Green Green Green

It’s clear that as we head into 2010, sustainable companies are not only here to stay but will define the next wave of corporate success. Rebecca Goozee speaks to VPs from Kraft, Dell, Herman Miller and DuPont to discuss how their companies have been building sustainability into the fabric of their business.

“We actively encourage our employees to consider their own environmental impact and to take an active role in helping to ensure a greener future”

Back in 2009, there is no doubt that the sustainability sector suffered a wobble. After both the tech and housing bubbles burst it seemed set that ‘going green' would suffer the same fate. However, with the sustainability subject garnering ever-greater public attention it is climbing higher and higher on the agendas of just about every company in the US. So, while the concept is seeming growing in importance, just what are the business implications of going - and staying - green?

Firstly, success at corporate sustainability takes focus, great partners and seeing opportunities across the supply chain, suggests Kraft's SVP of Sustainability, Steve Yucknut, who believes that the first step is looking at your business in a new light - only then will you be able to harness business opportunities and turn people's good intentions into meaningful results. "Whatever the business," suggests Yucknut, "there are sure to be lots of opportunities for improvement. Thankfully, more employees than ever ‘get sustainability' and want to make a meaningful difference. A number of companies are doing great things and what they all have in common is focus - a willingness to partner and a guiding vision."

At Kraft Foods, the approach to sustainability is helping the company meet the needs of the present while also being mindful of the future. Yucknut believes it is all down to leading from the head and the heart and about each and every individual taking steps, both big and small, to do their part. "We believe it's about working together to build a better world. We've been on this journey for a number of years, and we're making good progress - in the last three years we've raised the bar significantly higher - making sustainability a company-wide effort, setting aggressive sustainability goals and making it a business priority," explains Yucknut.

The company are working to make a lasting difference, he continues, and part of the business strategy by incorporating it into business decisions and to help guide thinking and actions. "We view sustainability as having three core components: social responsibility, economic responsibility and environmental opportunities. If you envision each component as a circle that intersects the other, the center area is sustainability. Now envision that center area as a lens - look through that lens and you'll see things differently. There will be unique opportunities for positive change that will come into focus. And ideas that we may not have seen or appreciated in the past will become apparent."

Kraft has focused on six key areas - agricultural commodities, packaging, energy, water, waste and transportation/distribution - and have set aggressive goals, some of which have already been exceeded since they were set in 2005. The food giant has seen a 15 percent reduction in plant energy use, and a 16 percent cut in plant energy-related CO2 emissions and eliminated 152 million pounds of packaging material. Indeed of the six areas Yucknut sees the agricultural commodities and packaging having the most impact based on the firm's ability to influence these areas and how big they are.

"At Kraft Foods we've been deeply involved in agricultural sustainability for more than 15 years," says Yucknut. "We're involved because we're dependent on raw agricultural materials to make our products. We chose to focus on specific commodities that are big to us and we're big to them - like coffee, cocoa and cashews. But we couldn't have made a difference on our own. We found some great experts in agricultural certification - the Rainforest Alliance - and we've been with them since 2003. We started with coffee and then expanded into cocoa in 2004. And we have a great track record for growth: in 2009 we've increased the amount of certified coffee we purchased 15 percent versus 2008 and we've recorded a 12-fold increase since 2004."

Recently the company has committed to use 30,000 metric tons of cocoa beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms by 2012. In fact, by 2012, Kraft will only be using beans from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms the entire Cote d'Or and Marabou chocolate ranges. And when it comes to packaging Kraft have been busy here too, working to become as efficient as possible by maximizing product to package ration, minimizing head space and thickness and using materials that better lend themselves to being recycled. One way in which the company has found to optimize end of life solutions is to partner with innovative companies like Terracycle, Recyclebank and Sonoco.

"In 2008, we started working with TerraCycle, an innovative upstart company that ‘upcycles' material that otherwise would be destined to go to landfill. In other words, TerraCycle reuses packaging to make new, useful products. We are the largest sponsor of TerraCycle ‘brigades' or collection points, with close to 30,000 locations and nearly seven million people collecting waste across the US," says Yucknut.

And it's not just Kraft Foods that are pushing the sustainability of their products, Herman Miller have had a huge focus on sustainability that goes back further than the current SVP for Sustainability, Paul Murray. In fact, Herman Miller began it's work on sustainability back in the 1950's, when the company's founder, DJ Dupree, stated that every employee should be a good corporate environmental steward. "There is no doubt that the founder of the company really set the DNA if you will, for the environmental program and he said, you know, it's ok to worry about the environment," explains Murray. "He set a precedent by saying that every person should be able to see out of a window for no less that 50 feet and proclaimed that any land bought as green space should be kept at 50 percent green space. And he continued doing things as he went along, like creating a wood waste boiler so that we could burn our wood waste to create energy so what is recognized today as renewable fuel.

"Then, when I joined the company, back in 1988, there were a couple of others that were already budding tree-huggers in the organization, including DJ's son, Max Dupree who was part of senior management." Enter the Environmental Quality Action Team (EQAT). From this point Murray pioneered the environmental steering committee, set up due to the immense amount of rules and regulations pertaining to the environment that were starting to evolve in the US at this time. "It really made sense that we had a group together to talk about the policy, goals and efforts that we were making in this sector and that we should be doing it in a consistent and organized way," adds Murray.

The next level

At Herman Miller there has been a lot of consideration for material sourcing for some time. In fact, Murray believes that as early as 1990, the firm was looking to achieve zero landfill - the company recognized the importance of a family of products that were designed to last a lifetime. "A group of us got together in early 1990," recalls Murray, "and, at that time of course, there were no books on green or environmentally friendly design so we created our own set of guidelines, to be used by our designers and product engineers."

And while this process continued throughout the 1990's at Herman Miller, it wasn't until 1999 that William McDonough approached the company and asked to work alongside the firm on a new concept with himself and Michael Baumgarten, which eventually came to be a protocol known as ‘cradle to cradle', taking the company to the next level in terms of sustainable products. "What it amounted to was that we reengineered the chair," says Murray. "We looked at the recycled content and how recyclable it would be, those kind of things, and this protocol made it into our new product commercialization process, in that we actually contact every supplier and each material and send for the formula of that material - which is actually a bit like asking Coke for the recipe to make Coca Cola - and we've had to sign secrecy and non-disclosure agreements. We'll go down to the fourth or fifth tier of suppliers to get the formula at 100 parts per million and if there is anything that harms the environment we ask them to take it out. As you can imagine, that is a pretty intense interaction between Herman Miller and our supply base."

Product sustainability has also been a key focus at Dell. Product recycling remains a key element of the company's green strategy and Mark Newton, Dell's Environmental Policy Leader, maintains that the firm takes a whole lifestyle approach to sustainability that takes into account product design, business operations, supply chain efficiency, manufacturing and end of life product considerations. "With this approach we aim to make ‘being green' easier, more efficient and more cost effective for our customers," says Newton. "For example, we were one of the first organizations in the industry to offer a free global recycling program for consumers and a suite of asset recovery services for businesses. We're actively working to integrate innovative agricultural materials into packaging for products across our portfolio."

Dell has always maintained a positive approach to sustainability and in many cases remains on top of its game in adopting green practices. Newton explains that the computer giant have taken a number of measures to reduce its environmental footprint through improving operational efficiencies, increasing purchases of renewable energy and offsetting remaining impacts. Like Herman Miller, Dell is working with both its direct and in direct suppliers with regard to greenhouse gas emissions and broader environmental impact. "We scrutinize supplier environmental records and ensure they sign a Supplier Declaration of Conformity to ensure that all product materials comply with Dell's chemical policy."

But it's not just the suppliers that are helping Dell with its green commitments; Newton admits that what encourages him is the enthusiasm of the workforce when it comes to taking on individual responsibility in meeting green goals. "We actively encourage our employees to consider their own environmental impact and to take an active role in helping to ensure a greener future. Initiatives include energy and waste reduction programs and employee recycling events held at Dell facilities around the world. Furthermore, Dell employees take part in local focus events for Earth Day and World Environment Day and are actively encouraged to volunteer for green programs."

Nevertheless there are always challenges that require addressing on the road to becoming a more sustainable company. And Dell's Newton explains that the company is continuing to work on two of the areas that it sees as the most important, namely, make it easy and cost-effective for customers to reduce their impact on the planet and secondly become an environmentally responsible company itself. He claims that Dell is making great progress on both fronts by making products more energy efficient - in fact 25 percent more energy efficient since 2008 - as well as revolutionizing packaging with the environment in mind, and offering convenient, affordable recycling programs to customers worldwide.

Over at DuPont, Dawn Rittenhouse, Director of Sustainable Growth for the chemical company, believes that the main challenges include understanding the business opportunities in helping to address sustainability and connecting those opportunities directly with the company's business offerings. "The question we must continually ask is where the intersection of these important trends and challenges and DuPont's core competency, which is market-driven science," she advises.

And like both Herman Miller and Dell, DuPont has focused on corporate sustainability for sometime, in fact DuPont has over two decades of experience in the sustainability sector. In 1989, the company announced its first set of goals with a focus on reducing the environmental footprint of manufacturing operations and performing in line with public expectations. Over the last several years, Dawn Rittenhouse, DuPont's Director of Sustainable Growth, has moved the company to recognize the value of helping its customers and consumers improve their environmental footprint. In 2006, the company established it's current goals, which Rittenhouse hopes to have achieved by 2015. "While the 2015 goals continue out drive toward a smaller footprint, they also commit us to apply our science and innovation to deliver sustainable solutions to markets around the world.

"Our market-facing goals identify opportunities where we can create new products and services that will help meet our customers' needs and expectation for more sustainable offerings," she continues. "We are anticipating and responding to changes in the global marketplace that are driving demand for solutions to major challenges, such as climate change, clean energy, water and ecosystem protection."

And there is no doubt that the enthusiasm for sustainability inside DuPont has grown because it is now directly tied to the company's growth. Rittenhouse explains that the firm has taken a holistic approach to sustainability that is fully integrated into the business model, having become a central factor in the research and development, marketing and sales functions. Additionally, DuPont is focused on four megatrends that it sees driving the economy, as well as business opportunities, for the next several years, which include: providing food for a growing population; reducing dependence on fossil fuels; protecting people, assets and the environment; and, growth in emerging markets.

"The overlay between these four megatrends and sustainability is enormous - nearly 80 percent of DuPont's $1.4 billion annual spend in research and development is focused on these trends and we see addressing them as critical to the future growth of the company," says Rittenhouse.

While many companies have been on the journey to sustainability for several decades now, it's only recently that the bar has been raised significantly higher and sustainability has been made a company-wide effort, by setting aggressive sustainability goals and making it a business priority. With more and more companies on the right path to sustainability and with the correct vision and focus in place it will be possible to find opportunities that are good for business, the environment and people.