đ The Check-Out: Brennan Ziegler, Dr Bronner's
+ 5 cool climate events + what's in our basket - Moonburgers, HuskeeCups + more...
Happy Thursday! Welcome to The Check-Out - your weekly dose of climate x consumer goods inspiration, and your discovery box of products and events the Following the Footprints team are loving this week. Itâs great to have you here.Â
Any eagle-eyed readers wonât be surprised by who is in the hot seat for todayâs Check OutâŚ. we canât shut up about Dr Bronnerâs. We collectively fell down a rabbit hole in our first newsletter of 2024, and theyâve been the most featured brand of our âteam favouritesâ section of this newsletter ever since. In fact, theyâre so nice that one week we featured them twice. Today, Jenny is chatting to Brennan, who oversees their employee engagement strategy - one of the most important roles, we think, for a large and growing brand. Canât get enough? Their 2024 âAll-Oneâ report dropped just last month, we recommend heading there next.
After we chat to Brennan, weâll share what the Following the Footprints team has loved and consumed this week and 5 Climate x Consumer Goods events coming up. Letâs dig inâŚ
> Brand Spotlight
đď¸ Behind the Brand: 6 questions with Brennan Ziegler, Employee Engagement at Dr Bronnerâs
đ Hello! Weâd love the non-LinkedIn lowdown on you, and how you started working with Dr. Bronnerâs.
Hey, Iâm Brennan! About 7 years ago I had the opportunity to work on a regenerative agriculture project in Senegal in West Africa. Seeing, firsthand, the social environmental impact that sustainable farming could have on a community propelled me to study international development and sustainability. I graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University with aspirations to help build and maintain ethical supply chains with positive social impact at all touch points. I pursued jobs with local mission-driven companies in San Diego, California and discovered that Dr. Bronnerâs happened to be in the same county where I lived and studied! It only took a few hours of research into their products and values for me to know this was my ideal place to work. Naturally, I applied for every job they had open. I have been working in employee engagement at Dr. Bronnerâs since August 2023, and I love it!
đ How are you building climate literacy internally at Dr. Bronnerâs, or is this something you look for new team members to have and/or build themselves?
Dr. Bronnerâs work centers around a core mantra of stewarding spaceship earth, which trickles down and touches every part of the organization. Practically, one of the major ways we build climate literacy is through our Green Team, a voluntary working group where employees connect and learn about the climate efforts of Dr. Bronnerâs and other organizations. Green team is an avenue that harnesses employee passions for sustainability and has led to employee led zero-waste initiatives, environmental giving, less energy-intensive process improvements, our facilityâs green building certification, and so much more.
Additionally, Dr. Bronnerâs attracts a lot of talent that is sustainably-minded upon arrival, myself included. My personal education involves reading books, interacting with other like-minded brands in our network, and seeking out ways for my programs to line up with our climate goals.Â
đ Weâve loved seeing all of the coverage on social media for the uniquely wonderful Dr. Bronnerâs employee benefits and 5-to-1 executive salary cap - how have you been able to maintain this commitment to the companyâs âsoulâ as youâve grown from grassroot sales to a household name? What, beyond family ownership, has been a key element in preserving your ethically-minded production?Â
As you mentioned, we are still family owned and the Bronner family makes up the majority of our leadership. The familyâs role in protecting us from mission drift cannot be overstated. Beyond this, our Cosmic Principles are the foundation that grounds us in the work that we do. As we have scaled, these values stay central to all actions. These are a holistic philosophy encompassing the founding ideals of Emanuel Bronner. Emanuel believed understanding our common humanity, our All-One nature, brings about peace and prosperity to this planet. Our cosmic principles honor this vision.Â
đ We really appreciated the comprehensive write-up on your journey to reduce your use of plastic packaging - what are some recent insights or wins from that effort?Â
From our All-One! Report: âDuring our 2023 pilot, we sold over 200,000 cartons. Each refill carton uses 82% less plastic than the equivalent plastic bottle, so the pilot represented a reduction of about 27,500 pounds of plastic! Due to this early success, we've now made the cartons available nationwide at retailers like Whole Foods and Target.â We have also been expanding our refill station network with partners like Wonderfil in the San Francisco Bay Area.Â
One final insight of 2024 is that our bar soap sales are rising and consumers can expect to see 6 packs of peppermint bar soap in Costcos around the USA and Canada very soon. The increasing popularity of bar soaps is one step in reducing our dependance on plastics, even if they are 100% PCR (post-consumer recycled).Â
đ We saw that you had worked with OSC to conduct a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) screening on alternatives to your PCR PET bottle. Which other key third party partners have you worked with to analyze and reduce your environmental impact?
OSC partnered with Trayak to conduct the LCA. In addition to OSC, we work with several industry groups like Naturally San Diego and Grove Collaborativeâs Plastic Working Group to share knowledge and best practices, especially around packaging and sustainability. Much of our analysis and reduction also occurs via systems built in-house. Â
đ Ok, magic wand time: if we could grant you three wishes for the consumer goods industry, what would they be?
I canât speak on behalf of Dr. Bronnerâs here, but for me personally, my 3 are:
Informed consumers that make purchases with their health top-of-mind.
Reduction of government subsidies that artificially keep industrial agriculture products cheap, which would help in making regenerative organic equivalents more price competitive.
Significant R&D and adoption of mycelium and seaweed packaging across the industry.
A huge thanks to Brennan for jumping into the hot seat today!
> In Our Basket
đ What we loved and consumed this week:
From Jenny in New York: A few months ago, I waited in line for the opening of Moonburger in Brooklyn to win free Moonburger for a year. Moonbuger became popular in upstate New York for their retro drive-through aesthetic paired with Oatly milkshakes and Impossible smash burgers. After getting my free monthly burger this week, Iâm grateful I stood in line in New York (for once).Â
From Laura in Manchester: A little cheeky since it's not a new one in my basket - I've had my HuskeeCup for a few years now. I love that it's made from a by-product (of the coffee industry), gorgeous, and that the company even facilitates a return scheme for cafĂŠs that stock them...so you could bring your used HuskeeCup to a cafĂŠ and leave with a coffee in one of their freshly cleaned ones.
From Katherine in London: I recently got the Kitsch Body Dry Brush which Iâve had my eye on forever and have previously gifted. I love the fact that the vegan bristles are really soft (sensitive skin girly âđ˝) and that theyâre a women-owned business. I also got their rosemary shampoo bar, which I canât wait to review next!
> Monthly Events Roundup!
đ 5 Consumer Goods x Climate Events:
Browse 20+ upcoming consumer x climate events, and submit yours.
4th November - Fossil Fuels and Food Systems: A Policy Discussion for COP29
Organisers: TABLE, IPES-Food, Global Alliance for the Future of Food
Location: Virtual
4th November - Are We Measuring What Matters?
Organisers: Futerra
Location: Virtual
4th November - Session 1: Systems, Tipping Points and Global Heating
Organisers: Terra.do, AimHi Earth
Location: Virtual
7th November - Net Zero Plan Evaluation Workshop
Organisers: Work on Climate, Voiz Academy
Location: Virtual
3rd December - EcoBite Summit: Innovating Sustainability in Food & Drink
Organisers: Tastebuds Collective, NAAME, Connected Innovation
Location: Stowmarket, UK
Thatâs it for today!Â
Know a brand we should spotlight next? Let Leone know!Â
Have links that can make the team learn or laugh? Share them with us, we might just share them in The Check-Out next week.Â
Hungry for more? Youâll see us on Monday! Thatâs when we suit up and get serious, digging into a topic that is guaranteed to make you look smart at standup.Â
Much love,Â
Team FTF