Strategy and Practice: Mars Reports on Targets and Issues

Strategy and Practice: Mars Reports on Targets and Issue

Here’s a headline you don’t see very often: “Company Restates Sustainability Pledge After Missing Packaging Target in 2015.” The idea that a goal might be very ambitious, that achieving it might encounter unforeseen issues—is one often talked about among businesses, but rarely publicly.

The company in question, Mars, had aimed to make its packaging 100% recyclable or recoverable by 2015. It recently announced that it had achieved 89%. One problem was that Mars found reducing packaging did not necessarily make it recyclable. The company’s reaction? To double down on its efforts by partnering with suppliers, universities, and other experts, reports Confectionary News.

Mars is already a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastic Economy Initiative and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. The company’s public message to continue working toward its ideal target is as praiseworthy as its initial commitment to sustainability.

I’m John Howell for 3BL Media.