The need to drive climate action is more important than ever. That’s the message as Climate Week NYC, the biggest global climate event of its kind, concludes.
Now the company that’s helping businesses like Seventh Generation, Ben & Jerry’s, and Walmart become more sustainable wants to help others become more environmentally conscious and act.
“You need to know where you’re starting, what that target is, and you need to involve the core parts of the business for alignment,” notes Greiner, co-founder and managing director of PureStrategies, Inc., a sustainability consulting firm empowering brands and retailers to realize meaningful environmental and social improvement.
Sustainability solutions
Pure Strategies provides customized sustainability solutions to help companies set sustainability goals, engage suppliers in supporting those goals, redesign products and packaging, address agricultural impacts, and track and measure progress. For example, Pure Strategies helped non-toxic cleaning products company Seventh Generation to establish its sustainability strategy and goals, which included ambitious greenhouse gas targets, making sure 100% of agricultural products used are certified sustainable, and ensuring all of its products and packaging use bio-based or post-consumer recycled content.
The company recently collaborated with Seventh Generation on a groundbreaking report fingerprinting the climate policies of financial and other service providers. The sustainability consulting firm also helped Ben & Jerry’s develop science-based targetsto reduce its climate impact. Each pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream produces roughly 3.3 pounds of greenhouse gases (GHG).
Now the business is on a mission to reduce the GHG intensity of its products by 40% by 2025 and achieve an 80% reduction by 2050. With Pure Strategies’ help, Ben & Jerry’s launched several emissions-reduction projects, including efforts to cut its dairy carbon footprint in half compared to the industry average.
Pure Strategies is working with Walmart on creating a sustainable packaging strategy and implementation tools. The Recyclable Packaging Playbook provides guidance that suppliers need to create more sustainable packaging.
Good for business
Getting a handle on carbon emissions is good for business — doing so can reduce costs and better engage employees. And with the proposed rule by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that would require public companies to disclose their carbon footprint in the near future, Greiner notes, “Companies can get a jump on this by starting to better understand their impacts now and establish plans to reduce them.”
For more guidance on developing a business’ sustainability strategy, download Pure Strategies’ eBook“Implementing an Advanced Corporate Climate Strategy” at purestrategies.com/climatebook.