Consumer Activism & Corporate Responsibility: The Power of One

Submitted by John Izzo

By John Izzo

Can one person really make a difference when it comes to influencing corporate social responsibility? Absolutely!

Take the case of Beth Terry, an accountant in Northern California who challenged a major corporation to start a recycling program for one of their most popular products. Her story is an inspiring example of how one person with the right intentions can influence companies.

Plastic waste and pollution is a massive problem. Americans alone use and throw away 2.5 million plastic water bottles every single hour or almost two billion per month! All that plastic (from bottles, shopping bags, plastic straws, etc.) not only ends up in garbage dumps and fuels climate change but about 15 percent ends up in the oceans. The result is a permanent whirlpool of plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas, and over one million sea birds and mammals die from ingesting this plastic every year.

Recycling Plastic Water Filter Cartridges

In 2007, Terry first began a blog about how she was doing her part to reduce plastic. She started using Brita water filters as an alternative to plastic water bottles but wasn’t sure what parts of the filters were recyclable. She wrote to Clorox (Clorox had bought Brita’s franchise in America in 2000) to inquire and, they told her they could only be recycled in Europe through a facility in Germany because North American community recycling systems were not set up to handle the filters. But when Terry researched it further she discovered that Brita, not the government, had actually set up the program in Europe.

Dissatisfied with the answer, she began commenting on her blog. A few months later she went on Google analytics to view her blog stats and to her surprise she discovered that the most common search words to find her blog were “How to Recycle Brita Filters in North America.”

Consumer Group Pressures Brita to Recycle Filters

Terry realized that she was not alone in her concern about the issue so she started a campaign and created a Yahoo group. They looked up the names of the executive committee and wrote 10 letters each to everyone on the board and they all received a form letter from them blaming the municipal recycling systems.

Although they were disappointed to be brushed off with a form letter, it was a strong indicator that the company was obviously receiving tons of complaints.

They requested meetings with the board but all requests for a meeting were denied so they stepped it up a notch and decided to go public. Terry created a website along with an online petition at www.takebackthefilter.org and set up a post office box asking people to send their used Brita filters.

She felt if she got a bunch of filters she could get media attention focusing on all the filters people were sending in. Terry had never done anything like this but she took action anyway because it just felt “reasonable.”

She contacted every blogger she knew, and despite her lack of experience, tried to pitch the media. She even made a Brita water filter costume and wore it! Her campaign began getting media attention including the New York Times.

Brita Responds To Consumer Pressure

A few days after the site went live, Terry got an email from the Brand Manager at Brita saying “we see what you’re doing…can we talk?”

He explained they had done focus groups asking if people would be willing to pay extra for a recyclable filter but they didn’t get enough public support. But given the huge response Terry received, she knew there was support -- but the company had to see it all in one place instead of people calling and writing in dribs and drabs.

During the campaign, people sent filters from all over the states and Canada. They didn’t just write a letter to Clorox, they actually shipped the filters. They also sent Terry copies of the letters they got back from Brita and the Clorox CEO Don Knauss, who had started writing personal notes back saying they were working on the issue.

Later when Terry met with the brand manager he said, “you really didn’t expect the CEO of Clorox to respond to you did you?” And Terry said “well, Yes I did!”

Less than a year later she got a call from the Brand Manager saying he wanted her to be the first to know they had developed a recycling program for the filters.

In November 2008, Clorox announced the recycling partnership with PRESERVE and Whole Foods. By January 2009, Terry had collected over 600 filters and delivered them to Whole Foods in Oakland. The brand manager from Brita was there and later the city of Oakland gave a commendation to her, Clorox, and Whole Foods for their partnership.

Lessons for Consumer Activists

What is really fascinating about this story is that Terry says she never felt she was “fighting” Clorox but that she was trying to “help” the company. She wanted to make a deliberate attempt not to use language that made the company “the enemy.” She chose instead to rally their customers to speak with one voice asking for change.

She picked a company like Brita that was already being environmentally friendly by making the filters as an alternative to using bottled water. Sometimes we can get more traction by helping good companies get better. You see Clorox was already crafting a brand image around being “green” so when Terry started the Take Back the Filter campaign, it made it easier to challenge the company to step up.

There are some important lessons in the Brita filter story.

There are times when consumers have to “take on” companies about their social responsibility, but this story illustrates that many times we can accomplish just as much by helping companies see the opportunity by doing good.

When Clorox CEO Don Knauss started sending personal letters saying “we are working on the issue” it moved the company into a different relationship with the activists.

The Brita filter story also shows what happens when companies decide not to stonewall but to get into conversation with those who are trying to call for change.

The Power of One Plus The Power of Many

This story also shows both the power of one -- and the power of what I call “aggregate influence.”

In my book Stepping Up — How Taking Responsibility Changes Everything, I tell the stories of many people like Beth Terry who help create meaningful change. In many cases there was one person who created a “responsibility ripple” that challenged others to act. Yet, standing alone, Terry could not have won this campaign. Her actions soon became “aggregated” with the actions of many others and then became significant.

It makes me wonder what might happen if more of us simply started challenging the companies that we do business with to change just one practice: the power of one to get the ball rolling and the power of the many to influence change. Terry wasn’t the only one concerned about this issue or even the only one challenging the company to do something about it.

But she did decide to do something.

That is the very definition of stepping up — to “see a need and decide you are the person who can, should and will do something about it.”

Take The No Plastic Pledge

If you want to personally do something about plastic, start by taking the No Plastic Pledge and vow to stop using plastic water bottles, plastic shopping bags and plastic straws. And thanks to Beth Terry and other activist consumers, you can recycle that water filter.

You can join Terry in her next campaign: she plans to challenge Trader Joe’s to significantly reduce the excess plastic packaging on their produce.