Green and the Bottom Line

Given its customers’ increasing concern with sustainability, and especially with the cost-saving aspects of reducing water and energy use, “green” has become almost synonymous with “revenue” in Ecolab’s product-development process. “Five years ago, a concept-feasibility study would include an analysis of ROI and [whether the product would make Ecolab] a market leader,” Cords says. “Now, it’s: Will it reduce water use, energy use, or packaging, or [involve] safer chemical ingredients for the user or the environment? If you check one or more, that’s a winner.”

What will Ecolab not do in the name of going green? It won’t reduce the quality or performance of its products, Cords says. Given the wind patterns in the Twin Cities, it won’t install wind turbines to power its buildings. (“So far, we haven’t found a way to make that pay off here.”) And it won’t trade one environmental problem for another that might be worse.

For example, Ecolab would like to depend less on petroleum as a base for some of its products. An alternative would be “bio-based” carbon sources. But as with corn-based ethanol, these present their own environmental difficulties. “We’ve looked at palm oil–based ingredients,” Cords says. “But palm oil also is used in food. There are cases where they’ve been cutting rainforests to plant palm trees. That doesn’t look like a good trade to us.”

This or That?

In 2005, Caribou Coffee, headquartered in Brooklyn Center, began a push to buy its coffee beans only from growers who achieve certification by the Rainforest Alliance (RFA). The certification process involves signing off on everything from land use and wastewater practices to workers’ living conditions.

Chad Trewick, who heads Caribou’s coffee-sourcing operations, says that the percentage of Caribou beans coming from Rainforest Alliance–certified farms has been growing steadily: from 47 percent in 2007 to an estimated 67 percent in 2009.

Caribou believes in the Rainforest Alliance’s principles, Trewick says. But he also sees the initiative as a matter of corporate survival. “Not long ago, a lot of coffee farmers were abandoning ship because the cost of production was outpacing the market price . . . . My charge is to see that Caribou engages in mutually beneficial relations with its suppliers,” Trewick says. The extra pennies per pound he pays to compensate growers for modifications necessary for certification can help some stay in business—and assure him of a steady supply of coffee.