Mars is the world’s largest privately owned food company with
$30 billion in revenues and more than 65,000 workers around the world in 2012. It
produced its first ever sustainability report recently in 2011. It was also one of the first
big companies to deliver its CSR report on Facebook.
In a refreshing claim to appreciating longer time frames Paul
Michaels writes in Mars's Five Principles report: “As a private company governed by the Mars
family, we think in terms of generations, not quarterly returns.” But the
company does not take the step of recognising natural times scales.
Mars do have a high impact upon farming practices so
adopting natural time scales would not be out of place in the company. Mars does after all call for a joint industry effort to scale up positive impacts for
cocoa farmers and achieve higher yields without compromising limited natural
resources so longer, more natural time scales are definitely required.
But perhaps the most significant step that Mars have
taken lies in their Five Principles report. As one of the five principles, Mars have
adopted Mutuality which they describe as follows:
·
A mutual benefit is a shared benefit; a shared
benefit will endure.
·
We believe the standard by which our business
relationships should be measured is the degree to which mutual benefits are
created.
·
These benefits can take many different forms,
and need not be strictly financial in nature. Likewise, while we must try to achieve
the most competitive terms, the actions of Mars should never be at the expense,
economic or otherwise, of others with whom we work.
According to Mars, the mutual benefits need not be financial
in nature and yet they are to be the standard by which their business relations
should be measured. Indeed rummaging around their website reveals a wealth measured in
non-financial benefits including the sponsorship of science.
So how is Mars able to recognise these revolutionary steps
in business management? At one level there is a simple answer that all companies
can implement and that is they pay full attention to the knowledge we now possess of
the world in which we live. A new Primal possibility of knowledge is present in the world and we are slowly taking advantage of all its exciting opportunities to make the world a better place.
The other answer is not so simple and it is likely few major companies
can implement it in their present form. It is an answer that has to do with Keynes’ 1933 article
on National Sufficiency: “But experience
is accumulating that remoteness between ownership and operation is an evil in
the relations among men, likely or certain in the long run to set up strains
and enmities which will bring to nought the financial calculation,” (see
The Accountant’s Economic Revolution
in the PR blog, 25th November 2012).
Mars is a private company. It does not have to worry about
maintaining a position in the financial markets. In this sense Mars has greater
freedom to adapt to the emerging Primal knowledge of our world; it is not for example constrained
by overweening and restricting notions of Modern good financial performance.
But Mars does have remote operations created and maintained throughout its supply
chain; it therefore needs to ensure that the dictates of financial performance do not reduce
overall Mutuality to considerations of dominant economic
aspects.
Oxfam is more critical of Mars. In its assessment of the Big 10 food companies, Oxfam ranks Mars with a 30% score which is a “Poor” performance lying in fifth place behind Nestle,
Unilever, Coca-Cola and Pepsico. Middle-ranking Mars received low scores with regards to supporting women and protecting land rights, but did better with transparency and
small-scale farmers.
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| Big 10 Food Companies Sustainability Scorecard Taken from Oxfam's "Behind the Brands" Report |
