Someday, Today
Read Time: 4 minutes
I am excited to share this week’s newsletter which is all about thinking about sustainability in a different way. Before we get into it, a couple things:
We had some incredible guests on the Founder to Mentor podcast over the last couple weeks, including Alex Lieberman from Morning Brew. If you missed it you can catch up on the episodes here.
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Now, let’s jump into it.
Someday, Today
Trends in corporate sustainability have been mostly consistent — an expanding climate crisis, lightning-speed growth in clean tech, rising pressure from many stakeholders, and more. We already know that sustainability really matters.
But while in the past we felt a sense of, “these trends are growing and will be dominant…someday,” that's changing. Someday seems to have finally become today — and there is no going back.
Even so, societal norms around our expectations of what's sustainable and not can still be confusing. Big picture, nothing is truly sustainable. Life is always changing, as are consumer needs and desires. Most businesses will eventually fold even if their ideas started out as ground-breaking. If we’re not physically healthy, even our lifestyles aren’t sustainable.
So what does that mean for entrepreneurs, today?
To cut through the confusion, our bottom line at Manitoba Harvest was easy.
We wanted to be successful in business without undermining someone else's future.
You know that soft drink companies are some of the most successful businesses in the world. But they're definitely undermining people's futures. Their corn syrup-based products aren’t aligned with human health. Their manufacturing and distribution chains could have negative impacts on the environment. Other companies make radioactive parts. Still others dump chemicals into sewer systems. They don’t give these choices a second thought.
A lot of companies are like that.
The natural and organic products industry, on the other hand, is one of the shining lights for sustainability. There absolutely are companies that greenwash their brands, but, for most of us, we’re at least trying to make this world a better place, for tomorrow.
But here’s the trick. There’s one main difference between the kind of business that’s not undermining someone else's future and the kind that is.
We achieve this goal by not aiming for the lowest common denominator, either as businesses or as consumers.
Product ingredients or components can be cheap, which means that they may use unfair labor practices, like sweatshops, or unsustainable resources, such as strip-mined metals. They can also be slightly more costly. Companies that choose to make a premium product are those that choose the latter. They choose to afford more sustainable business practices.
This doesn’t necessarily mean significantly higher prices for regular goods. Companies can also choose their markup so that they can meet the market at the right price point. What’s even more important is that, the more that we approach business in this way, the more that a consumer gets used to paying for sustainable business practices as well.
Before you jump to conclusions, stay with me. I’m not trying to argue that every product should cost a lot.
Yes, of course we want consumers to buy goods at a price that is reasonable.
But if we want our products to be sustainable, we also want consumers to shift towards quality over quantity.
Think about chocolate made from unsustainable cocoa farming. Cocoa farmers often clear tropical forests to plant new cocoa trees instead of reusing the same land because it’s cheaper. And there are 2 million children farming these plantations, not just experienced adults, leading to child deaths, according to the World Wildlife Federation. The supply chains out of these farms are linked to human rights abuses.
Chocolate bars sourced from these farms are big, filled with additives and sugars, and, not shockingly, they don’t actually taste that good.
Compare corner-store chocolate brands to a super premium functional chocolate like Mid-Day Squares, where the physical size of the product is a fraction of the unsustainable bar, but the chocolate hit is exceptionally delicious, satisfying and good for your body. They source their chocolate from fair trade, labor-certified sources. Mid-Day Squares is making the right product margin, and their product doesn’t cost consumers any more than something unsustainable. That’s because the quantity of their chocolate is right-sized for a human being. That’s something that is perhaps just as important to our individual survival as our environment is to our species.
We don’t have to wreck the planet to make money.
We can build enough margin into a business to afford to do the right thing.
So let’s just do that.
I hope you enjoyed the read and are ready to think more sustainably.
Until next time.
Let’s Grow!
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