Corporate Responsibility

"For most of our history, in fact ... for 99% of our history, we've chosen not to be in the public eye and we've really wanted our brands to engage consumers. And yet times have changed," Mars chairman Stephen Badger said.

"Consumers do want to know more about not only the brands that they're buying, but the company that is behind them," Badger, who is also the great-grandson of the company's founder, Franklin Mars, said.

Badger is right. A recent study by Label Insight, which surveyed 2,000 consumers, found that 94% of respondents would be more loyal to a brand if it offered complete transparency.

With more than $35 billion in annual sales, Mars Inc — the company behind brands like Twix, M&Ms, and Skittles — is one of the largest family-owned companies in the world. And it has been around for more than 100 years.

But as the company makes changes and invests in its future, there is one thing that will continue to stay the same for the chocolate giant, Mars chairman Stephen Badger told Business Insider in a recent interview.

Staying private allows the company flexibility that many public companies could only dream of.

In the humid Sava region of northern Madagascar, where vanilla vines grow in the shaded canopy of the jungle, villagers guard their crop as though it were a precious metal. Well they might. Strong demand for natural vanilla, speculation, bad harvests and money laundering have driven prices as high as silver. Farmers often awake to find their vines stripped bare, carried off in the night by gangs of thieves filling orders for buyers in the far-off capital of Antananarivo, who in turn supply the markets of western Europe, the US and Asia. In some parts of Sava, say non-governmental organisations working in the region, vigilante groups have sprung up to mete out summary justice to the vanilla snatchers.

Join @TetraTechIntDev and @Climatelinks on June 13, 2018, at 3:00 PM ET/12:00 PM PT for an #AskTt Twitter Chat on Building Resilience through Integrated Programming, hosted by Tetra Tech International Development Services and Climatelinks, and co-hosted by the USAID Planning for Resilience in East Africa through Policy, Adaptation, Research and Economic Development (PREPARED) Program.

Single-use plastics (including straws, cutlery and containers) are contributing to the overall threat our oceans are facing. Every year, more than 8 million tons of plastic enter the seas. And no, this is not plastic that fell off a boat. It came from the land via river systems. It was carelessly littered, improperly disposed of, or escaped from our global waste management systems.

Detroit will again be blanketed in colors of the rainbow this weekend (June 9-10) celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) culture at Motor City Pride, an annual two-day festival and parade that is the largest LGBTQ gathering in Michigan.

The first major homebuilder to publish a comprehensive sustainability report in 2008, KB Home continues its commitment to documenting the Company’s industry leadership in sustainability and its strategies for future progress.

This year you’ll find updates on all of Landsec’s sustainability activities, performance and data embedded throughout its 2018 Annual Report, available at www.landsec.com/investors/reports

The FCA US LLC Mopar Parts Distribution Center (PDC) in Romulus, Michigan, has been honored with the prestigious Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold award for achieving excellence in green building standards. Administered by the United States Green Building Council, the PDC is the fourth FCA US facility to receive the elite designation.