Low environmental impact is good for business, sexed-up family planning and Hershey’s cocoa certification commitment

Green companies are more productive

A new study reveals that companies that voluntarily adopt third-party environmental standards have more productive employees.

The report – Environmental standards and labour productivity: Understanding the mechanisms that sustain sustainability – used three French survey databases to analyse 10,663 employees at 5,220 firms. Researchers selected organic labelling, Fairtrade certification and the ILO’s ISO 14001 as the three “green” qualifiers, being the most commonly adopted third-party environmental standards. At the time of the survey, most of the green companies qualified because they used the ISO 14001 standard.

The study found 16% higher-than-average labour productivity in firms that voluntarily adopted these green standards. The report says the difference can be attributed to the fact that employees appreciate that their company has committed to environmental issues, and that these standards often result in organisational changes, such as educating employees about a company’s environmental commitment, and requiring more personal contact between employees across departments, which fosters an environment that improves labour productivity.

“It's a virtuous circle. Companies that adopt these policies tend to be better,” says Magali Demas, a researcher on the project and professor of management at UCLA’s institute of the environment and sustainability. “It could be that green firms were better to start with, but there are mechanisms built into these policies that mean they continue to get better. Such firms attract the best people, and because they are open-minded, they adopt green standards, and they then attract even better people, and this continues to feed itself.”

Given the study was based on international certifications, Demas suspects that these findings are also applicable in other countries.

UK charity’s sex shop

One of the oldest UK charities has launched an online sex shop.

Yep, you read right. The Family Planning Association (FPA) is dedicated to promoting sexual health, and found that an online store that could offer a safe, reputable place for people to buy sex products would assist the organisation in achieving its goal of helping people experience healthy and happy sex lives, explains Terry Hawkins, business development manager at the FPA.

As the shop is owned and run by the FPA, all store profits provide the charity with an additional revenue stream.

The Desire and Pleasure sex shop team is looking to work with other retailers to learn from their customer service experience, and is soliciting feedback from sex experts and customers to determine how the site can best serve the public’s needs.

After just a few months Desire and Pleasure is attracting more than 5,000 daily unique visits. “Desire and Pleasure is a mainstream site aiming to compete with the existing retailers, but we believe we can best do that by staying true to our charitable purpose, using our expertise and carving out a unique role in the marketplace,” Hawkins says.

Hershey’s commits 100%

Hershey’s, the largest chocolate maker in the US, has committed to sourcing 100% certified cocoa for all its chocolate lines by 2020, and will accelerate its programmes to help eliminate child labour in the cocoa growing regions of west Africa.

The company also announced that its Scharffen Berger chocolate line will source 100% certified cocoa by the end of 2013, and that it will report progress against its 2020 commitment in annual corporate responsibility reports.

The announcement comes on the heels of Whole Foods Market’s decision to remove Hershey’s Scharffen Berger chocolate line from its shelves until the company better addresses concerns of child labour in its supply chain. Hershey’s has also been under continuous pressure from the Raise the Bar Hershey campaign, supported by 150,000 consumers, union allies, food co-ops and non-profit groups, which has been petitioning the chocolate maker for years to improve its cocoa labour practices.

Hershey spokesman Jeff Beckman explains, however, that the company started accelerating its use of certified cocoa in January 2012 when it committed to using Rainforest Alliance certified cocoa for its Hershey’s Bliss line. The recent commitment to source 100% certified cocoa was therefore “the continuation of this process”, and the announcement was planned months ago to coincide with the start of the Hallowe’en season.

While the Raise the Bar Hershey campaign is pushing for Hershey’s to certify all its cocoa as Fairtrade, Beckman says the sheer volume required to reach its 2020 goal will require Hershey’s to work with numerous certifiers.

“The Hershey Company does not tolerate child labour in cocoa producing regions,” says Beckman. “Our 2020 certified cocoa commitment combined with our substantial on-the-ground programmes put Hershey at the forefront of global chocolate companies in addressing the social and economic issues in cocoa-growing communities.”