When companies or policymakers set new standards, they must be careful to minimise collateral damage, writes Stephanie Caun.
When Whole Foods announced last year that they had set a deadline of 2018 for full GMO transparency, they garnered a great deal of positive publicity from the anti-GMO camp, for what was viewed as an ambitious and consumer-driven goal. However, as is often the case with best-laid plans, an apparently simple policy can have complex consequences.
An article published recently on Guardian Sustainable Business describes the impact Whole Foods’ deadline is having on a number of its suppliers, including the award-winning artisanal cheese maker, Jasper Hill. Jasper Hill cheese, which takes over a year to produce, uses milk produced from livestock fed partially on GMO feed. The company has claimed that Whole Foods’ new policy is likely to mean they are unable to sell their cheese at a profit, and so will likely go out of business.
It is perhaps an inevitable consequence of policy change that certain parties are unable to comply and fall by the wayside. Whole Foods may consider the sacrifice of a few cheese makers a small price to pay in achieving their overall GMO goal. They could, however, take a more holistic approach. When Starbucks committed in 2008 to ethically source 100% of their coffee by 2015, farmer participation was a key part of their strategy and Starbucks provided support and training to help coffee farmers improve their farm management to achieve the goal. This allowed Starbucks to maintain existing supplier relationships, whilst also working towards the goal of ethically-sourced coffee.
The risk of positive goals having unanticipated consequences is not only restricted to commerce. Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act introduced a requirement for companies to identify where certain conflict minerals used in their products came from. Most would agree this is a worthy cause, and the Act has already successfully reduced revenue to militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries by 65%. However, thousands of companies have had serious difficulty meeting its stringent requirements.
It is hard to feel much sympathy for multinational organisations who struggled to comply with the Act – they at least had the resources to adjust. Worst affected (as in the case of Whole Foods’ artisanal cheese supplier) were those businesses not large enough, or lacking the cash reserves, to absorb the cost of adjusting their business model to comply with the change.
The new Act also affected whole countries – Ugandan mineral exports ceased entirely since the certification process hasn’t been put in place yet, depriving the nation of $100 million of legitimate revenue. There was also a de facto embargo on minerals mined in the Eastern Congo for similar reasons, which has left many artisanal miners without income and employment and led to even deeper poverty.
There will almost always be unanticipated consequences to any policy decision, but the more effort that is made to educate and empower the actual agents of change – be they cheese makers, miners, or coffee growers – the more likely it will be that all parties can work together to implement the policy effectively while maintaining supplier relationships and minimising collateral damage in the process.
I have another opinion only on the Jasper Hill cheese producer. Coming form the point of view that is GMO feed or foods is unwise (and of course, that point of view can be challenged, though a conclusion might not be reachable), shouldn’t the supplier been thinking about using non-GMO much earlier to create natural (in its pure sense) cheese? The decision to go GMO or non-GMO, I suspect, comes down to economic, and it is a pity Jasper Hill decided to go for the economic one, rather than considering a holistic set of considerations (which includes use of non-GMO feed).
However, I am not in disagreement with the whole point of the article, which is that good intended policies will have unintended negative consequences. And this will occur no matter what, according to Murphy’s Law. Though, is it the purchaser’s scope of responsibility (moral, legal or whatever ground) to ensure a better managed transition for its suppliers or affected entities, or would it be entirely on the area’s political administration to handle such affairs, or (most likely), will it be a partnership between the two entities to improve the outcome? Context matters more than anything here. My point is, on the whole, it really is for the better.
I have another opinion only on the Jasper Hill cheese producer. Coming form the point of view that is GMO feed or foods is unwise (and of course, that point of view can be challenged, though a conclusion might not be reachable), shouldn’t the supplier been thinking about using non-GMO much earlier to create natural (in its pure sense) cheese? The decision to go GMO or non-GMO, I suspect, comes down to economic, and it is a pity Jasper Hill decided to go for the economic one, rather than considering a holistic set of considerations (which includes use of non-GMO feed).
However, I am not in disagreement with the whole point of the article, which is that good intended policies will have unintended negative consequences. And this will occur no matter what, according to Murphy’s Law. Though, is it the purchaser’s scope of responsibility (moral, legal or whatever ground) to ensure a better managed transition for its suppliers or affected entities, or would it be entirely on the area’s political administration to handle such affairs, or (most likely), will it be a partnership between the two entities to improve the outcome? Context matters more than anything here. My point is, on the whole, it really is for the better.