Name: Smucker's CEO Says Doing Good is Good for Business
Uploaded: 2019-08-06
Duration: 6 min 3 s
Description: The 122-year-old food company is committed to protecting the environment and serving its communities.

[ MUSIC ] Mark, you're going big on renewable energy and protecting the environment, why is this important to Smockers? Well of course protecting the environment and the world in which we do business is critical to the success of business and the communities and the world in which we live and work. So we have to support that .>> People know smokers for its jams and jellies, and it's just peanut butter. How did you come to focus on things like when power Cleaning up landfills, reducing carbon emissions. We were founded 122 years ago by my great great grandfather. And one of the reasons he founded the company was to help the farmers in that area of Ohio which were primarily Apple farmers apple orchards, and he was able to help convert some of their apples into cider. Which eventually led to a business of apple butter and jams and jellies. But at our very core as a company, we are about supporting the communities in which we work. And so clearly we have established goals we're about to achieve 95 % diversion from landfills waste. Or a 15 % reducttion and water usage. And a 10 % reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. One of the ways that we are able to achieve the greenhouse gas emissions is by investing in wind firms, particularly in [ INAUDIBLE ] center of the country which will actually offset 50 % of the electricity that we use. So you feel you're really making a difference. Absolutely we're making a difference. In our company, we talk about six constituencies. Consumers, customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and the sixth is shareholders. If you take care of the first five, automatically you will take care of your investors. And so by focusing on those five constituencies, we're really helping the business to thrive as well. I understand you're also passionate about supporting individual coffee bean farmers in developing countries, and certainly your Folgers and Dunkin Donuts coffee brands benefit from that. But what is your goal? So first of all, remember that we're the largest coffee roaster in the United States, in North America. And we have a responsibility to support the sustainability of the coffee supply chain. Coffee comes from the tropics. We buy from 40 countries and there are two ways that we had to support the supply chain. The first is to support the coffee farmers themselves and help improve their livelihood in the supply chain. Coffee farmers are usually in very small farm, so supporting the coffee farmers and their livelihood. And the second is actually helping to develop new varieties of [ UNKNOWN ] coffee trees that can survive in warmer climates. How's it going? Are you making a difference? In both cases, both in the coffee farmer support, as well as new varieties of coffee, we're making progress. We've been involved in both for about four to five years. We have touched the lives of 16, 000 plus coffee farmers. And, we are starting to see some new varieties of Arabica plants that can survive in a warmer climate. You mentioned a moment ago that your family started Smuckers more than 120 years ago. Right. You have been CEO for the last three years. How is your job as CEO and the expectations For your job, different from the days when your father and your great- great- grandfather J. M. Smucker were running the company? I think what's not different is that we continue to support the communities in which we work and live. That's critical. I think what is different is our employees have higher expectations than they ever have In terms of wanting to know what it is that we're doing to support our communities or suppliers and obviously the environment. What do your employees expect from you when it comes to SEO when it comes to corporate social responsibility? Well, first of all, they expect me to listen. They want to be heard, because they have great ideas about the things that we can be doing. They expect transparency, they expect us to communicate frequently and as completely as we can with them about those things that we're doing. Thirdly, they expect us to give them opportunities to participate. You've been participating here at the Fortune CEO initiative conference, where the whole conversation is about this new trend, which you just mentioned, where CEOs are. Dedicated to doing good and making it part of their core business strategy. What's your key takeaway as you've been listening and participating? First of all, I think it's inspiring to see so many other CEOs championing purpose driven business practices And it gives us a forum to learn from each other, to learn the different types of things that each CEO and each company are doing to support the environment or social goals. And so it's just a great learning experience, things that I can take away as well and apply in our own business. What has stood out for you? What has, maybe a conversation with someone here, Has influenced your thinking about these issues. I think honestly a lot of the talk about education and giving people the skills necessary to get into different careers has been very motivating and inspiring for me. There's been a number of initiatives Where folks have talked about elevating the education level of the population. Which will in turn give those individuals opportunities and support business as well. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Smucker's CEO Says Doing Good is Good for Business

Leadership

The 122-year-old food company is committed to protecting the environment and serving its communities.