I highly recommend this insightful article by Jeffrey Hollender, Former CEO and Co-Founder of Seventh Generation and Founder and CEO of Sustain. He challenges businesses to chart a path that is net positive, restorative and regenerative. Sharing his experiences as CEO of a sustainable condom company, he highlights the work he and I did together to develop a "roadmap to becoming net positive" by developing a framework for tracking both positive and negative impacts in four areas important to Sustain's mission. It's a work in progress but one that other companies can learn from and be inspired by.

A company may not know how it will achieve the more ambitious future goal but it knows it needs to be investing in innovation and motivating its employees to develop game-changing solutions. The longer-term targets also help ensure that the company’s short-term investments support lasting solutions, such as renewable energy or product innovations.

Just as companies evaluate their carbon, water and waste footprints, the CFP finally provides a tool that enables purchasers and brands to: benchmark and measure progress towards safer chemicals; recognize and reward suppliers for doing what matters most to retailers and customers; create greater accountability across value chains; encourage chemical information sharing; and provide a metric to compare and measure continuous improvement of suppliers.

As Ben & Jerry’s and Seventh Generation demonstrate, having a clear direction that aligns with consumers’ values is an important business foundation. These companies have created loyal networks of consumers and employees and have successfully leveraged their enthusiasm in pursuing campaigns for political change.

Walmart is a leading motivator for investment in product sustainability with nearly 80 percent of respondents that identified a retail-driver citing the company in an open-ended question. This was followed by Target at about 50 percent, Costco at 18 percent, and Nordstrom at 12 percent. Walmart and Target clearly stand out from crowd. These retailers’ priorities are trickling through the supply chain and influencing supplier product sustainability programs.

To make the most of this organizational alignment RB honed in on improving carbon, ingredients, packaging and water to meet this target and to keep the business focused on critical improvement opportunities. These four priorities shaped the program and the limited set of issues enabled faster training, tool development and integration into the product development process.

Keeping up with growing demands for chemical data using spreadsheets or simple databases will become increasingly unrealistic. Managers need tools that enable them to organize, analyze and make decisions about chemicals and materials in their supply chains and products — and they need to do this quickly and accurately

To help guide companies managing this added pressure, Pure Strategies, evaluated how leaders in the formulated products marketplace have constructed their goals, strategies, tools and partnerships. What is at the core of these programs — and what makes them successful?