by Kevin Coupe
The ESG movement - emphasizing the role of Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance in companies' business plans, strategies and tactics - continues to pop up in ways both small and large.
For example, the New York Times has a piece about how banana peels are becoming more popular in a wide variety of recipes - in smoothies, banana bread, kofta, and curries, for example.
But the use of the peels also is characterized as just one more way to keep something that has a legitimate use from being thrown away … an example of how expanded environmental consciousness can affect personal as well as corporate behavior.
To this point, it seems like the use of the peels has been largely limited to personal cooking, but one has to wonder if we'll start to see "banana peels" listed as ingredients on packaged items, and the broader impact that could have.
That's a small example.
Such consciousness also can be seen in larger behavior, like when Ahold Delhaize-owned Stop & Shop launches "a pilot program for the Flashfood mobile app at four of its Worcester-area stores in Massachusetts" that "gives shoppers access to exclusive deals on items including meat, produce, seafood, dairy, deli and bakery, which are nearing their best-by date. In addition to offering great deals for customers, the app also helps Stop & Shop in its goal to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030."
Stop & Shop isn't the only retailer to adopt the Flashfood program - it is following in the footsteps of companies such as Meijer and Tops Friendly Markets. But all of these efforts, it seems to me, represented Eye-Opener efforts to connect the dots between personal and corporate behaviors that put elements of the ESG movement front and center.
