Developing Performance Measures for Stonyfield Farm, Inc.

"What gets measured gets managed."

In 1999, Pure Strategies staff sat down with managers from Stonyfield Farm to design a sustainability tracking system. The team decided to tailor the system to the company mission (see below), outlining measures for environment, family farms, quality, employee well being and profitability. A key part of the project involved educating company managers and employees on sustainability principles as well as the most serious impacts of the company.

Stonyfield Farm Mission
To serve as a model that environmentally and socially responsible businesses can also be profitable.
To educate consumers and producers about the value of protecting the environment and of supporting family farmers and sustainable farming methods.
To produce the very highest quality all natural and Certified Organic products that taste incredible.
To provide a healthful, productive and enjoyable work place for all employees, with opportunities to gain new skills and advance personal career goals.
To recognize our obligations to stockholders and lenders by providing an excellent return on their investment.

Measures of environmental stewardship were the most challenging to develop since they required understanding the impacts of growing of basic food crops (fruits and sugars as well as corn, alphfalfa and other cow feeds), transportation to processing facilities, product manufacture, and distribution to customers. The analysis included a life cycle inventory of pollutants generated during the manufacture of packing (polypropylene cups and cardboard boxes). This comprehensive analysis gave the firm a sense of its largest impacts and a focus for its environmental improvement projects.

Stonyfield Farm Performance Measures
Environment
Solid Waste, Wastewater and Water Use , Packaging, Supply Chain Pesticide Use, Facility Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Family Farms and Sustainable Agriculture
Percent of Organic Sales, Organic Acres Supported, Number of Small Family Dairy Farms Supported, Percentage of Milk from Small Farms, Price Paid to Farmer (milk only)
Quality
Consumer Complaints, Chill Cell Compliance, Shelf Life Studies, and Good Manufacturing Practices/Sanitation
Employee Well-being
Compensation, Lost Work Day Illness Injury Rate, Stock Ownership, Education & Training, Turnover, Length of Service
Profitability
Net Sales, Net Income, Gross Margin, Stock Price, Market Share, EBIT

In meetings prior to the release of the first draft of the report, managers at Stonyfield Farm asked the team to organize a series of "educational seminars" on topics such as environmental protection and the basics of sustainable development, the human resources practices of leading corporations, the current state of family farming and sustainable agriculture. The seminars were designed to give managers further grounding in these areas as well as examples of innovative practices employed elsewhere. Many at Stonyfield Farm cite the effort to measure the company's mission and various education seminars as furthering their own commitment to the company and its ambitious mission.

Pure Strategies Report
Widening the Lens (pdf, 3.34MB)
 
 
A scientific consensus has emerged that human-generated carbon dioxide is a significant cause of global warming. In an effort to become carbon-neural, Pure Strategies utilizes TerraPass to remediate all of its carbon dioxide emissions encompassing all its business practices.