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crackers went up and fizzled.”
Jeanne Colleluori, communications and
media specialist, describes the turning point: “Around 2005 and 2006, the ideas resurfaced, this time with the name sustainability, connecting how carbon footprints af fected people and the financial aspects, and what things must fall together for truly sustainable outcomes. Now we were looking at a complete and lasting legacy.”
“I remember the onslaught of sustain- ability and my epiphany,” Burris continues. “I
thought of what Jason Wadsworth could do, and how we needed to implement a company- wide sustainability strategy and recoup sustainability within of our organization.”
Wegmans’ sustainability program extends throughout all aspects of the corporation, now some 44,000 employees strong. “It starts with our leadership and a commitment to work on sustainability, corporate-led initiatives depar t- ment by department,” says Wadsworth. “The other side is the grassroots ef for t, creating Green Teams at the store level, employees
generating ideas.”
Wadsworth describes his role as one of
“guiding the hotspots, what’s coming down the road that we should be working on, the priorities around sustainability, and then it’s up to folks in each department to figure out what they can do to affect the most change. Then we work together tracking progress and communicating internally.”
FROM WITHIN ITS FOUR WALLS
Three things shape Wegmans’ sustain- ability focus: carbon footprint reduction, packaging/recycling and products that help customers make a difference, according to Wadsworth. “We picked these priorities by including customer input to determine where the largest environmental impacts were within our four walls. We found the largest environ- mental impacts also had the largest costs.
“We very much look at the economics as part of our sustainability platform,” says Wadsworth. ”We have to move a business and if things are not economically feasible, how long can they truly be sustained? We firmly believe that.”
In 2007, Wegmans’ new sustainability team set out to apply all the good things the company had done in the past and set the framework for future endeavors. “We thought that reduce, reuse, recycle mentality was pretty spot on,” says Wadsworth. The under- lying sentiment, according to Wadsworth: “You’re not going to save the world, but you can construct little changes along the way that will make a real difference.”
“The retail sustainability community is tight-knit because it’s small,” says Wadsworth. “One of our first decisions as an industry task force was that sustainability should not be a competitive topic because it’s the right thing to do, and with that spirit we share informa- tion and encourage other retailers to jump on board and follow along.”
Wegmans wants to ensure that invest- ments and resources are not futilely misdirected within the company or externally by its customers. A critical goal is to forge a green path that leads to impactful results, and that also means setting the record straight for consumers on sustainable alternatives, according to Wadsworth, who devotes signif- icant space on Wegmans’ website clearing up consumer misconceptions and differentiating between the folklore and the facts.
Wadsworth sheds light on the most popu- larly held beliefs about carbon footprints, recycling and biodegradability, and he provides action-oriented steps so consumers
40 PRODUCE BUSINESS • MAY 2013