“With a plethora of sustainability metrics on the market, one major
challenge exists in choosing the best set of metrics to suit your business.
We encourage members to start with those operations they directly own
or control, then over time work toward obtaining information from
their suppliers (i.e., farmers) and service providers (i.e., co-packers, dis-
tribution partners). Ultimately, the goal of measurement is to help you
more effectively drive sustainability performance improvement by un-
derstanding where you are doing well, where there are gaps, and how
your practices compare with your industry peers.”
In addition to using metrics to help drive key business decisions, it’s
not just management that cares to see these figures. According to Reit-
man-White, consumers are now demanding to be in the know. “Savvy
customers are on the lookout for ‘green washing.’ If you aren’t meas-
uring, you aren’t proving the impact your sustainability practices are
having on the environment, economy or your community,” advises Re-
itman-White.
Examples of metrics that we use and report on include: energy and
natural gas use per lb. of product produced, annual water consumption and water recovered through saving projects. In our first year of
looking at data collection, we probably went a little overboard trying to
measure everything. Over time, however, we learned that some of the
more effective metrics are ones that can be found by looking at measurements we were already tracking like utility costs—and that it was
just about paying closer attention to these numbers, tying them into
Organic Education
TK
exisiting production numbers and actively seeking to reduce them.
Engaging Your People
People are at the heart of any organization and if engaged, can
achieve amazing results in furthering
sustainability goals. At Nature’s Path
we’ve put a lot of effort into embedding sustainability into the cultural
fabric of our organization. While specialized sustainability positions, like
my own, can be important for driving
programs and initiatives, it’s equally,
if not more important, to find ways to
involve your team at all levels.
We started off by including sustainability as one of our core competen-cies that all team members are
measured on in their performance
evaluation. Generally, team members
can gain “points” in this category for
participating in our green commute
program and engaging in waste re-
