7gen Bloc

The fact that 80 percent of the world’s almond crop comes from one small part of the world, a 600,000-acre series of orchards in California’s Central Valley, is a metaphor for a world where we have dangerously bent the rules of nature to accommodate our own conveniences.

The only cost effective way to pollinate all those trees is with bees. But as Michael Pollen so aptly describes in his recent New York Times Magazine story:
“What bee would hang around an orchard where there’s absolutely nothing to eat for the 49 weeks of the year that the almond trees aren’t in bloom? So every February the almond growers must import an army of migrant honeybees to the Central Valley — more than a million hives housing as many as 40 billion bees in all.”
To accomplish this feat, more than half of all the beehives in America are trucked to California for the occasion. By 2005, so many bees were required that growers were flying them on 747’s all the way from Australia.

Aside from the CO2 impact of flying and trucking bees all over the world for a single week of sucking on flowers just so we have a cheap, abundant supply of almonds, the risks that arise from taking the global population of bees and exposing them to pathogens and pesticides they would never normally encounter has all the makings of a scientific nightmare. Recently a disaster that may be linked to the situation, a syndrome aptly called “Colony Collapse Disorder” resulted in the loss of between 20 and 80 percent the nation’s entire bee population in half of all states, virtually overnight.

We have designed a commercial world that often puts our whims and preferences ahead of behavior aligned with our values and best interests. As consumers, we frequently and often unknowing support commercial activity that tips the earth out of balance. This is but one of the many challenges we face as we confront the type of world that will greet generations to come.

We live in an exceeding complex society in which we are usually disconnected from the impacts and implications of our purchasing behavior. How will this precarious state of imbalance be managed let alone corrected?

I believe that as consume we will not ever choose to acquire all the information needed to make “good” choices rs. Nor will we be assured of “good” choices by government regulation. As consumers who make thousands of independent decisions every year, we must rely on the companies we purchase from. They are our gatekeepers. If we desire to reflect our values in our purchases, we must depend upon their diligence.

Thus, Seventh Generation carries a huge weight: the trust of our consumers and the responsibility for making the countless choices that they depend upon us to make for them. The weight of being a model for what businesses can become and for the role that they can and must play in society.

If we honor that trust, we will build a connection with our consumers that will endure all competition. If we violate that trust, no amount of clever marketing will protect us.

Each and every one of us has been building such a foundation of trust over these past many years, a foundation as strong as that of any company I know. As we continue the amazing explosive growth that lies ahead of us, we must grow this legacy with the same energy and passion that we harness to grow our sales.

I have no doubt that we will and no doubt that we will do an exceptional job. Sometimes it’s just helpful to remind ourselves.

Happy Holidays,

~The Inspired Protagonist (a.k.a Jeffrey)