We've just released our 2019 Tracking Progress Update, and alongside its release, are sharing examples of progress we're seeing in the industry across our nine commitment areas.

Agriculture:

Last year we piloted a regenerative agriculture farmer training program with two farms in Argentina and Michigan. Working with Soil & More, we modeled the farm using the Cool Farm Tool and conducted a workshop on how to improve compost practices on farm. The farm in Michigan implemented a trial of a compost tea to improve microbial activity and saw an increase in plant size and zucchini production on the trial plot. The farmer is looking into how to implement it on a larger scale this year. – Happy Family Organics

Currently, we have identified three key suppliers with whom we are working with to increase regenerative agriculture in their farms. We would like our current suppliers to incorporate more crops that work well with moringa. While most of our farms grow moringa intensively, this does not stop them from intercropping their moringa with other crops. Our suppliers have beans, ground nuts, turmeric, ginger, lemongrass, local seeds and cover crops to minimize our agricultural supply chain emissions. By having more diversified systems, carbon sequestration is maximized, erosion is prevented, wildlife biodiversity is improved and water/air quality is better regulated. – Kuli Kuli

We conducted a GHG assessment of our supply chain in 2018 with Soil & More Impacts and found that we are carbon negative (absorbing more than emitting) across our farming origins. The main impact area is processing in-country at origin, and we are now focusing there. – Numi Tea

Straus Family Creamery is working to develop a replicable carbon neutral dairy farming model centered on the following key strategies: organic management, powering farms with methane biodigester technology, reducing enteric emissions with feed supplements, advancing carbon farming practices that promote soil carbon sequestration (compost application and intensive rotational grazing), and using electric farm vehicles to eliminate diesel emissions. – Straus Family Creamery

Energy Efficiency:

We have upgraded many incandescent and fluorescent lights to LED, and installed a more efficient HVAC system in our labs. We are also working with our energy supplier, Mason County PUD, to increase energy efficiency at our farm and other locations. We have also installed a solar array to produce electricity on site. Currently 12KWH with the ability to be expanded to 100KWH! As we track power consumption we can compare and measure emission reductions compared to previous years. – Fungi Perfecti

We are currently part of a two-year Strategic Energy Management program. This program is helping Lundberg update our energy policy, energy team charter, and opportunity register. It is also helping us identify savings and calculate energy reduction. In FY18, we implemented a large retro-commissioning project, compressed air monitoring, and additional preventative maintenance for our popping machines. These projects generated roughly 750,000 kWh of savings. In the next fiscal year we hope to finish an energy sub-metering project and begin monitoring cost-per-case in real-time. – Lundberg Family Farms

Food Waste:

We have hired a team focused on preventing and diverting food waste through audits of our product at receipt, in production, and then managing end of life to increase revenue through secondary market sales, donations to Feeding America partners, distribution to our employees, animal feed, and compost. – Blue Apron

We have been using a manufacturing optimization software for about 2 years. The software provides instantaneous feedback from the manufacturing floor to the highest level of management. It provides information on problems such as: different types of downtimes, quality, case out count, and OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness). This software helped us quantify opportunities for improvement in our scrap rate, which lead to a year-over-year reduction in scrap of about 1/3.

Additionally, Lundberg donates food that meets food safety standards to local food banks and gleaners. In FY18 we donated roughly 100 tons of product. We also continue to find uses for our byproducts. Broken rice is milled it to rice flour which is then used in our syrup, chips, and pasta. Rice hulls are used for chicken bedding. Broken rice cakes are used as animal feed. - Lundberg Family Farms

Deforestation:

Our goal is to protect 8 million trees in 2019. – Alter Eco

Farmers at several Dr. Bronner's agricultural supply projects have planted 250,000+ oil and coconut palms, including initial plantings of dynamic agroforestry fields. We are calculating the "inset" values using the Cool Farm Tool and are thrilled with what we are seeing. – Dr. Bronner’s

Packaging:

With new packaging hitting the market mid-year, the petroleum-based liner for our pint cups has been replaced with a plant-based poly liner. An LCA conducted on this product shows a reduction in GHG emissions of 2.6 kgCO2eq/1000 pint cups. – Luna and Larry's Coconut Bliss

We have made significant progress on right-sizing all of our products (96% of products are right-sized - up from 75% baseline in 2017). We have made incremental progress on improving the recyclability of our products by adding a tear strip to our Puffs bottles. We have much work to do on our goal to incorporate 25% PCR plastic in our rigid plastic packaging by 2025 and to make 100% of packaging recyclable by 2025. – Happy Family Organics

Our customers participate in our container re-use program-we manage returns and safely wash and re-use glass and plastic jars, jugs and buckets-over 76% return rate. Since 2003, we and our customers have reused over 125,000 lbs of plastic containers and over 93,000 lbs of glass containers. – Hummingbird Wholesale

Policy:

We are working with other stakeholders to draft and lobby for healthy soils legislature in NH (and ultimately beyond!). We have supported and lobbied for climate-friendly policy, including our Co-CEO advocating for organic and regenerative ag as part of the UN Conference on Biodiversity – W.S. Badger

We are active in BICEP and with Protect our Winters in speaking up/ lobbying on climate at a national level through direct visits, petitions, letters, and through our role in the leadership circle of We Are Still In.  We are also working with BICEP in several states including CA, OH, and MN. We have joined the Ohio state Chamber of Commerce and the VP of Sales in our Ohio office is now on the energy committee for the Ohio Chamber. We received awards for our policy work from BICEP 2018 and recently in 2019. We were especially proud to have been involved in CA  advocating for 100% clean energy -- the SB100 bill which passed last year. – Clif Bar & Company

We were a founding member of the Oregon Business Alliance for Climate, a business group supporting the Cap and Invest bill in the state of Oregon and have provided written testimony as well as visited our legislators to provide insights into the policy impacts on the food economy in our state. – New Seasons Market

 
In 2018 we made 2 commitments: 1) To build public pressure and political will to get 100 U.S. cities to commit to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030. We surpassed that goal, getting 107 cities to commit. We used both direct and indirect advocacy (inside and outside game) to achieve this goal. 2)  In the state of Vermont we lead a coalition of progressive business pushing legislators and the Governor to put a price on carbon pollution. – Seventh Generation

Renewable Energy:

We generate about 15% of our electricity usage from our two solar arrays. For the rest of our electricity, we purchase Renewable Energy Certificates from Bonneville Power Administration. In 2018, we purchased 850 RECs and 200 Carbon Offsets. We are a certified EPA Green Power Partner. – Ashland Food Co-op

Through the use of solar panels on one of our stores and RECs we reduced net GHG emissions from 558 metric tons in 2017 to 476 in 2018. – Outpost Natural Foods Co-op

SLCPs:

Our 5-year goal is to reduce carbon emissions associated with our refrigerant leaks by 50%.  Some of our stores run on HFC refrigerants.  We're designing new stores with sustainable refrigerants such as CO2. We're also maintaining our existing refrigeration equipment responsibly to minimize leaks and phasing out high GWP refrigerants. In just the first year, we were able to reduce our refrigerant leaks by 714 lbs, which reduced associated carbon emissions by 34%. – PCC Community Markets

Straus Family Creamery employees are working on a variety of projects to reduce dairy methane emissions. We’re reducing methane emissions from manure lagoons by helping farmers install and operate biodigester technology and we’re aiming to reduce enteric emissions in cattle by supporting red seaweed research trials. – Straus Family Creamery

Transportation:

We made a commitment to increase our use of rail to ship product from our bakeries to DCs on our longest routes. In 2017 we shipped by rail for one route (Indiana to southern CA). In 2018 we added a new route (Utah to Columbus, OH) and set a goal that 33% of all outbound shipments would be by rail. We fell short and only reached 23% due to a shortage of refrigerated cars in the hot months. Nonetheless, that 23% shipping by rail saved nearly 4 million lbs of carbon. (3,810,964 lbs. avoided). We are also reducing our CO2 from employee transportation. In 2018 we joined EV100 and committed to transitioning to electric or hybrid electric for our fleet, and to installing EV charging infrastructure at all facilities by 2030. We provide a $6500 incentive for employees to help them purchase a fuel efficient hybrid or electric car. To date, more than 50% of all employees are participating. This year, in 2019, we are setting a goal to ship 20% of domestic shipments by rail and are on track to achieve this.  Shipping by rail has resulted in significant cost savings. - Clif Bar & Company

Currently, we partner with Organic Valley Logistics in our effort to reduce our carbon foot print delivering our product to our business partners. As members of Carbonfree, GoMacro we are required to calculate our company's business transportation mileage including vehicle, air, train by donate to carbonfree.org in our effort to offset remaining emissions (Carbonfree.org) and reduce our carbon footprint. – GoMacro

We have a nearly 100% electric fleet for distribution (excludes our field marketing fleet which is still gas-powered). - Guayaki