Author Archives: sharonfranks

When I first heard about the Net Impact conference one of the reasons I questioned going was the sheer hypocrisy of flying across the continent to get there. I ultimately decided to go because I thought perhaps what I learn and what I share could potentially do more good than the bad I created by getting there. I donated my aeroplan miles to a charity, offset my emissions and there I was, at a conference full of hypocrites like me. Before beginning to understand if I was actually justified I’d like to parallel this with two major themes I encountered at the conference: trade-offs and measurement.
Companies make trade-offs all the time in order to act in accordance to their values. If product freshness is of utmost importance they could end up throwing out a large amount of their raw materials that don’t measure up. Consumers do the same thing, if it’s worth it to you to buy the more sustainable product to pay more that’s a trade-off you’re willing to make. The tough part is figuring out what exactly those trade-offs are. If I buy a vegetable because it’s local doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the more sustainable choice. You have to take more than transportation emissions into account such as efficient land use and harvesting techniques. Gary Hirshberg, founder of Stonyfield Farm, explained that importing fruit from New Zealand in one case was actually more sustainable than growing it locally. Actually measuring these things is incredibly complicated and many judgement calls and hypotheticals must be considered along the way. Tom Todaro, CEO & Co-Founder, Targeted Growth an alternative fuel maker talked about how in investigating how his product would compare to crude oil there was a 500 page document that not even he could begin to understand.
Right now most consumers make sustainable choices when it comes to some food, transportation, energy usage and general packaging waste. We think that we’re doing good by riding our bikes and buying local fruit and vegetables but we don’t consider the impact of the shirt we’re wearing or the cellphone we use. It would be much easier to make these decisions if there were clear measurements to all products we consumed so we understood what the trade-offs were. Until that happens I would urge you to continue to question how sustainable the choices you make really are because it’s not as simple as it looks. Did my learning and sharing sustainable ideas, charity donation and carbon offsets really balance out the negative emissions it took to fly me to Michigan and back? I don’t know. But I suppose questioning it is a good first step.

I was very eager to attend the Net Impact conference, to get inspired by forward thinking change happening in the world of sustainability and business. So when Kim Jeffery of Nestle Waters first hit the stage I was disheartened. Who let this guy in? How a respectable sustainability conference could put someone who represented the bottled water industry on this type of pedestal was beyond me. I wrote down my angry questions and refused to listen to any justifications from someone in his position. The only way they could justify being sustainable would be by not existing. If it weren’t for the other amazing panellist (co-author of Cradle to Cradle Bill McDonough) I would have tuned out completely. As the talk went on I slowly calmed down and realized that in fact my anger was pretty unhelpful and instead I pay attention to what was happening. If Bill McDonough was able to listen and approve, maybe there was something worth listening to. What I slowly came to realize is that an industry like bottled water is a reality; instead of protesting and fighting it perhaps we should be looking at ways of making it better. And while in no circumstance is bottled water better than reusable bottles the reality is that there are many people out there who just won’t change their behaviour. I realized then that there’s no point in me being angry in this moment, I had a lot to learn.

This shift in thinking ended up being reflective in many of the speakers I saw at the conference. I heard from a representative from the Airline industry and the Army who were banding together to try to build scale in the emerging alternative fuels industry. How Starbucks invited competing coffee shops like Dunkin Donuts and Tim Horton’s to try to think of solutions for recycling coffee cups. This shift in behaviour all surrounding the issue of sustainability was actually refreshing and created a huge shift in my thinking.  It indicates that many companies care more about their impact on the planet than immediate competitive advantage. They’ve learned that gaining scale through collaboration will get them further than making excuses.

Before I abandon my anger altogether I will say that collaboration alone is not enough. You have to question why these companies are doing anything in the first place. Do you think Starbucks would be proactive about recycling cups if they weren’t met with any public resistance? Do you think the bottled water industry would be working to make their product ‘less bad’ if there wasn’t such a massive uprising against them? Hardly. Ultimately you need a healthy balance of both protest and collaboration in this world to get anything done. While I won’t stop lecturing friends and strangers on why drinking bottled water is ridiculous, I will also take inspiration from Mr. McDonough and try to actually do something about it.