Spotlight: Sustainable business practices of DANONE

Welcome back to our  Spotlight on sustainable business practices!

You’re just in time to catch our newest spotlight on a hero brand that has taken great strides towards becoming actively environmentally aware and working on expanding its sustainability. This week we will be focusing on Danone.

The Groupe Danone is a multinational corporation based in Paris, France and is one of the leaders in the food-products sector. The reason we chose this specific group is because of the sheer amount they contribute in socially responsible actions – several of the companies they own have vast programs that seek to better the lives of individuals around the globe. One of these such companies is Volvic with their “Drink 1, Give 10” campaign. Back in 2008, and then again in 2009, Volvic pledged to give 4 cents to UNICEF (the equivalent of 10 liters for each water bottle bought) with the focus of providing clean water to Ethiopia. This program spread to other countries around the world from France and Japan to the United States and Canada. Since its inception it has raised over 3 million dollars in support of this Ethiopian water program.

Through this initiative Danone has shown its commitment to bettering the lives of individuals around the world, as well as their role in the fight for clean water. Not only did they donate this water, their efforts also led to the development of a fully integrated sanitation of water package, to allow for local populations to have continuing access to clean water, even after the program ends.

Another reason we’ve chosen this brand as our spotlight for this week is because of the Danone Ecosystem Fund. This branch of the company works on a very specific platform – they use the partners of Danone’s ecosystem, such as small producers and distributors, to effect change. Danone’s renewed and endless focus on the “little people” has allowed it to support initiative that makes it an incredibly bio-friendly brand today.

Additionally, Danone also has a program called the Danone Way Ahead initiative, which seeks to encourage social innovation and the respect of the basics. Since then, Danone has been incredibly active in its actions in favor of the environment – not only have they set the target of reducing the weight of their packaging by 10%, but they are present in collecting and recycling these packages in 23 countries. In the past six years they have already made tremendous strides – the weight of packaging has been reduced by 35%. That same year, they created another department dedicated to working on a sustainable packaging, using recycled terephthalate polyethylene. France is one of only two countries that has begun marketing bottles that use PET. The idea is simple – using parts of PET from old bottles and putting them in the new ones. In the future this will also for bottles to be produced with 25% of recycled PET.

And finally, Danone has helped the environment by creating the Carbon and Water footprint tool with a focus on the biggest issue these days – global warming. This will allow for estimates of the effects of greenhouse gases and the duration of one unit of packaged product which will in turn allow Danone to get an individual idea of the footprints of its different subsidiaries. Once this is calculated, Danone has pledged to find healthier alternatives that produce less GGs.