A note to the Seventh Generation community as we enter a new year.
The fact that 80 percent of the world’s almond crop comes from one small part of the world, a 600,000-acre series of orchards in California’s Central Valley, is a metaphor for a world where we have dangerously bent the rules of nature to accommodate our own conveniences.
The only cost effective way to pollinate all those trees is with bees. But as Michael Pollen so aptly describes in his recent New York Times Magazine story,
“What bee would hang around an orchard where there’s absolutely nothing to eat for the 49 weeks of the year that the almond trees aren’t in bloom? So every February the almond growers must import an army of migrant honeybees to the Central Valley — more than a million hives housing as many as 40 billion bees in all.”
To accomplish this feat, more than half of all the beehives in America are trucked to California for the occasion. By 2005 so many bees were required, that growers were flying them on 747’s all the way from Australia.
Aside from the CO2 impact of flying and trucking bees all over the world for a single week of sucking on flowers just so we have a cheap, abundant supply of almonds – the risks that arise from taking the global population of bee’s and exposing them to pathogens and pesticides they would never normally encounter has all the makings of a health and scientific nightmare. Recently a disaster that may be linked to the almond imported bee situation, aptly called “Colony Collapse,” resulted in the loss of between 20 and 80 percent the nations entire bee population in half of all states, virtually overnight.
We have designed a commercial world that often puts our whims and preferences ahead of behavior aligned with our values and best interests. As consumers, we frequently but unknowing support commercial activity that tips the earth out of balance. This is but one of the many challenges we face as we confront what type of world will greet generations to come.
We live in an exceeding complex world. We are usually disconnected from the impacts and implications of our purchasing behavior. How will this precarious state of imbalance be managed, let alone corrected?
I believe that we will not ever choose to acquire all the information required to make “good” choices as consumers. Nor will we be assured of “good” choices by government regulation. As consumers who make thousands of independent choices every year, we must rely on the companies we purchase from. They are our gatekeepers. If we desire to reflect our values in our purchases, we must depend upon their diligence.
Thus, upon us as a business, Seventh Generation carries a huge weight. The weight of the trust of our consumers. The responsibility of making the thousands of choices that they depend upon us to make for them. The weight of being a model for what other businesses can become. For the role that business can and must play in society.
If we honor that trust, we will build a connection with them that will endure all forms of competition. If we violate that trust, no amount of clever marketing will protect us.
We, each and every one of us, have built that foundation of trust over the past 20 years. A foundation as strong as any company I know of. As we continue the amazing and explosive growth that lies ahead of us we must build upon that trust with the same energy and passion that we use to build our sales.
I have no doubt that we will. And in fact, will do an exceptional job. Sometimes it’s just helpful to remind ourselves.
Happy holidays,
The Inspired Protagonist