Clif Bar & Company is a privately held company producing organic food and drinks. Headquartered in California USA, the company was founded in 1992 by baker and former mountain guide Gary Erickson with the creation of the infamous CLIF Bar.
The challenge
Clif Bar works hard to reduce its ecological footprint in everything it does – from the field to the final products. This means that, in its day-to-day work, it is thinking about using more organics, less packaging, more planet-friendly transportation, less landfill and working in partnership with like-minded companies.
Clif Bar reports its environmental impact in line with the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard and collects Scope 1, 2 and 3 data across all of its locations in the US and Canada. This data comes from the following sources:
- Electricity
- Waste
- Travel
- Fuel
- Water
- Refrigerants
As a fast-growing business, Clif Bar needs a robust tool for collecting, managing and reporting its data that is flexible enough to grow with its business and evolving reporting requirements.
The solution
Clif Bar uses the Environment module of Greenstone’s Enterprise sustainability reporting software to collect, calculate and report on consumption and emissions data from across 12 different sites. These sites include offices, warehouses and production facilities. Clif Bar currently has 36 active users of the software and data is primarily collected and uploaded on a monthly basis.
A number of Clif Bar’s key suppliers collect and report data using Greenstone’s Enterprise sustainability reporting software. This supplier inclusion highlights Clif Bar’s ambition to not only be a sustainable business itself but to reach beyond its own impact and help create a more sustainable food system through collaboration and the encouragement of sustainable practices.
"We needed a software platform that would allow us to expand participation and improve engagement in environmental metrics reporting across our company and Tier 1 supply chain. Greenstone meets that need today and can grow with us into the future."
Elysa Hammond, Director of Environmental Stewardship, Clif Bar
The results
Greenstone’s Enterprise sustainability reporting software enables Clif Bar to report its environmental data with accuracy and confidence using one central platform. Clif Bar started using Greenstone's sustainability reporting software, Enterprise, in early 2015 and since then the solution has helped the company manage data supporting its Five Aspirations: Sustaining its Business, Brands, People, Community and the Planet.
Clif Bar specifically uses the data to:
- report its carbon footprint through the Climate Registry
- track, report on and purchase the appropriate amount of green power to maintain its 100% green power status with the EPA Green Power Partnership
- purchase offsets through NativeEnergy’s ‘help build’ offset program to maintain climate-neutral business operations.
To keep its carbon footprint climate neutral, Clif Bar measures and offsets the CO2 emissions generated by energy use in its office, bakeries, warehouses and business travel.
In 2015, Clif Bar made significant progress toward zero waste (measured as 90% or more diversion from landfill and incinerators) and achieved:
- 73% waste diversion at its bakeries
- 88% at its distribution centres
- 89% at its headquarters (where it has an office, a childcare centre, a warehouse and a new innovation centre).
Clif Bar’s progress in these areas can be seen in its latest All Aspirations Annual Report.
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