For years, corporate sustainability was defined by sweeping commitments, distant deadlines and promises that sounded transformative, but which ultimately were unrealistic – leading to missed targets that took a toll on employee morale and opened the door to lawsuits, stricter regulations, investor pressure and even consumer backlash.
In response, some companies scaled back goals and soften how they talked about them – if they talked about them – ushering in an era of ‘greenhushing.’ But stepping back didn’t ease the underlying pressures. If anything, climate change, supply chain volatility and a rise in conscious consumerism made sustainability more, not less, material to business performance.
A fundamental challenge in easing these pressures and meeting consumer demand is that sustainability and business goals don’t always align. In fact, they often pull in different directions, creating a constant tension between cost, resilience and impact.
But the unveiling last week of Hershey’s new sustainability strategy suggests a new phase is emerging that is less about distant promises and signaling, and more about operational reality and leveraging sustainability as a tool – not an added task – to achieve outcomes that benefit the planet, people and business.
In this episode of FoodNavigator-USA’s Soup-To-Nuts Podcast Hershey’s Head of Global Sustainability Whitney Mayer outlines the CPG giant’s new ‘Source. Make. Delight.’ sustainability strategy and what sets this approach from past initiatives. She explains how Hershey is shifting from long-term ambition to operational execution to embed sustainability into sourcing, manufacturing and product strategy, while also navigating the real tensions between cost, resilience and impact. She also shares practical lessons for other companies that want to follow suit and better align ESG with business performance by securing buy-in across a complex organization.
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Hershey charts a path forward in uncertain times
Hershey’s new sustainability strategy comes at a time when intensifying climate disruption, geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty and shifting consumer expectations are colliding, making it difficult for corporations to remain on the sidelines of sustainability even as they acknowledge shortcomings with previous approaches.
“If you looked at sustainability 10 to 15 years ago, you saw a lot of these big, hairy, audacious goals” with deadlines of 2040 or 2050, and those were “really important to drive action on these topics and bring attention to issues that, I think, companies hadn’t though about as intentionally as they should relative to the business practices,” Mayer said.
She added the flash of high level goals overshadowed shorter term, practical goals, which may have appeared less ambitious but which, according to Mayer, are the “nuts and bolts of changing how a company operates.”
She explained shorter term, logistics focused goals can help address the tension between sustainable practices and business outcomes, which needs to be recognized and addressed to create a more resilient business.
“The shift is more around what have we learned? How do we take [the sustainability movement] from these big goals to actual practices?,” she said.
A new way of thinking about sustainability
Mayer explains this mindset shift helped Hershey unlock a new way of thinking about sustainability and laid the foundation for its new strategy, which was unveiled April 22 as part of a larger Earth Day activation at the company.
“Our strategy is called Source. Make. Delight. and it really is an end-to-end approach to how we source, create and then ultimately provide products that our consumers know and love,” Mayer said.
She explained that strategy also addresses how Hershey’s business is evolving – from one focused on confection to one that also includes salty snacks, lower-sugar products, plant-based products and protein products.
“We needed to reflect one where we were going as a company, and how sustainability would enable that next chapter of growth for the company,” she said. “At the same time, we also were looking externally around at the intersection of environmental issues and social issues and a changing regulatory environment.”
Under Hershey’s new strategy, the first of the three pillars is source and focuses on creating more resilient supply chains by reinforcing the health of the broader ecosystem in which farms and farmers operate.
The second pillar – ‘make’ – embeds sustainability in the company’s operations, logistics and supply chain network to emphasize waste reduction, energy efficiency and consumer insights.
The third pillar, ‘delight,’ focuses on making changes consumers can see, such as advancing sustainable packaging and innovating products they want now and in the future.
3 pillars in action: Navigating cocoa constraints
One of the places where sustainability meets real-world volatility for Hershey is its cocoa – and this is also a place where all three pillars of its new strategy deliver, according to Mayer.
“Cocoa has been and will continue to be our most important sustainability issue. It is a critical ingredient to our products. It is something that we have a long-standing commitment to through our Cocoa For Good programming,” she explained.
She added the company’s approach to improving the sustainability of cocoa includes a “farmer-centric” approach, and examining the intersection between social and environmental issues.
For example, under the ‘source’ pillar of Hershey’s new strategy, the company has sought to reinforce the health and broader ecosystem in which its farms and farmers operated so that their decisions are not short-term reactions to desperate situations, but rather thoughtful, long-term planning made feasible in part through enhanced stability.
The value of Hershey’s ‘source’ pillar also are illustrated in how it works with dairy and peanut farmers, Mayer said.
‘Make’ pillar focuses on operational efficiency
The second pillar in Hershey’s new sustainability strategy is ‘make,’ and Mayer explains it focuses on operational efficiency.
“It is really around manufacturing and supply chain, and so it is absolutely a benefit to the business and to the planet to have a waste intolerant mindset,” she explained. “We wanted to bring to the forefront this idea of reduced energy, reduced water, reduced miles traveled, reduced unnecessary packaging.”
This pillar also focuses on future-proofing the business against volatile markets and how supply chains continue to operate amid change, she said.
Meeting consumer expectations
The third pillar – delight – is where Hershey connects it is sustainability efforts to the consumer, including through innovation and storytelling.
From a sustainability perspective, Mayer explained. “There is an expectation from consumers that companies act responsibly, and that is something we have always taken seriously, but we need to understand how those expectations continue to evolve,” including how something is sourced, made and delivered and if that aligns with shopper expectations and experiences.
Data backed and delivered
An essential component to the long-term viability of Hershey’s new strategy is increased transparency about shortcomings as well as successes, which could also help protect the company against greenwashing and greenhushing allegations.
To do this, Mayer stressed the importance of grounding each strategic step in data.
The data, systems and external validation Hershey is building to transparently report its progress is fundamental to the move from ambition to execution. That shift from goal-setting to operationalization is also where many companies are still struggling.
According to Mayer, that is also where Hershey’s approach starts to offer something more practical – a blueprint for how to embed sustainability into day-to-day decision making.
“Most people want to have a successful, financially stable business while doing good in the world. It’s very rare that you will find somebody that is against that long term vision. The devil’s in the details around the investments required to do that, the time horizon of value that you’re discussing. So you have to be really explicit in those conversations. But for me and my team, we’re just starting first of understanding what are people doing? What is your day job? What are your biggest issues? ... What can we do to support? Where are there conflicts? How do we quantify this. I mean, it really is been a very collaborative process,” she explained
What emerges from Hershey’s new sustainability strategy isn’t a finished model, but an evolving one where sustainability isn’t positioned as an external commitment, but an internal operating system that is built through iteration, negotiation and constant recalibration.
