This past week, Oxfam's GROW campaign released Behind the Brands, a scorecard that shows consumers how their favorite brands rank on a scale from 1 to 10 in how they treat the following areas in the production process of their goods:
1. Land
2. Women
3. Farmers
4. Workers
5. Climate
6. Transparency
7. Water
Scores represent:
• 8 - 10 Good
• 6 - 7 Fair
• 4 - 5 Some progress
• 2 - 3 Poor
• 0 - 1 Very poor
Goal: The GROW campaign aims to build a better food system that:
1. sustainably feeds the growing world population
2. empower impoverished people in a way that helps them live a true sustainable life with a living wage that helps their businesses and families grow
What does the Behind the Brands Initiative do?
1. Inform consumers on the corporate social responsibility status of some of their favorite brands:
Interesting Facts
· 1/3 of all people depend on production from small farmers
· 1/3 of the world’s food is wasted
· the largest percentage of the impoverished are those who produce our food
· past initiatives in this area have focused on improving water-use and bettering the lives of women but do not address the root causes of hunger and poverty because companies do not know how to control their company’s global supply chain
· 500 companies control 70% of food choice
Want more? Download their briefing
2. Call consumers to take action in hopes that this results in companies improving their ethical behaviors and tracking this through the scorecard
Nestle is #1 with an embarrassing 54% on the scorecard.
The initiative does a great job at informing and doing something many organizations lacked focus on 5 years ago: calling consumers to action.
They emphasized for consumers to voice their opinions via social media through facebook, pinterest, and twitter. They also followed in the footsteps of avaaz.org and others who have mastered the call to action through online petitions and sharing real time updates.
Your turn: You can take action by going to their site, click on each brand, and then click on the green take action tab in the upper right-hand corner for each brand.
They also deserve credit for focusing consumers on their narrowed pool of 10 companies, moving away from the vagueness of all corporations doing bad that has made it hard for consumers to identify with and feel that these companies affect their lifestyle. Those 10 are:
1. Associated British Foods plc
2. Coca Cola
3. Danone
4. General Mills
5. Kellogg's
6. Mars
7. Mondelez International
8. Nestle
9. Pepsico
10. Unilever
Check out the scores here: http://www.behindthebrands.org/en-us/scorecard
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