Responsible Production & the Circular Economy

Our beloved Cheerios were named Cheeri-Oats when they launched in 1941. So you know that oats have been at the core of our business for a long time. Dating back to 1928, in fact.

Today, nearly four years into our commitment to sustainably source our ingredients, we are well on our way – particularly with oats.

As a global food company, our business depends on quality ingredients being grown and available to us every year. We see the ingredients we buy as a way to be transparent about where and how crops for General Mills foods are grown. So, in 2013, we set out to sustainably source 100 percent of our ten priority ingredients by 2020.

One day after the Trump Administration formally announced its plans to rescind the Clean Power Plan, the Obama Administration’s climate change policy that has been held up in federal court, Michael R. Bloomberg announced a new commitment of $64 million to support the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign and other organizations working to advance the U.S. clean energy market at the state and local level. Pollution from coal-fired power plants is the largest source of carbon emissions and kills 7,500 Americans annually, down from 13,000 when the Beyond Coal campaign began expanding in 2011 through support from Bloomberg.

To help in the fight against breast cancer, Mohawk is once again partnering with Susan G. Komen® by sponsoring all seven of the organization’s 3-Day events, providing 8,000 pieces of durable, eco-friendly SmartCushionÔ to comfort walkers and crew members.

For companies such as Domtar and Kimberly-Clark, consumers are crucial to mainstreaming sustainable practices. That is the reason both corporations are working to give shoppers better options, including FSC-certified products. FSC certification helps ensure that forests used to source a host of products are managed in a way that takes into account environmental, social and economic concerns.

SCS Global Services (SCS) has certified Gostwyck Partners' sheep farm under the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), verifying its sustainable sheep-raising and land stewardship practices in its historic farm in Gostwyck, NSW, Australia.

Solar power is one of the cleanest forms of energy available, and many companies are embracing it as a central part of their strategy to reduce emissions and reach clean energy goals.

Natural food company Hormel Natural Choice is tapping the power of the sun through a partnership with a community project headed by Westar Energy, just 50 miles from its Dold Foods plant in Wichita, Kansas.

The proposal released today by the Trump administration to abandon the Clean Power Plan is both “misguided and out of step with the leaders in the business community,” Ceres said in a statement today.

The Clean Power Plan is the nation’s first comprehensive effort to reduce carbon pollution from existing electric power plants – the second largest source of global warming pollution in the country.

Leif Kindberg, an associate focused on environment and natural resources with Tetra Tech International Development Services, describes the approaches needed to create sustainable, commercial activity for forest and mineral resources in Liberia. All opinions expressed in this post are the author’s own.

This guest blog is from Will Courrèges-Clercq, who is studying Business Adminstration at the Scheller College of Business. Will has taken classes from the sustainability curriculum at the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainability, and he and his teammates recently won the Georgia Tech Carbon Reduction Challenge.