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Sweet and Sustainable
Kent Business School students and guests find out from Cadbury’s Sustainability Manager just how “purple is going green”.
5 November 2009
Kent Business School hosted a hugely successful seminar on Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability on 5th November, in which Sarah Singleton, Sustainability Manager, Cadbury's plc explained to an audience of 300 people of how Cadbury’s use sustainability as a source of competitive advantage, rather than risk avoidance or reputation enhancement.
Cadbury plc is a leading global confectionery company with an outstanding portfolio of chocolate, gum and candy brands. It has number one or number two positions in over 20 of the world's 50 largest confectionery markets. Cadbury also has the largest and most broadly spread emerging markets business of any confectionery company. With origins stretching back nearly 200 years, Cadbury's brands include many global, regional and local favourites including Cadbury, Creme Egg, Flake and Green & Black's in chocolate; Trident, Clorets, Dentyne, Hollywood, Bubbaloo and Stimorol in gum; and Halls, Cadbury Eclairs and The Natural Confectionery Company in candy.
Corporate Responsibility is one of the things that makes Cadbury special. It’s been integral to their business for nearly 200 years since the Cadbury family first sought to be a ‘force for good in troubled times’. That sense of ambition remains at Cadbury today.
In her presentation to Kent Business School, Sarah Singleton revealed the five sustainability commitments that form part of the Cadbury’s vision into action statement which are: Promote responsible consumption, ensure ethical and sustainable sourcing, reduce carbon, water use and packaging, nuture and reward colleagues and invest in communities. All Cadbury cocoa beans used in production are fair-trade and they have established ambitious targets such as reducing their carbon emissions 50% by 2020 or ensure that packaging is reduced 10% for every tonne of product. They have a localised approach to saving water, either recycling or collecting rain water, depending on the region. Cadbury is also working hard to make ethical behaviour mainstream.
The session was organised as an integrated event within the undergraduate module CB547 Strategic Management but was open to corporate guests and students from the MBA and MSc programmes.
Dr Sue Hornibrook, Lecturer in Strategic Management and Director of the Masters in Management programme explained that "we aim to give our students a more rounded and holistic view of strategy, rather than the traditional economic perspective, noting that organisations have responsibilities to a variety of stakeholders and not just to shareholders. We always invite guest speakers from industry to illustrate corporate responses to the various social, economic and environmental issues that organisations typically face in today's business climate. Students gain tremendously from interpreting such corporate presentations through the various theoretical lens that we offer them, giving them an ideal opportunity to apply theory to real life situations."
Student feedback reflected what a great event it was and how it made the theory come alive.
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