Tracking Progress Spotlight: Mountain Rose Herbs & Renewable Energy 

In 2015, we constructed a 100-panel 25 KW solar array
and electrical vehicle charging station. Throughout 2017, our solar array generated over 34 MWh of power for our facility. We offset Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions with Native Energy and fund a wind farm in Oklahoma.

Tracking Progress Spotlight: REBBL & Packaging 

The steps we have taken for packaging include: switching from cardboard cases covered in white ink to 'natural' brown cases, and also transitioning to a lighter-strength box. This change reduces cardboard used overall. Looking ahead at 2018, we are pursuing a transition from virgin plastic (PET) to 100% post-consumer recycled plastic resin (rPET) to be used in all REBBL bottles.  We will also assess the reduction of the grams of plastic per bottle, thus utilizing less of the material for our pack. Our bottles and caps are also free of BPA, a controversial component used in polycarbonate beverage bottles.

Tracking Progress Spotlight: PCC & Policy Engagement

 PCC is active in Washington state policy and submits comments routinely to the National Organic Standards Board. We have supported Seattle’s plastic bag ban, Washington State’s net-pen ban, and Washington state’s restriction of PFAS chemicals in food packaging. Our PCC Advocates is an email list that we use to send members action alerts, encouraging them to call their representatives or submit comments on proposed legislation or rules that would negatively impact the health of our communities, our ecosystems, and food systems. Additionally, we’ve published articles advocating for climate action, and highlighting the Climate Collaborative to bring awareness to the issue.

Tracking Progress Spotlight: Straus Family Creamery & Short-LivedClimate Pollutants

We are working with four anaerobic digester companies to design and trial an economically and operationally viable anaerobic digester technology for small to medium-sized organic dairy farms.

Tracking Progress Spotlight: Alter Eco & Food Waste

Alter Eco has a program in place for the redistribution and sale for excess products, thus avoiding food waste from spoilage. The products with less than six months until expiration are placed with specific retailers/distributors that have high turnover. They are also sold through yearly office sales, redistributed as donations, or delivered to food banks. By 2020, we aim to achieve near Zero Waste status for office operations. Zero Waste means 10% or less of all waste goes to landfill by reusing, composting, or recycling the rest. This will entail tightening the positive solid waste practices that are already in place through the San Francisco Green Business certification.

Tracking Progress Spotlight: Annie’s and Energy Efficiency

In addition to maintaining our LEED Gold Status and Bay Area Green Business Certification at the Berkeley office, in 2016 we earned the Climate Disruptors award for energy efficiency projects that led to a 30% reduction in annual electricity usage and a 60% reduction in annual natural gas usage in the Berkeley office. We also prioritize energy efficiency in the supply chain; through conducting an annual Supplier Practices Survey for manufacturing suppliers, we have determined that 70% of manufacturing partners track energy use, 40% have an energy reduction goal, 35% track their greenhouse gas emissions related to energy use, and 30% have a reduction goal for GHG’s.

Tracking Progress Spotlight: Veritable Vegetable & Transportation

Since our Climate Collaborative commitment, we've introduced renewable diesel which has greatly reduced our GHG emissions. We have measured our emissions and recorded progress. Between 2017 and this year, we’ve increased our consumption of renewable diesel by 22%. As a result, we’ve reduced GHG emissions by 31%, as of the first half of 2018.

Tracking Progress Spotlight: Happy Family Organics & Forests

Our first focus for this commitment area was to ensure that all palm oil that we use is certified by RSPO (it is). Our second focus was to draft a code of conduct and have suppliers sign it (90% of ingredient suppliers have signed the code to date), which contains a clause that prohibits deforestation. Our next task has been to verify that the paperboard and cardboard sourced on our behalf contains either PCR content or certified virgin materials. We are still working through this fact finding process with our suppliers.

Tracking Progress Spotlight: Clif Bar & Agriculture

Organic food and farming delivers multiple benefits for people, the health of the environment and the well-being health of rural communities. In 2015, we set a goal to source 80% organic and certified sustainable ingredients by 2020 over a 75% baseline. We’re on track to achieve that, reaching 77.4% in 2017 and 78.7% in the first quarter of 2018. We have sourced over 888 million pounds of organic ingredients since 2003. This has resulted in over 6.5 million pounds of synthetic fertilizers that were not applied and more than 30,000 acres of land is farmed organically because of our use of organic oats and soy.     

Through the Clif Bar Family Foundation, we launched the unprecedented $1.9 million Seed Matters Initiative to: revitalize public organic crop breeding by funding 17 graduate student fellows in seven universities across five regions; promote U.S. crop genetic diversity; and support American farmers’ roles and rights as seed innovators. Clif Bar has also committed to endowing five University chairs in organic research. Two have already been funded; the University of Wisconsin and in January of 2018, we announced the funding of an endowment to support Washington State’s Bread Lab to continue its research breeding grains adapted to organic farming practices.