Just in Time: Chocolate for Yom Kippur

It's never too late to keep a promise. One of the things that sweetened the experience of the GRI Global Reporting Conference in Amsterdam in May 2013 was the free chocolate dispensed with a smile by Tony's Chocolonely at a stand in the exhibition area and throughout the conference. In return for an even bigger gift of free chocolate, I promised to write about Tony's Chocolonely on the CSR Reporting Blog.

Chunky Chocolate with a Fair Trade taste

Yes, it has taken me only 4 months, but it's now quite opportune as it's the Eve of Yom Kippur, and atonement and reparations are the order of the day. So, I atone for not fulfilling my promise so far, and attempt to repair my tarnished integrity by doing so, possibly earning myself a better chance of being inscribed in the Book of Life for yet another year. I hope so. The year ahead promises to be an exciting one - and a whole lot sweeter now that I have discovered Tony's Chocolonely.

Arjen Boekhold dispensing chocolate with a smile

Of course, chocolate comes second to ice-cream on my indulgence league-table, but in this case, it's very special chocolate. "The Tony’s Chocolonely slogan ─ “on the way to 100% slavery-free chocolate” ─ means Tony’s is 100 percent committed to ending chocolate slavery and to giving customers a slavery-free chocolate choice." 

Slavery in chocolate is still prevalent enough to put us off our daily (hourly?) treat.  The “good life” is still a distant dream for many cocoa farmers and the problems of child and forced labor are still very much in evidence. Based on estimates for the year 2013, at least 460,000 people (children and adults) in West Africa work as cocoa “slaves”, of which about 15,000 to 30,000 children are trafficked into slavery (human trafficking).

This is what Tony's Chocolonely says about slavery in the chocolate industry in West Africa:
 

"There’s a nasty ingredient hidden in that sweet chocolate bar: Slavery. That’s right, lurking in the shadows of the monolithic chocolate industry, modern-day slavery is common practice in many cocoa-producing countries. West Africa, accounting for 60 percent of the world’s cocoa supply, is a notorious haven for chocolate slavery, most often taking the form of child labor abuse. In the Ivory Coast and Ghana, children, hoping for a better life, are lured onto cocoa plantations and tricked into slavery. Most are under the age of 16, working excessively long days, for little or no pay, under physical and mental duress, with no option to leave."
 

Tony's Choc has a different approach, based on the development of direct relationships with farmer cooperatives, working together to develop programs with specific goals and targets for production, in order to support the development of farmer organizations. This means that Tony's Chocolonely has its own  Bean-to-Bar segregated supply chain, through which the cocoa beans of the farmer cooperatives are shipped directly to the production facility. This way, the folks at Tony's Choc know exactly where the beans in their chocolate come from.

In 2012, Tony's Chocolonely signed long-term contracts with two cocoa farmer cooperatives: ABOCFA (Ghana) and Ecookim (Ivory Coast), committing to a five-year purchasing agreement in which the farmers can be certain there is a buyer for their cacao, and at a good price. With the certainty of a buyer, the farmers invest in improving their farms, professionalize and grow. In buying directly from the farmer,  intermediary trade is effectively eliminated and the farmer gets more compensation.   Within this long-term arrangement, Tony's Chocolonely facilitates training for farmers, enabling increased cacao productivity per hectare and also drives awareness of the need to eliminate child and forced labor and help strengthen the position of women.

ABOCFA is a farming cooperative of around 400 farmers in 13 communities in Ghana. In 2008, the ABOCFA farmers gained organic and Fairtrade certifications, becoming the first such operation in Ghana to do so, based on interest expressed by Cadbury's for the Green and Black label. However, after the subsequent acquisition of Cadbury's by Kraft (now Mondelez), interest in ABOCFA farmers' Fairtrade organic cacao ceased, leaving hundreds of farmers wondering how they would recoup their investment. Enter Tony's Chocolonely, who in 2012 became the first purchaser of the Ghanan ABOCFA cacao, turning it into that fabulous-tasting chunky chocolate that 1,600 delegates at the GRI Conference in Amsterdam could enjoy. Me included. Part of Tony's Choc's approach is to help drive interest in the ABOCFA cooperative, to attract more buyers and help ensure the sustainability of the operation. In the Ivory Coast, Tony's Chocolonely purchases from a single village of 128 farmers, working under the auspices of the bigger cooperative union. Again, these farmers have achieved Fairtrade certification and revenue from sales is reinvested to drive increased efficiencies and professional long-term supply.  

Arjen Boekhold recently visited both Ivory Coast and Ghana, taking with him a generous supply of 'Bean-to-Bar' chocolate with him, so the farmers could taste the chocolate which was made from their own cocoa beans. This made them very proud. For many of them, it was the first time they tasted chocolate at all. Can you believe that? Arjen reviewed the cooperative activities and the ways in which funds to support human rights in the chocolate supply chain have been used. For example, Tony's Chocolonely initiated and supported funding for an awareness campaign on (child) slavery and women's rights, and also provided funds for a cocoa warehouse. The collaboration is as sweet as the chocolate itself.
 

Photo with permission from Tony's Chocolonely

Check out Tony's Chocolonely also on Facebook.
More importantly, go buy some!
Even more importantly, go eat it!
But maybe not on Yom Kippur :)

(Oh and by the way, for all those of you observe Yom Kippur, the CSR Reporting Blog, and me, wish you Well over the Fast and that you should be inscribed in the Book of Life for a healthy, safe, prosperous and happy year ahead!) (Even if you don't observe Yom Kippur, we wish you that anyway, except for the Fast bit).


elaine cohen, CSR consultant, winning (CRRA'12) Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: The Concise Guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting AND Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen   or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Hershey's real real CSR report

Christine Arena, CEO of SparkUp and great CSR author, blogger and #CSR Debate moderator, made me aware on Twitter of the "real" Hershey report. And that is well worth a blop (= blog post for those not used to my lingo. Yet).

Let's set the scene:

First, Hershey, with great fanfare, published their first ever CSR Report (GRI Level C). This is the real report. This report, as might be expected, presents Hershey's strong commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility in all aspects of its operations, including management of the Hersey supply chain and cocoa sourcing.

Second, a group of activists and campaigners for human rights including Global Exchange,  Green America, The International Labor Rights Forum and Oasis USA  published a mock CSR report attacking Hershey for human rights abuses in the production of cocoa. This is the real "real" report. In this report, the campaigners focus primarily on what they allege to be forced labor, child labor and trafficking  in the Hershey supply chain, greenwashing regarding charitable and community activities in West Africa which mask the underlying human rights problems and urge Hershey to increase transparency and adopt full sourcing of Fair Trade Certified (TM) Cocoa. 

So which is the real real real report ?

First a look at both reports and then some perspectives of my own.

The real report

The report published by Hershey confirms that the Company is no stranger to CSR, in fact the story goes that when Milton S. Hershey started the firm that would become The Hershey Company in 1984, he conducted his business according to the following principles:

**  make and sell a high-quality product at a fair price

**  provide meaningful work and fair wages to employees

**  give back to the communities where the company operated

**  be a good steward of the land and its resources

The Hershey report follows the Quadrant Model (marketplace, workplace, environment and community) and, despite no evidence of materiality thinking and proiritization, the key headlines are covered in greater or lesser detail. These include promoting responsible consumption of snacks and treats as part of a healthy lifestyle (really?), supplier diversity, nutrition labelling and nutrition research (how many phytonutrients in your daily diet, hmm?), promoting health and fitness, marketing with integrity, plus all the regular disclosures and case studies relating to environmental stewardship, repsonsible workplace and community contribution. There is a two page section on "Addressing the Challenges in Sourcing Cocoa" which reconfirms Hershey's commitment to  "embrace our responsibility to ensure that the cocoa  we buy is grown and harvested in a sustainable manner. That means encouraging a cocoa supply chain that provides adequate incomes to small cocoa farmers, advances efforts to promote responsible labor in cocoa-farming communities, promotes gender equity and protects and preserves the environment." All in all, Hershey says, through their efforts in West Africa, "Hershey and its industry peers have made a positive impact on an estimated 500,000 farmers and their families—about 2.5 million people altogether."  There is no doubt that this is a good news report, very skillfully copywritten, designed to paint a very rosy picture of the Hershey Company. Its transparency is limited to the direct impacts that are non-controversial in terms of disclosure and the report is not assured. Nonetheless, it  does demonstrate a certain level of CSR commitment and practice, which cannot be denied.

The real real report

This report represents the "dark side" of Hershey's chocolate production and focuses on four key issues, alleging that:

First: In sourcing much of its cocoa from West Africa, Hershey does not have a system in place to ensure human rights abuses are eliminated.
Second: Hershey does not disclose its cocoa suppliers in West Africa, therefore making it difficult to monitor human rights issues.
Third: Hershey engages in greenwashing by reporting on charitable programs whilst masking underlying supply chain abuses
Fourth: Hershey does not adopt the Fair Trade Certification for Cocoa, "the strongest certification system available" for all but one of its chocolate products.

The report refers to a shareholder resolution submitted in 2006 to Hershey, that was rejected, to push Hershey into reviewing and reporting on supply chain sourcing and addresses why Hershey is purchasing from "the three companies,Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Nestlé, which are involved in the ongoing lawsuit in US courts on child labor claims". Similarly, the alternative report looks at leading practices in cocoa sourcing and commitments by other manufacturers and shows how Hershey is lagging behind. Additionally, the report makes recommendations to Hershey for resolution of this issue through to the year 2022.

The real real real issues

So what should we make of all this?  Here are some thoughts:

Whether you are transparent or you are not transparent, you are transparent.
No company can hide from transparency. It's either forced or it's voluntary. In the same way that Gap Inc and Nike and others realised that the only way to gain benefit from transparency is to embrace it and work with it, so Hersheys, sooner or later, will have no option but to go this route. Whilst a first CSR report is a step in the right direction, transparency on the most material and critical issues cannot be avoided.

Don't cherry-pick at stakeholder engagement 
Hershey lists the stakeholders they engage with in their CSR report, which includes interest groups, NGO's and the World Cocoa Foundation (established in 2000, Hershey is a founding partner), but they don't drill down into the details of their engagement. The coalition of human rights activist groups who wrote the alternative report don't appear to rate this foundation, which focuses on good work without the same activist edge. In deciding whom to engage with, a company should not cherry-pick around who to talk to. If you do not engage with your strongest critics, you are at risk of them engaging you in a way you may not have anticipated. On the other hand, engaging with such critics may well provide a platform for your business to create new commercial opportunities and longer term sustainability.

Communications should be balanced
Both the real report, which is good news, and the real real report, which is bad news, are guilty of imbalance in communications. Both tell one story only. The one which advances their agenda. And let's make no mistake. The profit agenda of a corporation and the non-profit agenda of NGO's are also driven by people with personal interests and much to gain, one way or another. This approach to one-dimentional reporting undermines the crediblity of both players in this sad scenario.

Convert words into action
There is no doubt in my mind that, even if Hershey people have an adequate defense to the allegations in the real real report, they must respond and disclose an action pan to address the issues raised. Whether or not everything is true, or not, there is surely something that Hershey can accept as a way forward. I don't believe that Hershey can maintain a credible  CSR positioning without doing this. The first response should be a public invitation to the real real report authors to meet with Hershey leadership and table all issues at a facilitated conversation in open and positive spirit. Wow. That' s a conversation I would be happy to facilitate!

This story reminds me of two other anecdotes:

The story of the Hershey Trust decision to sell the Hershey Foods Company to the highest bidder, which was recounted by Andy Savitz in his book, The Triple Bottom Line. The story is amazing and shows how Hershey blundered through a process that caused stakeholder uprisings and ultimately had to back down, "squandering valuable social capital". Hmm. A lesson not learned, it seems.

The story of Starbucks and the Ethopian coffee farmers, which was the subject of an Oxfam led  campaign, which went pretty viral with people from all over the world posting videos in support of Ethiopian farmers, eventaually forcing Starbucks to give in. Starbucks did, and went on to build stronger reciprocally positive relationships with Ethiopian coffee farmers. A lesson learned, apparently.

Seems like Hershey has a knack for doing things the hard way. At least, as I have a few (ok, a lot of) pounds to shed, I wont have to ponder the issue of whether to eat Hershey's chocolate or not, for the time being. I will be watching for Hershey's to respond, however. Hopefully they will do so before my diet turns once again, into the tomorrow diet. Haha.

(Oh, and in case you are wondering, I did write directly to Hershey with my queries about this issue. I hope they have something to say).

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict, author of CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices.  Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen  on Twitter or via my business website www.b-yond.biz/en  (BeyondBusiness, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)