Reduction and recycling ahead of schedule for Kraft, Wal-Mart’s programme for women in South America, and airline green initiatives that are stuck at the gate
Krafty cutbacks
Kraft Foods has been on a diet – and has lost a few million kilograms. Kraft has exceeded its packaging reduction goal two years ahead of schedule, cutting more than 68,000 tonnes of material from its supply chain since 2005.
The company developed its own Eco-Calculator software, which analyses the environmental impact of the material used in packaging. In Europe, the company has removed several packaging layers from its Milka chocolate bars, eliminating 2,600 tonnes of packaging material a year. And in Australia, Kraft Salad Dressing bottles were redesigned to save over 45 tonnes of plastic a year.
Kraft also upped the ante on its recycling efforts by increasing both the recycled content and recyclability of its packaging materials. In the UK, Kraft now sells its Kenco coffee in refill bags, which use 97% less packaging material by weight than a new coffee jar. In North America, Kraft moved its Maxwell House, Yuban and Nabob coffee brands from steel cans to composite paperboard, which weigh 30% less, use 50% recycled content and should eliminate 3,900 tonnes of packaging.
Kraft recycles an impressive 90% of its global manufacturing waste. But because not all its packaging can be recycled, in 2008 the company partnered with TerraCycle to help consumers collect used packaging and turn it into new products such as bags, flower pots and pencils.
“One of the most positive experiences has been seeing the culture change taking place across the company,” says Steve Yucknut, Kraft’s vice-president for sustainability. “It means we let our achievements speak for themselves, instead of just talking about what we’re planning to do down the road. We share our results, and by leading with results, we earn long-term credibility, which is invaluable to the company.”
Wal-Mart’s caring side
The Wal-Mart Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American retail giant Wal-Mart, has teamed up with the non-profit group Care to create the Peru Agricultural Economic Development Initiative, which seeks to support 2,300 small farmers in Peru.
In particular, the programme aims to bolster Peruvian women’s involvement in their families’ farming operations, and help train farmers to increase the yields and quality of indigenous crops. Last May, the Wal-Mart Foundation gave Care a $1m grant, which helps bolster Care’s existing programmes in Peru, Bangladesh and India. These help empower impoverished women through education, job-training and entrepreneurial support programmes. The Peru initiative is expected to increase participants’ incomes by 30% and create more than 300 jobs.
Women and girls make up 70% of the poorest of the poor worldwide. They produce half of the world’s food, but earn a shocking 10% of the world’s income.
“We continue to have a commitment to diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our global business,” says Jami Lamontagne at Wal-Mart. “We aim to provide even greater opportunities for our female associates [staff], as well as enhance our ability to better serve our female customers.”
Beth Kuenstler, director of partnership development at Care, says: “Wal-Mart’s funding is enabling Care to build upon our proven success to empower young women toward improved livelihoods. As our partnership grows, there may be opportunities for Wal-Mart to contribute their own business expertise and market linkages to deepen the impact their financial support is already having on the lives of thousands of women and their families.”
Biosphere beds
Spain’s leading hotel chain Sol Melia is the first hotel brand in the world to be deemed a “biosphere hotel company”. The company’s board first approved its corporate global sustainability policy in 2008, and the firm underwent 13 months of rigorous analysis by the International Centre for Responsible Tourism.
Specifically, the hotel chain needed at least 10% of its hotels to be certified and commit to certifying additional hotels in the future. Sol Melia now has 15 biosphere hotels, eight Green Glove certified hotels, seven with ISO 14001 certification, and four with EMAS eco-friendly certification.
Sol Melia’s environmental accomplishments include standardised eco-efficient lighting, water and energy savings systems, customer involvement in responsible behaviour, and respectful interaction with the environment.
Socially, the hotel brand is committed to non-profit causes such as Intermon (part of Oxfam International) and Unicef, and also buys from local suppliers.
Culturally speaking, Sol Melia is renowned for its use of local architecture, promoting traditional cuisine, and respecting religious, historic, and artistic heritage where it operates – similar to fully feng-shui-ed hotels in China.
Ben & Jerry’s fair performance
Ben & Jerry’s will make all 121 chunks and swirls used in its ice-cream concoctions such as Jamaican Me Crazy and Berried Treasure 100% Fairtrade certified by 2013.
The Vermont-based company was the first ice-cream brand worldwide to use Fairtrade certified ingredients in 2005, and is set to become the first ice cream company to make this comprehensive commitment across its range of flavours. The company will be working with Fairtrade certified cooperatives around the globe, which have a combined membership of more than 27,000 farmers.
“Fair trade is about making sure people get their fair share of the pie,” co-founder Jerry Greenfield says. “The whole concept of fair trade goes to the heart of our values and sense of right and wrong. Nobody wants to buy something that was made by exploiting somebody else.”
Recycling efforts don’t fly
Do you ever wonder what happens to the mound of trash you hand back to your airline steward on that lovely plastic tray? Apparently, not enough of us do.
This is the finding of a new report – What Goes Up Must Go Down: the sorry state of recycling in the airline industry – from Green America’s consumer watchdog site, ResponsibleShopper.org. Delta, Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic and Southwest are the best recyclers, while United Airlines and US Airways are the worst. However, given that the highest score was a B-, there is still much to be done.
Airlines generate roughly 881m tonnes of waste a year, half of which comes from the cabin. And while 75% of this waste is recyclable, only 20% actually gets recycled. That means airlines could recycle nearly 500m tonnes more waste a year.
Even the airlines that performed the best failed to recycle the basics like newspapers, aluminium cans and glass and plastic bottles. We’re all familiar with the overly plastic-wrapped and packaged food and utensils onboard, which the airlines have yet to address with their suppliers. In addition, no airline provided detailed information about their recycling programmes on their websites, sustainability or annual reports, including overall targets and how they’re working to improve.
“This is 2010. Recycling has been an essential part of the environmental movement for a couple decades and regularly practised by consumers and businesses, so it’s shameful that there are still companies not recycling these items,” says the report’s lead author, Responsible Shopper researcher Victoria Kreha.
The report does highlight, however, some positive efforts. For instance, American Airlines flight attendants elected to collect aluminium cans to recycle themselves, and also created a charity that benefits directly from their initiative.
Kreha says she was surprised by the number of airlines that said they could not recycle more because of federal regulations or even that it was too difficult to recycle newspapers so they just didn’t bother. Some airlines have found ways to work around regulations and come up with creative solutions to tackle the challenges. She says: “It makes a company seem ill-informed to say something is too challenging when their competitors have clearly come up with ways to accomplish what they thought was impossible.”
Responsible Shopper hopes the report will spur customers to reward the high achievers with their business, giving added reason for airlines to get their recycling efforts off the ground.
Frito-Lay 100% compostable SunChips bag
As a run-up to Earth Day 2010 Frito-Lay has introduced the world’s first 100% compostable crisp packets in Canada. From March Canadian stores have been stocking the new SunChips bag, which is made from 90% renewable materials. It takes roughly 14 weeks to fully break down into compost once in a hot, compost pile.
The SunChip’s compostable bag uses a plant-based material, polylactic acid (PLA), a compostable polymer made from starch. PLA has also been certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute, the only internationally recognised labelling programme.
The company hopes this new compostable bag will reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated from packaging production, and help eliminate petroleum-based packaging material.
Coke gets carbon gold medal
Coca-Cola went all out this year with a carbon-neutral, zero-waste sponsorship of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The company used its recycling programme at the 2000 Olympic games in Athens as a launching pad for its programme in Vancouver. The company went through three years of consulting and planning with WWF-Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, and an outside company that determined Coke’s carbon footprint. The company then bought carbon offsets for company air travel and on-site transportation.
At the games, every Coke associate wore clothes made from about 120 recycled PET bottles. The furniture and displays in the athletes’ villages were made from blue pine wood salvaged from the mountain pine beetle epidemic in British Columbia. Coke also sold thousands of its new plantbottles, which are 100% recyclable and use renewable materials made from sugar cane juice and molasses.
About 1,400 newly designed Coca-Cola coolers (made without hydrofluorocarbons) and vending machines were also used throughout the Olympics venues, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 5,600 tonnes compared with past technology. About 85% of the vehicles Coke used were hybrid or high efficiency delivery vehicles. And that’s just a smattering of the out-of-the-can thinking.
Now that the games are complete, the company will use an external auditor to evaluate the efforts. It is one of the first major brands to go carbon-neutral, and was awarded the Sustainability Star by the Vancouver games organising committee. The company says it hopes to extend its eco-friendly efforts beyond this year’s games to other global business operations.