Our sustainable path

Just as some folks think of organic agriculture as a “newfangled” technique, people think of sustainability as the latest fad. In reality, the root concepts of both are tightly entwined and as old as, well, dirt. You’ll find the ideals of both embedded in all mainstream thought over the centuries: in religion (do unto others); in science (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction); in medicine (first, do no harm); in ecology (everything is connected).

And just as “organic” has evolved from a grassroots movement into a market expectation, so have consumers and business partners begun to expect businesses to behave responsibly and operate sustainably, especially businesses like Organic Valley Family of Farms. Why would this matter to them? Because the “triple bottom line” of sustainability consists of how our business impacts all of us in three important areas:

1. Social Responsibility, or how we affect our employees, customers, and the communities in which we operate,
2. Ecological Integrity, or how our operations affect the natural world and its resources, and
3. Economic Stability, or how we make, spend and save money.

From our inception as a cooperative of organic family farms, sustainability was in our DNA and remains as we continue to pursue our goals and improve our practices. Still, we have not fully measured and reported our successes and failures in all areas of sustainability in a way that is accessible and relevant to our farmer/ owners, customers, shareholders, communities, business partners, and employees. Systematic measurement and reporting will allow us to quantify our efforts and provide us with a road map for continual improvement. Just as we provide our customers the assurance of organic certification, the ability to provide a measured history of our efforts to our customers, partners and investors will define and sharpen our competitive edge.

In the process of assessing our available data and mapping the work ahead, we confront the reality of our organization – a family of more than 1,300 small businesses, each with its own sustainability story. Collectively, we tell the story of the ecological degradation we avoid because of the way we farm. In our business operations, however, we must also tell the story of how we rely on the use of transportation and refrigeration to deliver food safely to our customers, practices that are intrinsically not sustainable. As we’ve begun to document those practices and focus on how to mitigate the negative effects, we have worked to reduce our footprint in those areas and have succeeded in a number of ways, as illustrated on the following pages.

We have a great deal more work to do. We do not shrink from the task—that’s not in our DNA—but promise to share what we know , and to deliver additional information as we get it.

Steps to Sustainability

on the farm
humane animal treatment
operations
water stewardship
employees
partnerships
giving
sustainable trade

Excerpted from the Organic Valley/ CROPP Cooperative 2008 Annual Report.