Simon Mainwaring
"Sixty South: How to Turn Sustainability into Business Growth" by Simon Mainwaring, a writer for the branding company We First, was published on the website Sustainable Brands for the salmon company Sixty South. This article detailed how sustainable certifications are becoming increasingly beneficial to brands as it gives them an edge above others who utilize traditional production methods. According to Mainwaring, customers are beginning to care more and more about the effects that their purchases have on the environment and people from which they are sourced.
Sixty South is a salmon brand that "solved" many problems prominent within the salmon aquaculture industry (Mainwaring, 2018). We discussed many of these issues in my Sustainability Science class. These include waste buildup underneath offshore salmon pens, the leaching of antibiotics into the surrounding environment and human diet, and the high amount of energy required to feed the carnivorous fish. Sixty South considers itself to have solved each of these issues (Mainwaring, 2018). Raising their fish off the southern coast of Chile, the currents wash away and disperse waste, cold waters prevent bacterial growth, and their plant-mixed fish meal lowers the amount of energy required to feed and grow the fish, to the point where they can claim to have a "positive food input to output ratio" (Mainwaring, 2018).
Because of these efforts, Sixty South is certified sustainable by multiple respected organizations and has contracts with companies, such as Walmart, who want to supply more environmentally friendly and sustainable products to their consumers (Mainwaring, 2018). Mainwaring states that the success behind Sixty South is in that it solved a problem that demanded to be solved within the industry. Essentially, he argues that there is a market for sustainable products and, one brand at a time, this demand is changing the industry standard. He encourages businesses to pursue this innovative approach and grow their business through increased sustainable production, rather than through increased input and consumption.
This article gave me a lot of hope for the future of aquaculture and corporate sustainability in general. I myself am a consumer who would be persuaded to buy this specific product rather than traditionally raised salmon. However, there are still issues with this aquaculture. Salmon are not native to the Chilean coast and may escape and populate the area, thus disrupting the food chain. I discussed this issue with my Sustainability Science professor and he said that this is an issue, but if they are able to find a place salmon to which salmon are native and with the same beneficial conditions, that would be ideal. Though imperfect, Sixty South provides an example of good business grown through sustainability.
Mainwaring's surrounding arguments regarding sustainability as a way to create business growth hit home for me as a prospective corporate social responsibility executive. I would like to be able to solve problems such as these and overall make corporations more beneficial to the people and environments they impact. However, it is important to keep in mind that Mainwaring wrote this article from the perspective of a branding partner (We First) in order to promote the good that Sixty South is doing. He states that his job is essential to growth success - making consumers aware by "telling your story" of sustainability (Mainwaring, 2018). This could actually be seen as a ploy for his job and the company he works for which provides this exact kind of service. Though not conveyed in this articles, there are likely many issues with the brand or hoops they had to jump through in order to find success, but overall his arguments seems truthful in that tapping the sustainability market helped a company to find success.
IA02: Find a Role Model
I am part of the Welcome Aboard mentorship program and have been matched with Kimberly Reilly, a Chatham alumna and marketing and communications professional, currently working as a Business Analytics and Consulting Senior at PNC. I have not met her in person yet but we plan to do so soon. When we meet, I will include the suggested questions in our discussions. If we do not have a chance to meet before the due date, I will contact her via email for the project.
IA03: Create a Personal Business
For this assignment I will be forming a business plan for myself in addition to writing about how best to market my own skills. As a professional now it is important to know how to emphasize one's skills in a competitive environment. I will be forming a strategic plan for my company and myself containing a mission statement, statistical analysis of my business environment, and an outline of my entrepreneurship and strategy, management, marketing, accounting and finance, and information systems and operations plans. I will need to take time for outside research in order to properly complete this assignment.
IA04: Practice Professional Networking
This coming Tuesday, October 2, I will be attending the AASHE Conference and Expo (Global Goals: Rising to the Challenge), a networking opportunity with many companies and organizations dedicated to sustainability. We will be exchanging business cards with many individuals at this event so I will have the eight required cards as well as my own. There are also multiple speakers who will be presenting. I will write about one or more of the lectures, depending on how much they overlap.
IA05: Reflect on a Guest Lecture
I will be reflecting on guest lecturer Sandra Taylor, who presented on Corporate Social Responsibility. This topic is very interesting to me and I will be discussing her past jobs as Kodak and Starbucks, what she did, and how she got there. I will connect this to the International Business chapter in the textbook, because each of these corporations she worked for were multinational.
References:
Mainwaring, S. (2018, September 24). Sixty South: How to Turn Sustainability into Business Growth. Retrieved September 25, 2018, from https://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/walking_talk/simon_mainwaring/sixty_south_how_turn_sustainability_business_growth
