You Can’t Market Manure at Lunchtime: And Other Lessons from the Food Industry for Creating a More Sustainable Company

In this intermittently enlightening debut guide, Ganzler draws on her experience as chief strategy and brand officer at Bon Appétit Management Company to expound on how businesses can be more environmentally friendly. Outlining five “lessons” she’s learned, she encourages readers to “pick your battles,” telling how her efforts to source ethically raised pork from environmentally responsible suppliers came to naught after she realized meat producers couldn’t meet the prohibitively expensive requirements. Instead, she opted to focus on the “most egregious practices first,” electing to only work with suppliers who don’t confine pigs in gestation crates (tiny cages in which the animals are often kept 24/7, barely able to move). Interviews with major players in the food industry provide further insight. Lisa Dyson, the founder of a company that manufactures a meat substitute from fermented microbes, discusses how she keeps her business focused on sustainability through quarterly staff meetings that affirm or update the company’s environmental commitments. The anecdotes from Ganzler and her industry colleagues illuminate the difficult practical questions that arise when attempting to follow through on sustainability pledges. Less helpfully, the shallow “lessons” (“Make sustainability your mission”; “Make meaningful change”; “Learn to tell your story”) offer little actionable guidance. Still, it’s a thoughtful examination of the challenges facing corporate efforts to go green. (Apr.)