What It Takes to Change the Way the World Eats for the Better

By Deanna Bratter

What is the recipe for achieving success when it comes to sustainability? While it’s not one-size-fits-all, there are often certain ingredients that can help on your journey towards sustainability: a culture of engagement, mixed with a willingness to take big leaps; a passion for innovation; a willingness to be transparent; and a commitment to continuous improvement. Sustainability requires a holistic and multifaceted approach, one that not only focuses on reducing your impact on the planet and social responsibility, but one that goes even further toward innovative, closed-loop and restorative practices.

I say this as someone who’s part of a company with the very ambitious mission of changing the way the world eats for the better. WhiteWave Foods is the world’s largest organic food company, and our products are an important part of sustainable food trends such as plant-based beverages, organic dairy and organic produce. You might know our Silk plant-based foods and beverages, SoDelicious Dairy Free frozen desserts, Horizon dairy products and Earthbound Farms produce.

Working toward a mission of changing the way the world eats requires a strong, embedded, long-term commitment to sustainability. Over my nearly 10 years at WhiteWave Foods, I’ve seen the company grow exponentially and face the challenges that came along with trying to bring to life that mission and our vision of sustainability and transparency, to reduce our environmental footprint, and to improve our packaging and responsible sourcing programs while managing tremendous growth. Trust me, it hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve always remained committed. I’m proud to say we offset 100 percent of the water used to manufacture Silk plant-based beverages at company-owned facilities. We’ve also redesigned all of our gable-top cartons to use 33 percent less material, resulting in 920,000 pounds of resin saved in 2013. We also work with the Carton Council to increase carton recycling access year-over-year, and reached a momentous 50 percent access milestone this summer.

So, what key learnings can I share that I think have impacted our sustainability story?

Integrate sustainability into core practices

First, we’ve worked incredibly hard to make sustainability and responsibly-produced food a part of who we are at WhiteWave. It’s woven into our mission, our vision, our values and our people. It’s a core component of our strategy and, ultimately, we want sustainability to be a part of every employee’s job description. We endeavor to create a culture of caring that fosters the engagement and passion we need to help us deliver on our sustainability goals. Such integration of sustainability is crucial to success.

Set attainable goals

Second, we set goals. It’s imperative to start with goals based on a solid foundation of data, which are attainable and pertinent to your specific business. I recommend identifying and understanding what is of material importance and where you have a true potential to make the impacts you are after. It’s also important to tie sustainability goals into realistic financial and business scenarios. Building a strong business case for sustainability programs and projects with strong economic, environmental and social return on investment has been an important component to our success.

In 2006 and 2007, we established a series of internal sustainability targets aimed at reducing our environmental impacts, while at the same time growing production volumes. Most material to our footprint are: energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, solid waste to landfill and finished product transportation.

Since 2006, we reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent, per gallon of product; reduced our waste to landfill by 28 percent per gallon; and reduced our non-ingredient water usage by 6 percent per gallon. Our reductions were largely driven by enhanced efficiency in our manufacturing processes, supported by strong education and engagement programs with employees.

Be transparent

My third piece of insight: Be transparent. Despite our successes, there are still areas where we need improvement, and it’s important to be transparent about that. The same is true for any company seeking to improve sustainability.

In particular, water is a challenging area for us. While we are proud of our reductions to date, changes in our product offerings and added complexity to our manufacturing added hurdles to tackle and an opportunity to further transform our water usage.

This year, to further our efforts in transparency, we produced our first Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report. CSR reporting brings with it many benefits. It acts as a tool that can help drive clarity, alignment, process efficiency, excitement and pride around the programs within your organization, while also promoting conversation and collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. Not to mention, it can also help attract high-quality talent to your company – people who share your passion and vision.

At WhiteWave, we have learned a lot about how to manage rapid growth while staying focused on sustainability. Along the way, we’ve taken some chances, and we’ve never stopped looking for creative solutions and innovative technologies that help us do our part in caring for people and the planet while making products people love.

Our journey continues, and we invite you to connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. Here’s to a more sustainable food future!

Image credit: Flickr/kubina

Deanna Bratter is Sr. Sustainability Manager at WhiteWave Foods Company in Colorado, where she directs corporate sustainability strategy, goals and initiatives. She is passionate about transforming organizations and employees into social and environmental sustainability leaders.