Sustainable Brands 2016: The Coolest Moments

Couldn’t get out to the Sustainable Brands ’16 San Diego conference?

In terms of sustainable branding trends, one thing was made abundantly clear at Sustainable Brands ’16: Purpose is new the new sustainability.

Check out a few great quotes from Sustainable Brands ’16:

In terms of collaborations, we were blown away partnerships aimed towards social impact. 

• The new fleet of billion-dollar sustainable business leaders, a.k.a. the Green Giants were introduced by Freya Williams, CEO of North America for Futerra. These eight companies included Organic Valley, Hain Celestial, REI, Target‘s Made to Matter, Walmart‘s Sustainable Leaders program, Vestas, Costco‘s Kirkland Organics brand, and Kroger Simple Truth/Simple Truth Organic.
• Kashi Foods‘ partnership with farmers to promote more organic agriculture through a seed-to-store solution. This resulted in the implementation of Quality Assurance International’s Transitional Program, where the Kellogg’s brand has committed to the financial security of farmers by purchasing ingredients that are certified transitional. This means that farmers are undergoing changing their farmland and crops from conventional to organic. Kashi’s CEO David Denholm also dubbed open source as “awesome sauce.”

• Vaseline‘s Global Brand Director, Kathleen Dunlop explained a critical partnership to eradicate untreated skin conditions in parts of the world undergoing natural disasters or other crises. Through their partnership with Direct Relief, the Vaseline Healing Project sends out nearly 1 million units of Vaseline petroleum jelly to treat serious medical threats throughout the world, only strengthened by the deployment and training of dermatologists where the world needs them most, like refugee camps.
• Since 2013, MUD Jeans has been known for taking your old jeans and shredding them into components for chic, guilt-free new clothes. Their CEO, Bert Van Son proclaimed their shipping system with RePack was a revolutionary new part of their business model, “You can unfold the packaging and send it back to us.”
• Etsy kicked off Etsy Solar in April to send a strong message about investing in renewable energy. “With everything that Etsy does for other businesses, they walk the walk themselves,” pointed out MC Mark Lee.
• We loved the concept of Regrained bars. They have partnered with Magnolia Brewing, 21st Amendment Brewery, and Triple Voodoo Brewing to capture “spent” beer grain to use a great source of plant protein and dietary fiber. So eating your beer is not only good for you, but it’s a sustainable supergrain.