Social Change From the Inside Out
When a company is as environmentally responsible as Stonyfield, you’d expect them to shout it from the rooftop. But they’re not that kind of company. Truth is, many of Stonyfield’s customers will never know that it was the first dairy processor in the country to pay farmers not to treat cows with synthetic growth hormones or that it was America’s first manufacturer to offset 100% of its CO2 emissions from its facility energy use.
Lisa Drake, Natural Resources Director at Stonyfield, has been leading the company’s environmental impact and stewardship efforts for almost eight years. I first heard Lisa speak on Timberland’s Stakeholders Conference Call, and was impressed by the approach she takes toward Stonyfield’s social impact. Her approach is sincere and calculated, and what I like most about Lisa is that she understands environmental change—and any social change for that matter—starts from within.
Check out our interview below.
I think you’re the only non-governmental Natural Resources Director I know.
Certainly there are not a lot of us, at least with that title, in the corporate world. Many of my compatriots at other companies have titles using the words “environmental affairs” or “sustainability”. Our Natural Resource Department started nearly 20 years ago when the word sustainability was not so widely used.
Using the words “Natural Resources” reflects my role here—it’s not about environmental compliance. My role is about recognizing the impacts Stonyfield Farm has on the environment through our use of natural resources (water, energy, waste, etc.) and working to minimize those impacts.
What has been your biggest accomplishment at Stonyfield?
That has to be my work in establishing our Mission Action Program, or MAP. While Stonyfield has a long history of environmental action, we’ve grown tremendously over the years and it was hard to be sure that we were headed on the right track and that everyone was aligned with our environmental mission.
MAP was set up as a structure to accomplish that—it’s comprised of 10 teams of employees challenged to address our biggest environmental impacts from our own operations to our supply chain to our distribution. The teams are cross functional and engage the people within the company that make decisions in their every day jobs that ultimately result in our company’s environmental impacts. Each team was given a charter and asked to create a vision as well as goals—and encouraged to think big.
Getting the decision makers on board and making it core to their job is the best thing we’ve ever done. People are engaged, inspired and achieving goals that may have at first seemed impossible. We still have a long was to go, but MAP is our vehicle for achieving great things!
I often think of companies in terms of their ability to influence positive social decision-making among the public at large. But at Stonyfield, you start with your employees. Can you tell me about that?
Both are important, but we feel it’s important to walk the talk first. With our employees, it starts on the first day you come to work at Stonyfield. New employee orientation includes a general environmental orientation. Then within the employee’s first quarter here, we also commit a full day to more environmental and organic education. We spend the morning in a classroom setting learning about climate change, Stonyfield’s environmental and climate impacts and what we’re doing about them, followed by an afternoon on an organic dairy farm. Quickly people learn that consideration of environmental impacts permeates everything we do here. It’s our way of thinking and approach to our business.
And then, people start to take it home with them. They start incorporating what they do at work with what they do at home. It affects the food they buy, the car they drive, and how they are heating their homes. And it really works both ways here. We expect our employees to contribute to our company’s environmental mission, but we also support them in their efforts to have a positive impact in their personal lives as well. Whether it’s our carpooling initiative, opportunities to attend home energy conferences, buying organic produce through a CSA (community supported agriculture) program, or our fuel efficient vehicle incentive—we try to inspire and help our employees improve their lives and reduce their environmental impact.
I’m not saying that everyone here is a bike-riding environmental zealot. But I do think that we’ve raised our employees’ consciousness about their personal impacts and, in many cases, spurred positive change.
What are some of the challenges you face translating that accountability to your consumers?
We talk a lot about the power of the consumer. Every purchase you make is a vote. When you check out at the grocery store, you are making a choice—to vote for organic or conventional agriculture, family or corporate farms, synthetic growth hormones or not, toxic pesticides or not. But it doesn’t end there. We also use our yogurt cup lids and our voice with consumers in general, to educate, inspire and activate. Whether its farming issues, climate change or nutrition, we hope that our consumers are not just buying a product, but they are also learning and deepening their understanding of these important issues. And just like we support our employees, we also try to support consumers with things like the recent “Green Living Guide” we developed with Body & Soul magazine. So in the end, we hope that through their loyalty to Stonyfield and the resulting continuing dialogue, that we’re helping them make a difference.
It would be great to see other companies adopt some of your environmental practices. How are you documenting the work you’re doing or sharing it with the community?
I’m glad you asked! We are working feverishly on a whole new website that we hope to be launching in mid-October. As part of that work, we have documented a lot of our environmental work—our approach, our systems, our efforts and accomplishments, and resources for consumers as well as businesses. Just as we’ve had the help of many smart and talented people along our environmental history, we are proud to share our learnings and provide resources to others. It will be up soon at Stonyfield.com.
We also are out in the community regularly speaking about our work and experiences. Dialogue is so important in creating movement and momentum in sustainable practices.
Oh, and I can’t not mention Climate Counts. In 2007, Stonyfield founded a nonprofit organization called Climate Counts that is scoring some of America’s largest corporations on their climate leadership. The idea is to spur the companies to take their climate obligations seriously and get moving if they are “stuck”. And at the same time, motivate consumers to support companies who are taking the lead and push those who aren’t to do better. It’s a carrot and stick approach that’s had a lot of resonance both with consumers and in the business community. You might be surprised to see who some of the leaders and laggards are!
