"Sirius XM Radio's interview of Honest Tea's TeaEO" by Eliza Roberts

I had the fortune of attending a live interview at the Sirius XM radio station of the TeaEO of Honest Tea, Seth Goldman. I have always loved Honest Tea as a beverage. My favorite flavor is “Peach Oolalong” “Just a Tad Sweet.” But, Seth's modesty, his passion for using business to bring about positive change, his humor, and his honesty about work/ life balance and the challenges of starting your own company made me love Honest Tea even more.

Seth got the idea to start Honest Tea while sitting in a business class at the Yale School of Management and discussing the beverage business case on Coca-Cola and Pepsi. He realized that there were sweet sodas and watery beverages, but no drinks that were less sweet. After graduating and experimenting in his kitchen in Maryland with thermoses on loan to him and a tea that he said tasted initially like grass, he approached the local Whole foods to tell them about his new concoction.

The next thing he knew, Whole Foods ordered 15,000 bottles as an experiment and Seth and his co-founder, a professor at Yale, had to find a way to manufacture it on a large scale. He and some MBA interns offered samplings at stores throughout the region and by the end of the month it was the best selling tea in all stores. Today, 10 years later, Honest Tea is the best selling beverage within the healthy drinks category and has grown to 60 million in sales. Honest Tea was also the first to offer fair trade tea in 2003 and by March of this year expects all of its teas to be fair trade.

What is his advice to MBA students, or people who want to be just like him? Seth offered two words of wisdom:

1) Do what you really care about. Don’t take a job that you are NOT going to be fired up to go to every day.

2) Once you find what you want to do, go after it like nothing can stop you!

What are his thoughts on Corporate Responsibility? For companies working to implement CSR initiatives, the best approach is not just taking money from high profit margins and distributing it as in-kind donations to a local non-profit, but rather finding a way to make CSR the core of what you do. For Honest Tea, giving back and offering healthy, organic, fair trade beverages to consumers is at the core of what they do. His goal in running Honest Tea is to not just be successful and grow the business, but to try to change the way business operate by demonstrating that organics, healthy foods, and sustainability should be relevant to companies operating within the private sector.

Honest Tea’s corporate culture is all about honesty. The office has absolutely no walls to encourage innovation. There is an experimental kitchen that is filled with random dried fruits shipped in from farmers from all over the world who want to supply to Honest Tea. And my favorite part, the office has a gong. Apparently, the gong is hit whenever the company achieves a sales goal. I love the image of Coca-Cola executives visiting the office upon purchasing 40% of Honest Tea’s shares, yet unable to have a private meeting because of the lack of walls and at the same time trying to make sense of the gong hanging from the office wall and the test kitchen that is the only test kitchen used by Honest Tea to create new products.

What kind of impact will Coca-Cola’s outright purchase of the company within the next year or so have on Honest Tea? Seth explained that he expects some cross-fertilization to take place between the companies. He was invited to attend a sustainability brainstorming session in Atlanta recently and hopes to be able to influence sustainability initiatives taken on by Coca-Cola. The most positive outcome is that Honest Tea will be able to take advantage of Coca-Cola’s distribution network. I will not only be able to purchase my Peach Oolalong at the stores in the DC metro area, but at truck stops, convenience stores, and everywhere else where Coca-Cola delivers at present. With Honest Tea’s new distribution capabilities, Honest Tea will be able to increase its sales and in turn increase purchases from fair trade suppliers, thus supporting the fair trade and organics movement throughout the US and the rest of the world. Furthermore, more US consumers will have an option to by a healthier alternative to soda and purchase the drink at a lower cost than other organic beverages.

But, what will happen to Honest Tea in the coming years? Will Honest Tea be able to maintain its corporate culture (and the gong in the Bethesda, Maryland office)? I hope so. The key now is for Honest Tea to demonstrate to Coca-Cola that the culture, employees and the way it operates today brings value to the company and to the delicious tea products that end up on the shelves of retail stores today.

Eliza Roberts Globa MBA, 2011

"The Right to Water" by Eliza Roberts

“Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and therefore a basic human right.” ~Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary General

Water may be regarded as a basic human right. Yet, today more than 1 in 6 people in the world don’t have access to safe drinking water. According to a recent World Health Organization Assessment, more than 5 million human beings die each year from illnesses linked to unsafe drinking water; one-third of these deaths are in India alone.

India currently has the second largest population in the world with 1,182,783,000 people. As the population continues to increase and as more Indians move into the middle class thus consuming more water on a day-to-day basis, water consumption is going to increase at an alarming rate.

Many arid regions of India depend heavily on groundwater for farming and basic survival. Some 85% of the population depends on groundwater for their water supply. Yet, between 1947 and 2000, access to groundwater per capita decreased from 5,150 cubic meters to 2,200 cubic meters. With increasing populations in India, it is expected that by 2017, there will be a further decline of per capita availability of groundwater to 1,600 cubic meters.

If that doesn’t sound alarming enough, try this.. Glaciers and snow in the Himalayas are a primary source of water for rivers throughout the country. Yet, with climate change this important source is melting quickly and is expected to decrease dramatically in the coming years. Climate change is also expected to alter the monsoon patterns, which may leave many farmers with arid non-farmable land.

In addition to concerns about the supply of water in India, there are a number of problems surrounding the quality and cleanliness of the water that is available. Many of the rivers have been mismanaged, overused, and polluted. The Ganges, for example, the holiest river in India is also the most polluted river in the world. Approximately 90 million liters of sewage are dumped in the river everyday.

In India, 70 to 80% of illnesses are related to water contamination or poor sanitation and cases of these illnesses are on the rise. Those afflicted face a number of challenges, including inability to work and high medical bills. These effects can be particularly debilitating and costly for those without the resources to afford medical bills and make up for lost days at work making it more of a challenge for them to escape from poverty.

Despite the daunting information and statistics that I have layed out, there are ways to address these problems and minimize their impacts in the future. Many development organizations, governments worldwide, NGOs and the Indian government are investing money into water and sanitation projects to try to deal with water issues throughout the country. Many of these projects have been successful, but there are still too many people throughout the country without access to safe water, toilets and sanitation.

There needs to be more of a focus throughout India and the world on the importance water. It is often not until resources become depleted that people begin to recognize their value. As water sources become more polluted and depleted, I can only hope that people will begin to recognize its importance and pool together greater resources to address the challenges that lay ahead.

As water challenges are addressed, it is important to recognize that solutions cannot simply come from one sector. Non-profits alone, for example, cannot address these challenges throughout the country. There needs to be a multi-pronged approach with funding and development from NGOs and governmental entities both in India and throughout the world; corporations that see the value in investing in innovative water technologies that reach both the elite, as well as the poor; Microfinance Institutions that provide loans for the purchase of health care, water filters and other technologies; government policies that work to conserve and protect water sources, as well as effective implementation of these policies at the state and local level; citizens throughout the world who conduct research and pilot projects to find innovative, cost-effective solutions to address the challenges ahead; and citizens on the ground who implement grassroots advocacy campaigns to conserve and protect their water.

Eliza Roberts Global MBA, 2011

*This is taken from Eliza's wordpress blog

"International Consultancy Project--Sweden" by Eliza Roberts

One of the core requirements for first year MBA students in the Global MBA program at the GWU School of Business is to conduct a consulting project for a foreign company abroad as a part of the International Residency Project. This year, the 120 or so Global MBAs are going to Serbia, Sweden, Korea, India, and Mexico. Check out the "Writers in Residency Blog" to document these courses.

The projects range from marketing food products in Serbia, to microfinance in Mexico and marketing for Swedish Green Technology companies that want to begin selling products in the US market. The classes began during the 4th quarter and culminate with a 2-week trip overseas to meet with clients and present in person, and to meet with other likeminded companies in the country.

I am on the Sweden trip and have spent the last 7 or so weeks with a team of 5 developing a marketing plan for a Swedish company that seeks to turn manure into energy. We have already had multiple conversations with our client and have drafted a nearly finalized version of our marketing plan that will likely change somewhat upon meeting with our client early next week. We just arrived in Sweden today and will spend tomorrow sight seeing and trying to fight our jet lag before diving back into our projects early next week and meeting with a number of sustainably- minded companies in Sweden.

There are a number of meetings I am really excited about, but I am particularly looking forward to a meeting with the sustainability person at IKEA. Our trip is starting in Malmo and after about a week we will take a train north to Gotenberg. The weather is much colder than expected, especially after basking in the DC sun. We are all hoping that the sun comes out and that a warm front arrives as soon as possible!

Eliza Roberts Global MBA, 2011

"Greening Supply Chains" by Eliza Roberts

My Sustainable Supply Chains class has come to an end. After taking a number of required business school classes, it was refreshing to take an elective and spend 7 weeks talking and thinking about issues that I am truly passionate about. Over the course of the module, we looked at a number of different companies, including Shaw Industries, Herman Miller, Patagonia, Frito-Lay and Starbucks that are thinking about sustainability and incorporating it into their business strategies in different ways.

Shaw Industries was a particularly interesting case. Have you ever thought about what happens to old flooring and carpeting? 95% of it ends up in landfills and in 2002, carpeting contributed 4.6 billion pounds of waste into U.S. landfills! Shaw industries not only found ways to create PVC-free 100% recyclable carpet tiles, but found ways to do so while also reducing costs.

Herman Miller, a furniture company, follows the triple bottom line approach whereby a company works to strengthen not only its financial performance, but its social responsibility and environmental performance as well. Herman Miller’s corporate values statement is as follows: “We contribute to a better world by pursuing sustainability and environmental wisdom. Environmental advocacy is part of our heritage and a responsibility we gladly bear for future generations.” Herman Miller has focused on examining the entire life cycle of its products and created the Mirra chair, a mid-level office chair, which was designed using Cradle-to-Cradle protocol. The chair is made from 42% recycled parts and when the chair’s life is over, it is 96% recyclable.

Patagonia was a unique example because sustainability efforts truly are a key component of its core strategy. Sustainability is not only a key part of the company’s mission, but it is ingrained into all aspects of the business strategy. Patagonia has recognized that their existence as a company is in and of itself detrimental to the environment and made a pledge in 1991 to “slow growth” to minimize its impact. Patagonia seeks to maintain a balance between quality, profits, community and the environment and has made decisions because they are “the right thing to do” even if they do not result in direct cost savings to the company. To learn more, check out the sustainability page on their website.

The course ended with about 10 presentations looking at what other companies such as 3M, Intel, IBM, Whole Foods, MolsonCoors, and Nike are doing to green their supply chains. My group chose to focus on Coca-Cola. We conducted an overview of what they have done by looking at four key areas: climate, packaging, community and water and then provided recommendations about what the company could do to green their supply chain even further.

Eliza Roberts Global MBA, 2011

"Book Review on CRADLE TO CRADLE: REMAKING THE WAY WE MAKE THINGS" by Eliza Roberts

For my sustainable supply chains class, we are reading Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way we Make Things over the course of the next 7 weeks. The book is fantastic and is itself completely recyclable. It is also waterproof, so if you are the type of person who likes to read in the bath or on the beach, you are in luck! I have only read up to chapter 4, but thus far it is fantastic.

The book is written by a chemist and a designer and begins by informing you that the fabric of the armchair you are sitting in likely contains mutagenic materials and heavy metals and that the computer that your child is using contains thousands of materials, including toxic gases, toxic metals, acids, etc. Pretty upbeat right?

While it can be a bit depressing and discouraging [did you know that your recyclables are not actually recreated into bottles, but turned into a lower grade plastic and then made into park benches and speed bumps?] I find the book a very unique way of looking at the world, and at our current and future environmental challenges.

The goal of the authors is to change your way of thinking. Instead of trying to help companies be “less bad” they ask: why can’t we try to be “more good”? Instead of being eco-efficient, which in their opinion is the same as accepting that environmental destruction is inevitable, we should be eco-effective and find positive solutions to problems that are beneficial to the environment and the community.

Their goal is to get the reader to start thinking about the entire life cycle of a product instead of only thinking about the way the final product appears on the surface. A product that is made of recyclable material, for example, could in fact be more destructive to the environment than its non-recycled counterpart. The authors propose that companies and consumers begin thinking about the design of products before their creation so that we are developing products that have a positive impact on the environment throughout their life. Instead of accepting that a company is going to pollute and trying to getting them to emit less and be less harmful, maybe companies should build factories that have a net benefit to the environment by cleaning water and cleaning the air for the surrounding community.

I highly recommend picking up a copy of this book!

Contributed by: Eliza Roberts, Global MBA 2011