Forum to Focus on Social Responsibility

The nation's oldest and largest organization of businesses committed to a "dual bottom line" will gather in Burlington Tuesday for their 16th annual spring conference.

Members of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility will hear about "Local Strategies in a Global Economy" from the two keynote speakers: Hal Hamilton of Sustainability Institute in Hartland, and Theresa Marquez of Organic Valley Family of Farms in Wisconsin.

Both speakers will address the issue of the sustainability of the world's food systems which are under increasing stress.

"There's a lot of question about whether we can feed 9 billion people … in another 30 or 40 years and keep on doing it more or less forever, the way we're doing it now," said Hamilton, a former Kentucky dairy farmer who heads up the Sustainable Food Lab project (http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org).

He said there are legitimate concerns about whether there will be adequate soil, water, fertility and the capacity to sustain farming in a way that will enhance opportunities for people along the food chain.

The Food Lab is a collaboration of corporations, non-government organizations and the public sector that is attempting to create a new understanding about the future of food systems.

And it's not just Vermont companies like Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and ForesTrade interested in the sustainability of the world's food systems. Hamilton said companies like Unilever, the parent of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, and Sysco, a major food distributor are interested as well.

As an example, he said Unilever, as the largest purveyor of frozen fish, has begun buying fish from fisheries that have been certified as sustainable by the World Wildlife Federation.

The other keynote speaker is Theresa Marquez, chief marketing executive for Organic Valley Family of Farms (http://www.organicvalley.coop). The co-op, a partner in the Food Lab project, strives to reverse the decline of family farms with the focus on cultivating sustainable agriculture through organic farming. The co-op, which has more than 60 farm members in Vermont, produces more than 200 organic foods that are distributed across the country.

With 625 members, VBSR is the oldest and largest organization of its kind in the country, said VBSR executive director Spencer Putnam.

"We think there are many aspects of the what we consider socially responsible business behavior that does have a pay off, that does save money" Putnam said. "One of them is employee retention and that's important because when you reduce employee turnover you save on recruitment costs and you increase employee loyalty and that tends to raise quality and productivity."

Putnam also said that there are certain marketing advantages with a public more inclined to do business with companies that adhere to a socially responsible code of conduct.

And while most companies wouldn't argue with the VBSR mission statement, Putnam said there are businesses reluctant to join.

"What makes some companies uncomfortable about being associated with our organization specifically is some of the public policy positions that we take," he said. "We've taken a very forthright position in favor of universal health care … our consistent support for increasing the minimum wage and later developing a livable wage and a livable job concept and our positions over the years supporting environmental regulations."

The conference also includes 22 workshops that focus not only on socially responsible businesses practices like How Green and Caring is Your Workplace? But also mainstream "nuts and bolts" workshops on housing affordability and corporate communication, said VBSR program director Rita Bevacco.

The conference begins Monday at 5:30 p.m., with a reception and dinner at the Wyndham Hotel in downtown Burlington. The highlight of the evening is the third annual Terry Ehrich Awards.

Contact Bruce Edwards at .