A path to adopting corporate sustainability

Rory Schmick

As the federal government continues to struggle to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the private sector isn’t waiting around. Entrepreneurs and forward-thinking big businesses are pioneering solutions to reduce energy consumption and emissions. It’s still the Wild West for sustainably minded businesses as we push beyond current standards and challenge existing paradigms, but progress is being made.

This unexplored territory is both exciting and confusing for consumers and business leaders alike. While critical to the health of our economies, environment and communities, sustainability is a buzzword with inconsistent meaning. Presently, there are few well-recognized standards through which to back up the claims and even greater variability in the level of adoption. 

Still, businesses have ample opportunity to share what it means to them, demonstrating efforts by measuring and tracking progress and sharing the results. At Pacific Natural Foods we’ve found that building a roadmap and executing with humility are critical to success. Along the way we’ve landed on a few steps essential to adopt sustainability practices effectively that might be helpful to others.

Commit at the core level

Commit to making real change. Create improvements on a systemic basis. Surface level changes won’t make enough impact and will quickly be recognized by your customers as greenwashing. Genuine changes include integrating sustainable strategies into your existing business infrastructure and applying the same rigorous metrics that you do in the other parts of your business. Look at your waste management, use of renewable energy and reduction of packaging and measure for profitability. For example, at Pacific we identified gaps in our recycling infrastructure, and working with cross-functional teams, we were able to systematically remove additional materials from our solid waste stream and recycle them.  As a result, we compost tons of food waste and convert roughly six million pounds of our organic soy byproduct annually into high- protein animal feed.

Build a framework to measure results

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Create an approachable and shareable framework with quantifiable goals. One of our greatest successes at Pacific Natural Foods was an effort to reach our energy reduction goals. We measured total energy in BTUs against pounds of products we produced and were able to identify how many BTUs it requires to make one product. By translating a seemingly daunting initiative into one with small measurable units and real outcomes, the efforts resonated across the company and with our customers.  Begin drawing your company’s roadmap by benchmarking and auditing your facility’s energy, water and material use, and measure your results. Discover best practices in your industry by looking at leading companies and learning how they’ve set benchmarks and goals.

Create an open dialogue with customers

Lastly, be honest with your consumers. People are increasingly aware, active and engaged with the brands they buy and want to know what companies stand for. By opening the door for a conversation, consumers can become familiar with your processes and goals and they in turn can help keep you on the right path. If they support what you’re doing, they’ll also be among your biggest advocates.  At Pacific we are continuously encouraged by our consumers to be more transparent and open.  They constantly challenge and inspire us to consider new ways to improve aspects of our business, from the environmental impact of our manufacturing to the ingredients in our food.  Ultimately, their hands-on approach to our business has only motivated us to be better.  In the process we’ve discovered that, above all, it’s okay for our consumers to see our mistakes, know that we are humbled by the process and that we’re continuously learning.

Recognizing that sustainability is a journey, not a destination, let’s guide one another through this uncharted territory, leaving the smallest possible footprints as we go. Creating a culture of open dialogue among consumers, entrepreneurs, business leaders and government officials will not only help us be more accountable, but more in tune with possibility.

Rory Schmickis the Sustainability Manager of Pacific Natural Foods, a natural foods company based in Tualatin, Ore. since 1987. He directs corporate practices that integrate social, environmental and economic considerations, including energy conservation and waste reduction initiatives.