December 27, 2018 by dev_team
On a high note!
Thank you all for an amazing year
What a year! Lara and I wanted to recognize and appreciate the progress made together as we continue to grow this inspiring community. Thanks to you, OSC2 is a thriving ecosystem. Your contribution of time, energy, and resources this year have helped us come One Step Closer to realizing our collective potential. We are ever thankful for the opportunity to share this journey with you and we encourage you to take a moment in the next few weeks to revel in the fruits of your labor. It is well deserved!
Core and Rising Star CEO Chapters – We’ve laughed, we’ve grown, and we’ve supported each other in new and exciting ways. This year OSC2committed to focusing on the essential elements of our community – trust, connectivity, and thoughtful collective action – to meet our mission of tackling the toughest sustainability problems facing our planet. We cultivated this trust and collective impact, in part, by quieting our minds together, expanding the time we meet in confidence, and incorporating regenerative leadership principles into our work.
This year we welcomed one new Core member, Birgit Cameron of Patagonia Provisions, as well as two new Community Members, Don Buder of Naturally Bay Area/Davis Wright Tremaine, and Ryan Black of Sambazon. We are also thrilled to have Miyoko Shinner of Miyoko’s Kitchen make the transition from the Rising Star to the Core CEO group!
We also saw vital growth this year in the Rising Star community with the addition of three new members – Emily Stone of Uncommon Cacao, Caroline Duel & Ryan Rich of All Good, and Sadie Scheffer of Bread SRSLY. This talented crop of emerging leaders is pushing the boundaries of collaboration. Check out the cool Instagram promotion a few of the members put together this past fall!
OSC2’s Working Groups launched two and half years ago with the Marketing Group and my how they’ve grown! We now over 150 participants across five groups – Marketing (2016), Operations (2017), Finance (2017), Sales (2018), and Admin/EAs (2018). To date we have hosted over 40 sessions addressing company challenges and providing learning opportunities including sessions this year focused on Scaling Teams, Multi-Stakeholder Innovation, Leveraging Market Data, Channel Strategy, Changes in Revenue Recognition, Trade Spend/TPMs, Lot Coding, Impact Metrics, Green House Gas Audits, True Cost Accounting, and Zero Waste Offices. OSC2 would like to give a special shout out to the chairs of our working groups who helped make this all possible:
Marketing – Grace Rusch, California Olive Ranch & Greg Nielsen, Kuli Kuli
Operations – Jane Franch, Numi Tea
Finance – Andrew Hollingsworth, Numi Tea & Jack Decker, Lotus Foods
Sales – Victoria Hartman, Lotus Foods & Jason Berry, Alter Eco
Admin/EA – Margie Araquistain, Numi Tea & Pam Zahedani, Nutiva
OSC2 University had nearly sold out participation this year thanks to the support of Diane Cowlin of Flourish HR and the Nutiva Team, which hosted all of our in-person sessions. Classes included a mix of technical and nontechnical development workshops including Mindful Leadership, Leadership Development for New Managers, Intermediate/Advanced Excel, and Intro to Project Management. The OSC2 community is hungry to learn and we look forward to bringing you more opportunities in the year ahead.
Our public event series, Future of Food, continued to flourish this year with engaged crowds at our two featured programs. In May, the OSC2 community gathered for Project Drawdown: One year and Counting, which featured Paul Hawken (Project Drawdown), Sheryl O’Loughlin (REBBL), and Ahmed Rahim (Numi Tea). This was followed in October by Climate Wins, which included daytime climate workshops, a community reception, and an evening CEO panel featuring Caryl Levine (Lotus Foods), Mathieu Senard (Alter Eco), Ben Mand (Harmless Harvest), Mike Forbes (then California Olive Ranch), plus Jenny Lester Moffett (Cal Dept. of Ag), and Erin Callahan (Climate Collaborative). If you missed the Climate Wins program, check out the full recording of the evening program on your break!
The Packaging Collaborative’s mission to remove petroleum-based plastic from landfills, oceans, and our planet by securing compostable flexible film solutions continues! It has been a long and arduous road to build the systems-level change that we desperately need to support environmental health, but this group has maintained focus kept its head high. The Packaging Collaborative has been working with our amazing long-time partners at Elk and Futamura as they tirelessly test compostable and recyclable packages for our network of companies. And at Expo West, Numi and Alter Eco teamed up to wrap every trash can at the event with a zero-waste graphic that introduced the Numi compostable tea pouch and featured Alter Eco’s compostable truffle packaging!
2018 marked the start of a relationship with Recology, the largest waste manager in California. Twelve brands and packaging partners spent the morning with their composting team as a part of our work to build a multi-stakeholder approach to flexible packaging. Read more about our trip here.
We realize that addressing flexible film packaging requires complex systems-level change collaborative and signs of progress and reach are emerging. This year a number of influential companies joined the Packaging Collaborative, including Forager Project, Ben & Jerry’s, Sambazon, Dr. Bronner’s, SquareOrganics, Kuli Kuli, SeaSnax,Mama Chia, Once Upon a Farm, Justin’s, and Nutiva! In addition, Whole Foods Market noted eco-conscious packaging as a Top 10 food trend prediction for 2019 and recognized OSC2 and a number of Packaging Collaborative brands as pioneers of this movement. We will continue to support the current excellent materials that our packaging partners have developed as well as foster ongoing innovation!
Climate Collaborative, the partner project of OSC2 and SFTA, continues to build momentum. The 2nd Annual Climate Day at Expo West had over 800 people in attendance, and now, 19 months in, we have over 320 companies that have logged climate action commitments on the platform. If you haven’t already, watch Jerry Taylor’s Keynote at Expo East, where he shares his personal journey from Climate skeptic to advocate.
So what’s in store for 2019? So much! To give you a preview, we will be building on our work above and engage in 3 additional focus areas:
- Deepen our CEO collaboration to support each OSC2 company’s individual growth as well as our collective work.
- Commence Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Pilot work for OSC2companies; our industry has been leaders in innovation and many important sustainable food and agricultural movements; now we are becoming leaders in addressing packaging and climate. The DEI initiative is critical for this whole living ecosystem to work.
- Build our Regenerative Leadership muscle. OSC2 along with Numi, Guayaki, and REBBL started working with Carol Sanford on a three-year regenerative leadership program.
And mark your calendars OSC2 members – we are going to keep you busy! Here’s a look at some highlights from Q1.
- Jan 14 – Fancy Foods Happy Hour @ Jillian’s hosted by Sensiba San Felipe and OSC2Jan 13-15 – OSC2 Booth at Fancy Foods Show – The Future is Regenerative Pavilion
- Mar 6 – Climate Day Expo West
- Mar 8 – OSC2 Community Breakfast @ OSC2 house near Expo West Convention Center.Mar 8 – OSC2 Packaging Workshop @ Expo West
Our gratitude to you all and the community we nurture as we evolve our capacity for impact and change!
Michael & Lara