with minimal antibiotics, ensuring higher quality cheese, milk, butter and other products.

Patagonia Provisions: A champion of sustainable practices since its founding in 1973, Patagonia’s food business works with, to quote the company, “farmers, ranchers and fishermen who embrace growing methods that regenerate and restore our resources, rather than depleting them.” The foods are highly nutritious, and you know they were grown naturally and harvested in sustainable ways.

Stonyfield: Stonyfield yogurt has nourished many students and parents for almost 40 years — and has been a model of sustainable food production since day one. Even more, the company helps conventional dairy farmers convert to organic, and funds a training program for the next generation of organic dairy farmers. Adding to their commitment, Stonyfield also donates 10% of profits to environmental causes.

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50 Years of Earth Day: What Have We Learned?

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By Beth Covington

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On April 22, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in a surreal way, with most citizens of the world at home, leaving the Earth more to herself than she’s been in decades.

Some of the data emerging from the Coronavirus lockdown showed the impact of a world not dominated by human industry and resource use. Global carbon dioxide emissions dropped by a mighty 17 percent in April 2020, according to a study published in Nature Climate Change, a peer-reviewed publication. A study on earth vibration and sound, conducted by scientists in Europe, found that the “human hum”, or collective sound of our busy lives, dropped by 35 percent. Millions of people started noticing “louder” animal and bird sounds.

Residents of normally smog-choked New Delhi, India saw the distant Himalaya mountains for the first time in 30 years. Many beaches cleaned back up to a pristine state.

In this ironic way, we got a glimpse of how quickly and efficiently the planet can heal itself from the scourges of pollution, unsustainable use of fossil fuels, carbon dioxide and methane emissions, and the imprint of modern industry in general. We also got a stark glimpse of what it will take for the climate to return to more moderate temperatures and the earth to restore itself.

It’s also interesting — and, some might say, ironic — to recall that a Republican president and Republican administration started Earth Day, especially considering the distinctly environment-unfriendly policies of the current administration. In responding to thick smog pollution in Los Angeles and New York, open-

ended dumping of pesticides onto farmlands and into streams and waterways, the clearcutting wars in the Pacific Northwest, and the infamous fire on Lake Erie, President Richard M. Nixon declared April 22 a day to celebrate the Earth, its beauty and resources.

Nixon also created the Environmental Protection Agency; the EPA has been the voice of every Administration’s environmental policy since, while regulating use of harmful chemicals and pollutants in industry and agriculture.

That declaration ramped up an environmental movement that had been accelerating for several years, since a pair of breakthrough books called attention to our nation’s worsening pollution and land devastation problems: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac. The other catalyst that greatly elevated our awareness of the earth literally came from out of this world: the pictures sent back to earth from the Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 missions.

Earth Day became the catalyst for millions of young Baby Boomers, as well as necessary fuel for groups like the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy and others.

From the 1970s forward, environmental concerns became a part of public policy. Some years were more focused than others, depending on the priorities of a particular administration.

Nevertheless, the ensuing half-century has produced great victories in the name of protecting our Earth and its resources: • The catalytic converter and fuel-efficient vehicles and standards, resulting in drastically reduced air pollution in cities, saving countless billions of gallons of oil, and mitigating carbon dioxide transmission in the air.

• Environmental regulations for all industries, which largely did not exist before 1970.

Suddenly, industry had limits on how much greenhouse gas they could emit into the atmosphere. This became most evident during the Obama Administration, when it created the first reductions in years, while dealing with rapid climate change.

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• Elimination of DDT and other harmful pesticides. Prior to 1970, we used DDT and other pesticides for farm crops, pesticides sometimes lethal to humans and animals — even after a crop season, when they stayed in the earth.

• Global awareness of the earth and its fragility. From Amazon range fires to deforestation in the Philippines to make palm oil, from plastics spinning in the oceans and absorbing into our seafood supply to toxic dump sites for American chemicals in China, we’ve become globally aware of our fate as a planet. This is thanks to the famous “Earthrise” photo from Apollo 8 in December, 1968, the creation of Earth Day, and the rise of the Internet.

• Sustainable business practices on an industry-wide basis. Quite a few companies practiced what we now know as sustainability prior to 1970, but very few large corporations or agribusiness concerns. While this is an ongoing struggle, the 2010s became the decade in which global and national corporations by the hundreds adopted sustainable business practices to conserve resources, create and preserve a path to a sustainable future, and provide more earth-friendly products to their customers. One organization, Sustainable Brands, works with hundreds of corporations and forwards

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sustainability policy on a global basis. The goal?

To create a future for business that conserves, rather than exhausts, our available human, material and natural resources.

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• Recycling took flight, first locally, then in all first-world nations. It largely did not exist prior to 1970. Now, most Americans recycle to some degree. In addition, millions “upcycle,” turning used products into something else altogether.

Others have formed entire businesses using purely recycled plastics and other products. The paper we use to write and to print out documents is generally made from wholly or partially recycled material. So large is our recycling business that, in recent years, recycling sites have had trouble keeping up with public demand.

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• Clear cutting is becoming a forest management strategy of the past – at least in the United States. After the tree wars in the Pacific Northwest peaked in the late 1980s, laws and regulations were installed to mitigate it for the most part.

And yet, as we look back on 50 years of Earth Day celebrations and our far greater awareness of the planet and how we impact it, we sit in a difficult situation in 2020 — one we will have to figure out quickly to even have a meaningful Centennial Earth Day in 2070.

Just in the past three years, we’ve seen a dozen catastrophic, Category 3-to-5 hurricanes and typhoons drive millions from their homes. Our oceans have warmed so much that entire barrier and coral reefs have been bleached dead. Floods have leveled communities and regions — and their crops. Storms with intensities not seen before have hammered all continents. On the flip side, wildfires have torched the droughtravaged West, particularly California, as well as millions of acres of Amazon rainforest — the lungs of the planet. The weather is becoming less and less predictable as the amount of carbon dioxide in the air warms the planet.

Environmental journalist and author Bill McKibben’s dire prediction of a point of no return for the earth — measured at a CO2 concentration of 350 parts per million — came and went. As of May 2020, our global CO2 level sat at 418 ppm — after the global reduction caused by Coronavirus.

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Photo: iStockphoto/wmaster890

Meanwhile, we have a multi-trillion dollar green industry all dressed up and ready to take flight, led by widespread solar and wind operations, full hybrid and electric car and truck fleets, millions of ready workers, and investors lined up and waiting. However, we’re currently dealing with administration priorities that call for fossil fuels, full environmental deregulation, pressure to stymie the green industry, opening up of federally protected lands for open mining and clear cutting, and halting of emissions regulations for industry — all in the name of economic progress. The danger of this continuing is that all of these priorities contribute to climate change, and they all speak of an America that existed prior to the first Earth Day. What do we do? How do we move forward in a sustainable way that balances personal health, planetary health, economic and business needs, preserves resources for future generations, mitigates the global warming that now seems out of control, and switches over permanently to fuels like solar and wind we’re already using in quantity?

These are the questions facing all of us, especially younger generations and those still in childhood. Thankfully, they have a champion in 17-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, whose calling out of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly and other international events made her the Time Person of the Year, and a heroine to millions globally.

Embodied in her is a feeling among teens and young adults that it’s time for us to get out there and solve this. Many are, whether starting green product businesses, studying environmental

science or law, or finding more efficient ways to work and live. They are the future, and between their awareness of our warming planet and technological know-how, they’re also the future of the green industry when it takes full shape later in this decade.

But for now, the Coronavirus’ one positive — the Earth’s ability to heal itself, with reduced global emissions — comes with an object lesson: to reduce emissions, we need to reduce all activity that involves greenhouse gases. To reduce pollution, we need to reduce use of plastics, chemicals and other harmful products — and recycle or reuse whenever we can. The U.N. estimates we need to reduce annual emissions by 7.6 percent to avoid the earth’s temperature climbing by 1.5 degrees C (2.5 degrees F), the current “point of no return” now that we’ve surpassed 350 ppm carbon dioxide absorption in the atmosphere and oceans. Even if we only go to a “slow roll” return to economic and activity normalcy the second half of 2020, the authors of the Nature Climate Change study predict we’ll reduce global emissions by 11 percent for the year.

The first Earth Day was both a celebration of the planet and call to greater awareness of our pollution issues. This Earth Day is a reminder of just how much was learned — and not learned — in the ensuing 50 years. Consequently, we find ourselves with two choices: enter into a greener economy with sustainable business and personal living practices, and less use of fossil fuels. Or suffer consequences the likes of which we are only beginning to see.

It’s up to us. 

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Redefining Live Events, One Reusable Cup at a Time Produced in partnership with

Veteran music producer and environmental solution innovator Michael Martin put his love of live concerts and the planet together. The result is r.Cup, the most disruptive — and reusable — product holding drinks at a show near you

By Robert Yehling

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Michael Martin’s path through business life looks more like the twists and turns of the Road to Hana — with just as much green around it.

Ever since he pushed aside an early career as a Wall Street investment banker to focus on using capitalism for good, and to find ways to benefit individual and planetary health, Martin has been a crucial environmental disrupter and innovator.

It only makes sense, some 30 years after he threw off his tie, produced the massive Earth Day 1990 celebration, and became an acclaimed live event producer and expert on greening practices at venues, that Martin would create a product that married together his two great passions. With r.Cup (http://www.rcup.com), headquartered in Minneapolis, Martin has not only fulfilled that goal, but created a fastgrowing product that is becoming a cultural hit for three generations of music and sports fans.

“We’re combining culture with social change impact through our work with live music and other events. I can’t think of a better platform to launch our efforts, since this audience tends to be very receptive and action- oriented toward environmental and social issues. Our goal is for concerts to minimize their environmental impact,” Martin said. “We want to create complete awareness to stop using single-use plastics.”

His approach is brilliant. Thanks to more than two dozen partnering bands — including heavyweights like The Rolling Stones, U2, Dave Mathews Band, Rod Stewart, Jack Johnson, Radiohead and Roger Waters — fans buy their drinks in r.Cups at those shows. They can then either use the cup at the show and return it, or bring it home with them as a logo-embossed collectible.

That’s the delicious catch — no r.Cup is thrown away. Instead, the r.Cup team collects cups from bins set around arenas, stadiums and festival grounds, along with the turned-in cups, then washes, sterilizes and redistributes them, over and over again. The #5 virgin bioplastic used to make r.Cups, an environmentally sound product, makes that possible.

“Single use plastics— even those made of biodegradable material— is an outdated approach in need of systematic change,” Martin said. “With r.Cup, we can inspire that kind of

change in a way that rewards fans while removing hundreds of tons of plastic from the waste stream.”

In so doing, Martin and r.Cup are directly addressing one of the worst and most harmful pollution sources — single-use plastics. Every year, 600 billion single-use cups are used and discarded, an average of 80 cups for every man, woman and child on the planet. Of those, 4 billion come from live events. They end up in landfills, incinerators and oceanic gyres, all of which break down the cups into microplastics that end up in our food supply. When a credit card-sized portion of microplastic ends up in our diets weekly, as it now does, the environmental impact becomes a personal health concern.

In contrast, zero r.Cups are single-use.

When you total up all the concerts, venues and festivals in which r.Cups are made available, the savings to the environment amount to more than 150,000 pounds of plastic trash eliminated from landfills, and more than 1 million pounds of carbon dioxide that never reaches the atmosphere. Those were r.Cup’s figures for 2019. It should come as no surprise that r.Cup was named one of Fast Company magazine’s “World’s 10 Most Innovative Live Event Companies” for 2020. Another of its innovative features? Ten percent of the company is owned by non-profits working on the plastic crisis.

“The problem at concerts, is because of their nature, you can’t use glass cups, and most markets require see through cups” Martin said.

“It forces you to use plastic, so the best solution is to reuse the plastic.

Our vision is to become the backbone of the reuse economy. We’re promoting and educating on greater awareness of reuse, along with the impact traditional single-use plastics are making on all of us — from environmental stress to plastic in the ocean to the broken-down microplastics in our food supply. We feel we’ve hit the combination of sustainability and efficiency.”

Concert venues, promoters, band managers, producers and other decision-makers in the multi-billion live music and entertainment

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world are notorious for butting heads — especially when it comes to tickets, concessions and other money-making opportunities. As a man who has produced numerous concerts and festivals, Martin knows the politics of event production well. For that reason, he came up with simple programs for r.Cups to be used in three different types of relationships: with touring bands, event venues (sports too), and festivals.

The core program is the deposit model. When someone attends a concert featuring one of r.

Cup’s branding partners — the Stones or U2, for example — they pay a $3 deposit when buying a drink at the concession stand. The cup is branded with the band’s logo; it’s an instant collectible. Concertgoers have the option to use the cup and return it to the concessionaire or a green-shirted r.Cup official onsite for a deposit refund; put the used cup in an available bin (to have their refund donated to a local non-profit); or take it home.

“Everyone wins,” Martin said, “because the floor is spotless, the fans get a cool keepsake, the social media is great and the venue makes some money. The venue wins because typically, 80 to 90 percent of waste from a concert goes to landfills or incinerators. None of our cups do.

They’re either reused or taken home.”

The other model, used with r.Cup partnering venues such as the Chase Center, is the “no SPRING 2020 | SUSTAINABILITY TODAY

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sustainability the right way,” Martin said. “r.Cup continues a tradition started on the U2 360 Tour and joins efforts like offsetting CO2 emissions, donating excess catering supplies to local food banks, working with venues to adopt paper straws and engaging directly with fans on actions they can take.”

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Martin’s longstanding work on the environment has accelerated in the past twenty-five years, through his agency, Effect Partners, which created r.Cup. Their reach stretches into some of our largest manufacturing and consumer product concerns.

Besides working with the world’s leading artists on greening initiatives, along with President Obama’s administration and EPA, Effect Partners has identified major sustainability issues and acted as a catalyst to develop business and culture-based solutions to tackle them. Among

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deposit” program. The building embeds an added fee into drink prices, and fans receive an r.Cup of higher quality than the typical singleuse plastic. They can refill, reuse, return, put the cups in the bins, or take them home.

What happens to the cups placed in bins at the venue? They are harvested, sanitized and reused, over and over. No cups remain on the floor; none go to a landfill.

Not surprisingly, artists and venues are flocking to the r.Cup caravan. They see the combination of strong environmental messaging and direct assistance to the planet with brand identification and great public relations, through the most-held product besides a mobile phone at any show — a drink cup. If the concept of sustainability could be magically bottled, these would be the ingredients. In just the past two years, r.Cup has partnered with the First Avenue venue in Minneapolis, the Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles, St. Augustine (FL) Amphitheatre, Warped Tour, and others. Martin has worked with Live Nation and U2 since 2009, which is why r.Cups were fixtures on U2’s eXPERIENCE + iNNOCENCE Tour.

“U2 and Live Nation continue to be leaders in showing how global tours can address

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the projects: • Working with Live Nation to help develop their sustainability strategy; • Working with Toyota to launch the Prius; • WWorking with Apple Computer to take complete responsibility for their CO2 emissions; • Working with Green Mountain Energy and Native Energy to launch green energy in the US; • Helping make Earth Day an annual event following the huge 1990 celebration; • Creating the nation’s first global warming campaign in 1999, the Ben & Jerry’s Dave Matthews Band One Sweet Whirled Campaign.

Martin grows even more excited when considering r.Cup’s growing foothold in the 2020s fight to mitigate climate change and further environmental damage — and the young musicians, entertainers and venues run by young entrepreneurs. For them, the environment isn’t a cause to explore optionally, like it was for many of their Baby Boomer and Gen X parents and grandparents; it’s a matter of life.

“Artists have always had a voice in identifying and speaking out on issues,” Martin said. “That’s part of our rationale for working with music and

sports industries. If I knock on a door, it might not open. If an artist knocks, people will listen.

Artists are not only catalysts for change, but also spokespeople for change — whether educational programs, sampling, not using single-use, trading in. This is how society ultimately changes, how people wake up.

“There are more younger bands and artists getting involved with us. Their advantage is they’re already environmentally aware and are outspoken. They also have social media platforms that are way more powerful than what the classic artists had when they started. They can put out the message in ways that are heard.

“I love to work with emerging artists. They’re already geared to make social change and to make their tours greener. It’s really about artists influencing the world. This generation has a supercharged way of getting it out because of the power of social media,” he concluded.

This commitment to engagement, and providing a product that can make a cultural and environmental impact, fuels Martin’s mission moving forward. He sees it as a tangible way every person can reduce trash and their carbon footprint, while also benefitting from the wide platform and podium musicians, athletes and other performing artists enjoy. He also hopes it can inoculate a younger generation from the despair and hopelessness many feel as they hear the latest daunting news about the state of our planet.

“Today, there’s a huge feeling of helplessness we’re feeling, between climate change, plastics in the ocean, single-use items, not being able to make a difference,” he says. “We see the problem as being so much bigger than us, and not all governments are working to improve it. We’re all trying to think of something we can do to help.

“I see that manifested in r.Cup. Because of the message, it sends a positive signal to communities — we want the world this way. It’s disruptive. People know that what’s happening now is not right for children and future generations; our economic frontloading is destroying the planet while making a few people rich. When people see r.Cup, they message us on social media saying, ‘Why hasn’t this done before?’ It gets them to think of solutions and how they can use the cup in their community efforts.” 

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Investment Group: “Do More to Fight Climate Change” Produced in partnership with

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Photo: iStockphoto/plasticsteak1

By Sustainability Today Staff Report By all accounts, it’s been a terrible year for the climate.

California’s fatal, destructive wildfires in the Falls of 2018 and 2019 were followed by multimillion acre burns in the Amazon and Indonesian rain forests, and the utter destruction of 20 million acres of Australia.

Massive storms fueled by warming waters render places uninhabitable, such as Hurricane Dorian’s devastation of the Northern Bahamas.

The Trump Administration continues to disembowel environmental regulations in the U.S., ignoring the Paris Climate Accord while increasing the release of greenhouse gases and pollutants. On the record, they state it is to cut costs for corporations all too happy for the move.

There’s the rub. The top investors in those corporations are anything but happy about this destructive shakedown of the environment to appease bottom lines.

In mid-September, a group of 515 investors who manage assets totaling $35 trillion (nearly twice the U.S. gross domestic product in 2018) sent a stark message to organizations and governments worldwide: Do more to fight

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climate change by complying with the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord “with utmost urgency,” according to a statement.

act at the urgent pace and scale required,” Mindy Lubber, CEO of sustainability nonprofit Ceres, said in the statement.

It’s the exact opposite of what the Trump Administration, and leaders in Brazil, Indonesia and other anti-climate change countries have been telling businesses and citizens.

In another direct rebuke of the Trump Administration, and other heavy fossil fuel producers, the group has urged governments to set a price on carbon emissions, and to reduce thermal coal power and fossil fuel subsidies.

Currently, U.S. taxpayers support fossil fuel producers to the tune of billions of dollars per year.

“Much more needs to be done by governments to accelerate the low carbon transition and to improve the resilience of our economy, society and the financial system to climate risks,” the investors said one week before the United Nations Climate Action Summit.

The investors represent a wide swath of the global economy, from pension funds to corporate investment, equity funds and international private investment. A few representative groups include Allianz Global Investors, Nomura Asset Management, UBS Asset Management, and the California Public Employees Management System. They control nearly half of the world’s investment capital.

“With the immense power and influence that investors hold in our global economy, (governments and companies) have a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to

The goal of the group is the same as that of the U.N. Climate Action Summit and the 2015 Paris Climate Accord: to cut greenhouse emissions by 45% by 2030, and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. After years of consecutive reductions, the U.S. reported a 2.8% increase in greenhouse emissions in 2018.

Besides a fundamental shift in U.S. environmental policy back to the pre-Trump era, there is plenty of other work to be done.

According to a second group of investors, the Transition Pathway Initiative, only 31 of 109 energy companies are aligned with the Paris pledges — most significantly, to limit global average temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius. 

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The Most Sustainable Companies in the World Produced in partnership with

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We’ve spent the past decade developing, ramping up, rolling out and utilizing business and social sustainability plans across the world, including hundreds of thousands of American companies large and small. They range from composting office waste to buying fleets of hybrid trucks, but sustainability is on the minds of most.

Which begs the question: Which companies have proven to be the most sustainable large companies heading into the 2020s?

As the world’s economic and business leaders headed to Davos in January for the World Economic Forum, Canada’s Corporate Knights magazine announced its 15th annual Global 100 report, assessing 7,500 companies earning $1 billion or more per year on their sustainability initiatives. These include the areas of leadership, clean product revenue, performance regarding carbon and waste, and overall sustainability.

Topping the list for 2019 is Chr. Hansen Holding, a 145-year-old Dutch bioscience firm that derives more than 80% of its revenue from developing natural solutions to preserve yogurt and milk, protecting crops with natural bacteria instead of pesticides, and finding alternatives to antibiotics for animals.

“It’s not a consumer-facing company,” Corporate Knights founder and president Toby Heaps said at the announcement. “But it probably impacts a lot of the calories of hundreds of millions of people every day and makes the food that they’re consuming safer.”

Finishing second was Kering SA, a French firm better known by the consumer brands it owns — Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen, among others. Kering sources more than 40% of its products from certified sustainable sources, a percentage that is increasing annually. In addition, in a corporate world where women occupy less than 20% of Board of Director seats, Kering’s board is comprised of 60% women.

In an interesting result, a petroleum and gas company, Neste Corporation of Finland, ranked third in the Global 100. They’ve shifted gears into products like renewable biofuels in the past five years; today, more than 50% of Neste’s investments are focused on these products. The biofuel business now represents half of Neste’s profits and 25% of its revenue – a great ROI result. Investors like it, too: Neste’s shares have risen 300% since making this shift, compared to a 127% return for Global 100 companies on the MSCI All Country World Index.  (Prologis)

The remainder of the Global 100’s Top 10 include: 4. Orsted (Denmark) 5. GlaxoSmithKline plc (U.K.) 6. Prologis, Inc. (USA) 7. Umicore (Belgium) 8. Banco de Brasil S.A. (Brazil) 9. Shinhan Financial Group Co. (South Korea) 10. Taiwan Semiconductor (Taiwan) Other U.S. Companies include: 13. McCormick & Company 14. Cisco Systems 17. Analog Devices, Inc. 32. Ecolab, Inc. 39. HP, Inc. 40. Comerica Incorporated 46. Eli Lilly and Company 48. Autodesk, Inc. 51. KeyCorp 52. Alphabet, Inc. (owners of Google) 53. MetLife, Inc. 55. Danaher Corporation 59. PNC Financial Services 63. Bank of America Corp.

66. Ingersoll-Rand Plc 69. Tesla, Inc. 70. Itron, Inc. 81. Workday, Inc. 85. Campbell Soup Company 87. ANSYS, Inc. 90. VMWare, Inc. SPRING 2020 | SUSTAINABILITY TODAY

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COMING NEXT ISSUE: BETWEEN CONFERENCES: We share the highlights of the SB Leadership Summit, and preview the welcomed return of live conferencing at SB 20 Long Beach — and the theme of regeneration in sustainability practices and policy.

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POST-COVID ECONOMY: HOW GREEN? We turn to Sustainable Brands corporate members and other leaders in sustainable business practices to explore the Post-COVID 19 economy — and how sustainable practices and greener, resource-preserving elements will factor into it. We also look at how workplaces are making themselves more efficient and sustainable in these uncertain times.

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BIOMIMICRY: For the past several years, an increasing number of companies have mimicked natural processes and environments while building more sustainable businesses. What are some of the best examples that others can use to increase their efficiency and reduce their carbon footprint? We take a peak.

THE GROWING POWER OF REGIONS: The Coronavirus pandemic caused a massive shift in everything from logistics, supply chains and decisionmaking to the way we work together. How will growing regional partnerships now move forward — and how will they help regenerate a more sustainable business climate?

ECOBOUTIQUE: Some of the newest products, books, online courses, games, streaming options and more for your growing focus on sustainability.

Photo: iStockphoto/sezer ozger

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SUSTAINABILITY TODAY | SPRING 2020

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