What Gets Seventh Generation’s “Director of Corporate Consciousness” Out of Bed in the Morning?
An exclusive interview with Gregor Barnum, senior executive of Vermont-based Seventh Generation, one of the sustainability movement’s most innovative companies.
By Alex Salzman
May 19, 2008
Don’t let the altruistic job title fool you – Gregor Barnum and his cohorts at Seventh Generation are relentlessly pragmatic about building a sustainable company. I recently caught up with Barnum, who is part ethics scholar and part corporate visionary, to explore his company, “Earth to Earth” thinking and his nouveau take on the corporate social responsibility movement.
AS – What is your current role at Seventh Generation? How would you describe “corporate consciousness?”
GB - Ultimately Seventh Generation has been living by this Iroquois quote of long ago: “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” This is probably the most telling statement as we move towards a new level of sustainability. But how do you begin to frame sustainability? If you look at the idea of where you take your stuff from the Earth, how you manufacture it and how it actually ends up in the hands of the consumer, our question is this: How is this all going to impact people not even born yet?
And so in the midst of being a part of the world of corporate responsibility, I’m beginning to get a stronger and stronger sense that most companies are still framing corporate responsibility as an object; something outside of its core strategy and operations, outside of its every day world. In a strange sense, our mission with corporate responsibility is to make my job completely obsolete. Every person in this company should, in their every deliberation, be thinking about what their impacts are at every stage in the company’s evolution and at every point in the product’s journey from Earth to factory to consumer. To us, the question of corporate responsibility is this: How are we all moving people to think about their impact on the present Earth? How are we seeking a different level of well being for generations as yet unborn?
AS – Tell us about the company culture? Does this mission permeate every corner, every department of Seventh Generation?
We’ve really taken on the challenge of building the company culture by understanding the need to get everyone’s thinking beyond the cradle to cradle mentality, shifting to Earth to Earth. Cradle to cradle means: “Where can we get in our present framework, within the span of one generation.” We brought someone onboard the company a few years ago whose role it is to get the company focused on regenerative business. She’s been in the systems-analysis world for about 30 years, and we’ve been working with her to make corporate responsibility intrical to the evolution and the strategy of the entire company. We’ve actually begun to make our business regenerative. This means that, instead of being in the business of making things that are less bad, we’re focused on making every system touched by our business better. This keeps us away from approaching corporate responsibility as something apart from the core of the company. We’re thinking much more pragmatically, and approaching sustainability on a whole other level. So the culture is really geared up.
“Instead of being in the business of making things that are less bad, we’re focused on making every system touched by our business better.”
AS - The consumer sees the products on the shelves but doesn’t sit in the boardroom or see the factory floor. Are there any company innovations that the consumer might not see?
GB – Our real innovation is in our thinking. We think about things as total systems. Our business is a system. The consumer’s home is a system. Like all companies, we’re just trying to sell more of our products through more channels. But we’re also taking on this question that, if we’re all about making people’s homes and environments less toxic, what else do we need to do accomplish that, beyond our line of cleaning products? Most people don’t realize that the air inside their homes is 2.5 to 5 times more toxic than the outside air. We’re in the early stages of building a system of products and services that will help people build more healthy homes. When our customers walk into their living space, we want their health to be nurtured and enhanced. So this system approach can be pretty interesting.
We’re also innovative in our approach to sourcing. As a company always thinking about regenerative business, we see lots of opportunities to help and educate people and companies along our value chain to understand their real impacts. How can we get them thinking about reducing their packaging in a whole new way? Reducing their CO2 output? Using other means of electricity?
AS – How does Seventh Generation educate and engage your consumers using social media and online communities?
GB – We do a few things. We distribute a number of short films that inform people on who we are and how we’re doing what we’re doing. This has been helpful.
We’ve also launched a few programs in Vermont that get small communities of people together to share ideas on how they can reduce their carbon footprints. It’s based on a book called The Low Carbon Diet. I think the internet is the best way to reach out to and encourage people to move out of this present paradigm.
AS – Rethos, as you know, stands for rethinking one’s ethos. What’s your rethos?
GB – I believe it was Albert Einstein who once said that people are harnessing about ten percent of their potential. If we begin to realize and trust that, basically, the constructs that we’re currently working within are just one phase of an evolution, and that we human beings are truly untapped from the standpoint of what we can become, then the slate is left pretty much wide open to designing a world that we are today incapable of understanding. One of the most fascinating questions to me is: “What is the next evolution of our relationship with nature?”
AS – Spoken like a true philosopher. Thanks for doing this.
GB – Thank you, Alex.
