he world cannot wait for a stronger economic climate to take net-zero action, Mars’ head of sustainability has said.
Barry Parkin, chief procurement and sustainability officer at the US snack and pet food giant, said decarbonisation plans should be as central to a company as its financials.
It comes after Mars pledged to invest one billion US dollars over the next three years in an effort to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050.
The Skittles maker recently released a 40-page net-zero road map, which outlines measures to meet these goals after the firm acknowledged that it had fallen behind on progress towards a previous target of 27% emissions reduction by 2025.
We want to counter the argument that this is too hard and too expensive. We’re saying it’s not. It’s hard but it is possible and it is affordable
Mars is also mapping its supply chain in a bid to identify issues including deforestation, poverty and child labour by 2025.
Mr Parkin, who compared the size of the company’s carbon footprint to that of Finland, said Mars wanted to send a message to the wider business world that it was “both entirely achievable and affordable” to embed sustainability into the fabric of the business, while maintaining growth.
He told the PA news agency: “We want to counter the argument that this is too hard and too expensive. We’re saying it’s not. It’s hard but it is possible and it is affordable.
“I think our message is: It can be done – delivering both successful financial business, growth and profit at the same time as delivering against these really challenging sustainability goals.”
Mr Parkin revealed that Mars had not adjusted or rolled back its climate plans amid tougher economic conditions from the cost-of-living crisis, pandemic fallout and the war in Ukraine.
The world can’t wait to only act when times are easy. We’ve got to act when times are hard as well
“We are accelerating,” he said. “We haven’t adjusted because the whole philosophy of the business is that we want to do both, and we believe we can do both.
“The world can’t wait. There’ll be three or four economic cycles between here and 2040-2050.
“The world can’t wait to only act when times are easy. We’ve got to act when times are hard as well.”
The Snickers maker is also working on redesigning thousands of packaging items as part of plans to increase circularity.
Meanwhile, 10% of remuneration for senior executives would be linked to redesigning for circularity, while 10% would be linked to performance on reducing emissions from the next cycle.
Mr Parkin argued that at least 20% was needed to make meaningful behaviour change at the top of a company.
The reality is that you can go so far with voluntary commitments but if you’re going to move a whole industry, you’ll often need regulation as well
“I think it’s interesting because lots of companies have put a little bit of money, a little bit of remuneration against some basket of ESG metrics,” he said.
“But we’ve always believed you’ve got to make it significant because your business leaders went to business school – they were taught how to run the (profit and loss), they weren’t taught how to drive sustainability.
“So you’ve got to make it significant. At 2%, nobody is going to do anything.”
Mr Parkin also argued that businesses and governments should work together for corporate climate action to get moving.
He said: “The reality is that you can go so far with voluntary commitments but if you’re going to move a whole industry, you’ll often need regulation as well.
“I think it’s fair to say that by 2025, probably half of the cocoa industry will be highly responsible and half will have some way to go.”
There is a lot of pessimism around climate change and we’re saying you can do this and frankly any business can do both if they are committed to doing it and not making it an adjacent but making it as central as the financials
Mr Parkin said Mars did not tolerate slavery in its supply chain but if it did discover any issues with a supplier, it would “not only engage with suppliers but engage with governments”.
“Particularly if we find human rights issues, then the partnership with government is key,” he added.
“It’s the government’s job to fix it and it’s our job to help them do that.
“For many of these commodities, we have deep government relations and are trying to build new policies and programmes locally.”
Ultimately, Mr Parkin said Mars was “projecting a message of optimism” when it came to sustainability and action.
“There is a lot of pessimism around climate change and we’re saying you can do this and frankly any business can do both if they are committed to doing it and not making it an adjacent but making it as central as the financials,” he said.