Similarities Between Gary Hirshberg And Quinard

Gary Hirshberg, Ray Anderson, and Yvon Chouinard are all setting great examples for the business community. By what they accomplished in the past years with their companies, and how they transform their companies to sustainable ones while keep making profits. Gary Hirshberg, Chairman of Stonyfield farm led his company with his vision to be recognized locally and globally. “Use things only made in nature, nothing artificial.”, this was his vision when he started his company. Some of the awards that the company received are 2010 Top 10 Leaders of Change Award by The Foundation for Social Change and UN Office for Partnerships, Best Environmentally Friendly/’Green’ Business by New Hampshire Business Review in 2011, and EPA Clean Air Excellence in 2009. Hirshberg also got numerous awards such as most inspiring people in sustainable food by Fast Company. He was named a Gordon Grand
Fellow at Yale. All these awards have been awarded to him and his company because of his vision toward organic uses and sustainability. The company utilized the manure on their farms to power and heat it. They also reduced the gases that cause ozone depletion.
Founder of Interface Carpet, Ray Anderson says “If that product cannot be made sustainable, we have no business making that product.
For that matter, neither does anyone else”. His vision started in 1994 to reduce the company’s impact on the environment. The company, by 1995, had programs to start using recycled materials from old carpets that they’ve sold or carpets from other companies. Anderson vision led the company to cut waste sent to landfills by more than two-thirds while continuing to increase production, diverted over 100 million pounds of materials from landfills, reduced net greenhouse gas emissions by more than 82% through efficiency, process changes, and purchasing renewable energy and offsets, and reducing fossil fuel usage by 60%. Economically, the company had Approximately $405 million in cumulative avoided waste cost from 1995 to 2008, Interface has sold more than 83 million square yards of its climate neutral carpet product. Ray Anderson died in 2011 but his vision still continues to the mission zero is completed, which is having zero impact on the environment by
2020. Patagonia’s, CEO and Founder, Yvon Chouinard can be recognized as a hard decision maker when he decided to cut the use of industrially grown cotton, which uses toxic chemicals, to organic cottons, and the company now using non-toxic dyes. A company that cares about the health of their workers and care about using the right materials for the right thing as Chouinard believes in that when you are doing wrong, stop doing it and get educated so you can make better choices. Chouinard company now regenerate rain water to use in their factories. As a result, Chouinard was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for leading sustainable businesses by the Sustainable Business Council in 2012. These three companies set a great example for the business community as they all reduces their carbon footprint and still growing their economy. Food industry has huge impact on people health and the environment, and there are companies do not take part in reducing their impact and helping the environment. Questions that should be asked to Gary Hirshberg are: to help the majority of the companies to participate and get involved in reducing their impact and using organic food, what is the cost to other companies from changing from using chemical and non-organic food to organic food?, what is the method you recommend for large companies to follow in converting to the usage of organic food?, and where do you stand relative to your competitors who doesn’t sell organic food?