The article in the first url below comes from a series of articles in a recent issue of Ethical Corporation Magazine that was sponsored by PepsiCo. The byline at the top of the article states that:
“This article comes from an Ethical Corporation focus on sustainability in food and drink supply chains, sponsored by PepsiCo UK & Ireland.”
While I appreciate the need for a news publication to rely on corporate advertising (especially one that distributes its Newsletter free online and given the current newspaper environment), I can’t help but feel that this sponsorship compromises the magazine. However socially responsible PepsiCo is (although, some would argue that it is hard for a firm that produces food and drinks that are fundamentally unhealthy to be truly responsible), forming close corporate ties should be resisted if the main purpose of the magazine is to hold such firms accountable for their actions.
Although the article headlines state clearly that they are part of a “Sponsored focus on food and drink,” what is not clear is the role PepsiCo played in producing the articles. More importantly, it is also not clear whether the firm had any editorial control over the content featured. What is clear, however, is that PepsiCo is presented in a favorable light in the articles and none of its products receive any criticism. In addition, I think the tone of the article is unhelpful to the broader expectation that the current economic model is unsustainable and that we are in trouble unless something changes. Typical is a quote used to conclude the article, which is a message retailers would like to portray, but not necessarily one with which CSR advocates would agree:
“The core sustainability message for brands to communicate to customers, says Uren, is: “Sustainability is about doing more of the good stuff, less of the bad stuff, and not about giving everything up.””
Having said this, the article in the second url below (also from the same series of articles), reports on an interesting shift in focus for food and drink firms:
“Food and drink brands have long been thought of as consumer goods companies. Not anymore. Brands that are serious about cutting their environmental impacts are starting to think about themselves as part of a new breed – they are all farmers now. Green-thinking brands have twigged that by far their biggest environmental impacts are not in food processing, but food growing. Agriculture accounts for most of the greenhouse gas emissions, water use and waste in food supply chains. These impacts occur long before food is turned into the well-known brands we see on supermarket shelves.”
More specifically:
“Cadbury, for example, has found that dairy farming accounts for 64% of the carbon footprint of a Dairy Milk chocolate bar. Just 14% of the bar’s footprint comes from manufacturing the product. PepsiCo has discovered that 60% of the environmental impact of a bag of Walkers Crisps is from sources outside the company’s direct control. Just over a third comes from raw materials, mainly growing potatoes and sunflowers for sunseed oil.”
With growing threats from regulation, combined with increasingly inconsistent supplies of key raw ingredients, the article argues that these numbers represent:
“… a huge opportunity for food and drink brands that want to lay claim to environmental credentials.”
Not surprisingly (J), PepsiCo is a leading light for progressive change in this respect:
“In March 2007, PepsiCo became the first UK company to put carbon reduction labels on products, on packs of Walkers Crisps. In February 2009, Walkers announced it had cut the carbon footprint of its crisps by 7% since joining the scheme. The biggest reductions came from cutting gas and electricity use in crisp manufacturing – direct impacts – saving the company £400,000 a year.”
Take care
David
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther/
Take care
David
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther/
Sponsored focus on food and drink: Engaging consumers – Now it’s the environment, stupid
Consumers want to do the right thing, especially about the environment, but expect brands to make it easy for them
John Russell
May 18, 2009
http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=6478
Sponsored focus on food and drink: Greening the chain – We are all farmers now
Food and drink brands must tackle supply chain environmental impacts to make good on green promises
John Russell
May 15, 2009
http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=6475
