Thrive Market Wants to Be the First Climate Positive Grocer
This article originally appeared in Presence Marketing’s June 2021 Newsletter
Thrive Market, the online natural products retail marketplace founded in 2014 by Nick Green, Gunnar Lovelace, Kate Mulling and Sasha Siddhartha, has set a new goal to become the nation’s first “climate-positive grocer.” The company saw sales skyrocket in 2020 during the pandemic and now CEO Nick Green says it wants to take those profits – and momentum – to pursue how it can reduce plastic packaging and overall waste, among other objectives.
“We are committing to not only minimize our negative environmental impact, but have a net positive effect on the climate specifically,” Green told Forbes Magazine. “The big message that we’re trying to send, which we hope other companies will embrace as well, is that doing less harm isn’t enough. We should all be thinking about what we can do to actually make things better to help heal the planet after a century in which we’ve done more harm than all prior centuries combined. Specifically, at Thrive Market that means committing to going carbon negative as a company by 2025 (right now we are carbon neutral), making our zero waste practices official with a TRUE Zero Waste certification in 2022, and going fully plastic neutral, as well, by 2023. We’re already proud to be the largest grocer ever to receive B Corp certification and looking forward to recertifying in October 2023 with even stronger commitments to both social impact, environmental stewardship and investment in our people,” Green told Forbes.
Said Thrive Market’s Chief Merchandising Officer Jeremiah McElwee, “The biggest inherent challenge is balancing out high quality, value and values-driven products being packaged in truly environmentally responsible formats. At present, those options can still cost five to 10 times what the more conventional options cost. So you can have a product that retails for $1.99 and the package itself costs $1. That means the customer would have to pay that premium when just affording healthy, organic food can be a challenge for many on a limited budget. Our approach is to create step functions so that we start with reduction always, then we move toward innovation and, ultimately, end of life solutions. Right now we have multiple pilots exploring both compostability and upcycling solutions for our shipping materials and product packaging,” he told Forbes.
As part of its Climate Positive initiative, the company identified three key areas of focus: carbon footprint, zero waste, and excess plastic. For more information on Thrive Market’s commitment to becoming the world’s first climate positive grocery store, visit here.
Patagonia Takes Lead in Focus on Regenerative Agriculture, Climate Change
Photo: Pexels
Originally Appeared in Presence Marketing News, February 2020
By Steven Hoffman
“We’re losing the planet. We really are,” Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard recently told Emily Stifler Wolfe, a reporter at Explore Big Sky. “And I’m not going to let it go without fighting, so we have to try harder.” Patagonia in 2012 launched its Provisions division that sells organic grains, responsibly caught salmon and other items to help create a market for climate-friendly products. In 2018, it became a charter member of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, and in 2020 the company is introducing its Road to Regenerative line of organic cotton clothing. Made of “100% Regenerative Organic Certification Pilot Cotton from farms working to rehabilitate soil, respect animal welfare and improve the lives of farmers” the new tee shirts also are Fair Trade Certified sewn, says the company. Patagonia, with a new mission statement, “We’re in business to save our home planet,” intends to go “carbon neutral and non-extractive by 2025,” reports Explore Big Sky, and it plans to boost support for environmental conservation and go deeper into politics. The company in December 2017 sued the Trump administration for rescinding a million acres of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, and it backed Montana’s Democratic Senator Jon Tester – an organic farmer – in his 2018 reelection. To learn more about regenerative organic agriculture and food and climate, attend Climate Day at Natural Products Expo West, Tuesday, March 5, 2020, and an update from the Regenerative Organic Alliance at Expo West on Friday, March 8.
Study Warns Climate Change Could Cost U.S. 10.5% of GDP by 2100
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Originally Appeared in Presence Marketing News, September 2019
By Steven Hoffman
While there may have been some hope that certain countries could escape the brunt of global warming, a new study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that “virtually all” nations will be negatively impacted by climate change by 2100. “Using a panel data set of 174 countries over the years 1960 to 2014, we find that per-capital real output growth is adversely affected by persistent changes in the temperature above or below its historical norm,” the study states. The study also suggests that, on average, richer colder countries would lose as much income to climate change as poorer, hotter nations. “Our counterfactual analysis suggests that a persistent increase in average global temperature by 0.04°C per year, in the absence of mitigation policies, reduces world real GDP per capita by 7.22% by 2100,” said the study’s authors. The impact on the U.S. — which accounted for much of the research’s focus to compare economic activity in hot or wet areas — would be even greater, a loss of 10.5% of its GDP by 2100, according to the study. In related news, the United Nations (UN) in August issued an intergovernmental panel report on climate change claiming that 23% of global greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to agricultural activities. In the report, the UN concluded that humans cannot mitigate the effects of climate change without making drastic changes to the ways we grow food and use land. Organizations such as the Rodale Institute are promoting regenerative agriculture as a solution to sequester carbon and reduce the effects of climate change through agriculture.
Can Unilever Stop Massive Plastic Pollution of Our Oceans?
Originally Appeared in Presence Marketing News, August 2019
By Steven Hoffman
An estimated 1 million ocean animals are killed each year as a result of plastic pollution. Now, one of the world’s biggest plastic polluters – Unilever – has made it a top priority to reduce plastic pollution. According to CNBC, on any given day, 2.5 billion people use Unilever products that comprise 400 household brands, yet the company knows its $158-billion market cap has come as the expense of the environment. According to Unilever, the company invests more than $1 billion annually on research and development, of which new plastics innovation is a component. In 2018, Unilever’s brands most committed to sustainability, including such “sustainable living” brands as Ben and Jerry’s, Seventh Generation and Pukka Herbs, grew 46% faster than the rest of its business and delivered 70% of its turnover growth.
“All of Unilever's brands are on a journey towards reducing their environmental footprint and increasing their positive social impact. Sustainable living brands are those that are furthest ahead on the journey to achieving the company’s ambitious sustainability goals,” Unilever said in a statement. As a result of its initiatives, the consumer giant says it has cut down on plastic use by 15% and is beginning to use bioplastics and refillable metal bottles for bodycare and other items. Since the company signed on in 1017 to an Ellen MacArthur Foundation initiative called The New Plastics Economy, Unilever committ3ed to making all of its plastic packaging either reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. Addressing the issue of packaging is a great way to start changing the way plastic is used, Shelie Miller, a University of Michigan professor who studies packaging and sustainability, told CNBC. “Packaging is produced to become waste,” she says. “That makes it unique among manufactured goods.” Natural products manufacturers can find a wealth of sustainable packaging resources at OSC2’s Climate Collaborative: https://www.climatecollaborative.com/packaging_resources, and at New Hope Network: https://www.newhope.com/manufacturing-and-supply-business-resources/what-can-my-brand-do-help-solve-our-plastics-problem.