The Knowledge: Alex Cole, Cadbury

“One of my team said ‘I just want to do my work – not all this green stuff as well’. I replied ‘You’re in the wrong place’.”

It has to make business sense…

Even in a values-driven company, whose founders were campaigning on pollution and slavery back in the 19th century, the shareholder is key. I started off in the CSR team, but even then I knew if I wanted to embed environmental ideas fully, I had to learn to negotiate in business terms.

So that’s how we presented ‘Purple Goes Green’ [which holds Cadbury to stretch targets on water, packaging and energy, and to a commitment to ‘campaign for change’]. We shamelessly copied Al Gore and said, “Right, the ‘inconvenient truth’ for Cadbury is that cocoa can only be grown in a certain temperature range and requires humid conditions – which climate change is likely to impact – and that our factories have been flooded for the first time in their history...”

Thanks to Purple Goes Green, we’ve identified amazing cost-savings in energy and water – and, as a businessperson, you have to wonder, ‘Why did we need the environmental agenda to see this?’

People have different ‘triggers’

For some it’s the heart, for others the mind. For some, executive authority, for others the culture around them. But, for everyone, it has to be made real and tangible. We got our top 100 to do their personal carbon footprint, and the entire company to watch An Inconvenient Truth. Pretty much everyone had an opinion, though one woman in my team did say “I’m sorry, I just want to do my work – not all this green stuff as well.” I had to answer “You’re in the wrong place.”

Attitudes are shaped by the cultural differences across our 60-country operation too. In India the agenda is very natural to them, because they’re less inclined to waste stuff – and are already feeling the effects of climate change. In Australia, water shortages have driven up the price of milk, and so they’re very in touch with this, too.

Thank you, Wal-Mart

The fact that Lee Scott was already talking about these issues to consumers helped me sell the ideas internally. It’s funny that he and Al Gore, such contrasting figures, have been two of the biggest influences on my work – I wouldn’t have imagined that five years ago!

Don’t wait for the consumer

We’re kidding ourselves if we think customers are going to drive change, or that they’re going to use carbon labels to compare products. Some clearly do recognise transport as a big part of their own carbon footprint, but they’re not going to consider confectionery in the same way.

On packaging, too, we’re still figuring out how to engage them. There are groups of people at Cadbury now whose entire job is to reduce waste to landfill, but our Easter ‘eco-egg’ range, sold without a box, wasn’t an immediate success. It’s not easy, because you’re managing what the consumer wants – in this case, something big with a wow factor – versus what you want to give them.

What the cows taught me

Thanks to our carbon footprinting exercise, we were surprised to learn that around 60% of our products’ emissions come from cows. So we went to visit a group of our dairy farmers in Wiltshire. It was a funny scene, with us coming up from London with our slightly strange ideas about cow ruminations and carbon footprints... but the farmers were very ready to engage, and together we’ve produced a guide to low-carbon dairy farming. It just shows how complex sustainability can be – touching on everything from animal welfare to the rights of our suppliers.

I’m still a campaigner

I never thought I’d be working for a multinational corporate. My background is in politics – campaigning is what drives me. But I’ve realised that every company is its own mini society, with mini activists and people who make things happen.

Alex Cole, global corporate affairs director at Cadbury, was in conversation with Hannah Bullock.

27 January 2009

Hannah Bullock

Add new comment