CLIF BAR & COMPANY
2018 ANNUAL REPORT
COME TOGETHER Love, Risk, and a Shared Mission: Creating Something New After 27 Years of Success
How We Roll In Good Company: Getting Dirty for Clean Water Growing Tomorrow’s Food System: Organic Is Just the Start 1
Welcome
to our 11th All Aspirations Annual Report. We measure our success based on 5 bottom lines: sustaining our Business, Brands, People, Community, and Planet. In the following pages you’ll see how they come to life in our family- and employeeowned company.
Gary Erickson & Kit Crawford, Owners and Co-CEOs | Elysa Hammond & Thao Pham, Co-editors Mija Riedel, Managing Editor | John Marin, Senior Creative Director | Bill Ribar/Formative, Design Sandy Biagi, Print Management | Matthew DeLorme, Karen Drinkwater, Pete Mauney, Sol Neelman, Erika Nizborski, Ryan Struck, Nancy Wright, Photographers Special thanks to our contributors: Zaw Aung, Gregg Bagni, Terra Beaton, Val Bisharat, Rich Boragno, Lindsey Bragg, Louisa Brown, Christine Bunting, Pat Bush, Sarah Ciccarello, Anna Clarke, Deven Clemens, Rick Collins, Chris Colmus, Cassie Cyphers, Nikki Dahlberg-Seeth, Lane Daley, Tyrone Davis, Dai Deh, Antoinette Diaz, Shannon Di Donato, Matthew Dillon, Rada Dogandjieva, Jenna Downey, Lucas Euser, Sarah Gamble, Linzi Gay, Thor Geisler, Dawn Gonzales, Marjorie Goux, Ian Graham, Brent Gravlee, Anja Hakoshima, Ami Hamilton, Sue Hearn, Doug Heath, Garett Heitman, Dan Hickle, Steven Hinkle, Tonya Iles, Jennifer Kao, Katherine Keenan, James Kelsey, Molly Keveney, Rebecca Leary, Taylor Lee, Brian Lemoine, Carolina Leonhardt, Sarah Lynam, Sidonia Martinez, Ritu Mathur, Dean Mayer, Christy McCreary, Michelle McDonald, James McGinnis, Dave McLaughlin, Chrissy Morss, Veronica Navarrette, Amy Norris, Margot Northover, Lisa Novak, Shannon Pedroni, Monica Pomeranz, Susan Marie Potucek, Heather Prather, Tiffany Pratt, Daniela Ramirez, Alicia Ranney, Annie Reid, Jeanine Romine, Allen Rosenfeld, Josue Ruiz, Adrian Santos, Scott Schoenwaelder, Tom Sharp, Jeb Sloan, Jeffrey Tang, Alfred Torres, Linor Vaknin, Keely Wachs, Stephanie Wagner-Kinnear, Carrie Walle, Eric Walle, Jennifer Warshauer, Kate Watson, Cody Williams, Nellie Williams, Ashlee Wilson, Will Yandell, Jennifer Yun.
In the last quarter of 2018, we came back to Clif Bar to play in the band again as co-CEOs. One of the things that makes Clif special is that it’s like a band—it’s not about any one person but a group of people who have a common love of music and love to play together. The best bands are almost telepathic. They have a shared mission and direction. They trust each other and have fun playing old favorites and inventing new sounds. They improvise. That can be a little scary—that means taking a risk. You wander off from the main score to try a new idea. It’s possible because you’re surrounded by like-minded musicians paying attention to each other, not playing over each other, but playing off each other to create something new together. What we all have in common at Clif is our commitment to our Five Aspirations (aka our five bottom lines) and to our shared mission to create a healthier, more sustainable world through the work of our company. In the following pages you’ll see how our community reaches wide, how we’re working within our company and outside our four walls to bring our mission to life. We’re collaborating with our public universities and policy makers to invest in organic research for a healthier, more just and sustainable food system. We’re collaborating with like-minded companies and nonprofit partners like Living Lands & Waters to help clean up the Ohio River. And we’re collaborating with our own 1,200 employee-owners—at our headquarters in California; bakeries in Idaho and Indiana; satellite offices in Arkansas, Ohio, Minnesota, Canada, and Europe; and home offices across the country—to deliver a great performance every time we head out on stage. Performing is profound and you aim to get it right. Everything you do matters. That’s true at Clif, too. It all matters: the quality of our food, the way we run our business, and how we treat the environment and our community—our customers, farmers, business partners, athletes, and fans. Our band has been playing together for 27 years: it’s all about supporting each other, as band members do, every day. That’s how we roll. We invite you to join us, share the music, and add a riff of your own.
Kit and Gary, Owners and Co-CEOs, Clif Bar & Company
3
A Different Kind of Company
1 72 1 BILLION+ 1,200 10 137,416 $49,080,997 16 100% 88% 207,000 #
4
NUTRITION BAR COMPANY CROP SPECIES go into making Clif foods POUNDS ORGANIC purchased since 2003 EMPLOYEE OWNERS YEARS an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) HOURS COMMUNITY SERVICE since 2001 DONATED TO DO GOOD since 2000 YEARS CLIMATE-NEUTRAL business operations GREEN POWER for electricity used at all Clif facilities WASTE DIVERSION from landfill and incinerators at Clif bakeries TREES PLANTED since 2003
ERIKA NIZBORSKI
Not just another DC runaround: During Clif Bar’s third annual Loop the Lincoln, farmers joined staff from organic food companies and congressional and USDA offices to run a 5K, spread positive energy, and learn about the Organic Trade Association.
OUR
BUSINESS
Long-Term Investments Yield High Dividends Organic Food and Farming Win Big Clif Bar is now the nation’s largest private funder of organic research. We invest significantly in our public universities and nonprofits, knowing that agricultural research is essential to bring more organic farmers and acres into production. Unfortunately, organic research has long been underfunded in the Farm Bill, so we also turned our eyes and energy to DC. We visited dozens of offices and met with Congress people from more than 10 states. We supported the organic community’s long-term goal for the Farm Bill: to set aside $50 million a year for organic research, an amount that triggers a program to be “baseline”—so it doesn’t have to be justified and fought for every year. Great news! With the 2018 Farm Bill, the Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative will increase from $20 to $50 million a year, the largest-ever increase in organic funding. It’s a big win for organic farmers and everyone who values organic food!
Scholarship Highlights the Positive Power of Five Bottom Lines This year we brought our Five Aspirations (or five bottom lines) business model to life with the launch of a unique Business with Purpose Scholarship designed to inspire future business leaders to pursue meaningful careers. Our research found that 68% of young people are likely to take unfulfilling jobs to pay off debts, with student loans being the number one source of financial stress. Four scholarship recipients will be announced in April 2019 and will receive funding for up to 12 months.
Clif food is now available in 19 countries
30% market share in Nutrition Bar category*
15% 10-year compounded annual growth rate
*Based on Nielsen data, 52 weeks ending 12/29/2018. Equivalized unit sales: all outlets combined 5
OUR
PEOPLE
Indianapolis employees pack food at the Million Meal Marathon.
Our Company Is Our People We go all out to create an environment where people can flourish. Here’s what four employeeowners have to say about life inside and outside our Indiana bakery.
Daniela
Doug
What do you do at Clif? I’m part of the FSQA audit team. If there’s an audit I’m probably there.
How does Clif differ from your other jobs? 180 degrees. It’s truly a family.
What matters to you about your work? Being organized, accurate, and detailed.
Favorite food? To me food isn’t so much about what you’re eating, it’s more about the people you’re eating with. I’ve had absolutely fabulous meals sitting on a riverbank cooking on an iron skillet: you got your beans going, potatoes and onions, and you got some fresh-caught catfish.
FOOD SAFETY AND QUALITY COORDINATOR
Favorite Clif product? CLIF® Shot Energy Gels. I used them a lot when training for my first marathon race last year.
Thor
CONTROLS ENGINEER
What matters to you about your work? I like putting smiles on people’s faces. When I improve a machine to make the worker safer or make their job easier, that makes me smile. Favorite spare time activity? I am a huge fan of Magic: The Gathering. I have been active in the game since I was 8 years old. I play weekly with a group of friends as well as attend large tournaments.
6
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT COORDINATOR
Zaw
CONTINUOUS SKILLS DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR
How does Clif differ from your other jobs? Actually, this is my very first and only job here in the U.S. Before I came to the U.S. I had several other jobs in other countries in Southeast Asia. So the workplace is very different, the work culture is very different here at Clif Bar. Everybody is very friendly, helpful, and warm. Favorite spare time activity? I love watching movies.
OUR
PLANET
Start Global Cooling — What’s New in 2018 Elevating the Next Generation of Climate Leaders Supporting Youth Step Up, a national contest created to engage young people (ages 18–25) in the Global Climate Action Summit, was one of our highlights. We sponsored the contest, helped judge submissions, and brought the winners to Clif headquarters to share their ideas on stage. Their creative solutions included climate-friendly school lunches, a snap-on energy-saving light switch that “even my grandmother could install,” and neighborhood composting in Miami. They knocked it out of the park!
A Beeautiful Solar Array We broke ground on a 2 megawatt (MW) solar array at our bakery in Twin Falls. The array is set to be the largest behind-the-meter system in Idaho and will generate 30% of the electricity used onsite. We’re also growing native plants between the panels to create five acres of habitat for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators critical for farming and healthy ecosystems.
On Our Way to a Cooler Commute Transportation is now the leading source of carbon emissions in the U.S., which inspired our commitment to the international goal known as EV100. We’re now working to transition to an all-electric fleet, install EV charging stations at our facilities, and help employees cool their commutes with electric vehicles and commuter bikes by 2030.
We Are Still In When the U.S. left the Paris Agreement, we joined other businesses, cities, states, tribes, universities, and faith groups (representing over half of the U.S. population) to declare our commitment to meeting our nation’s climate goals. In 2018 we were invited to join the We Are Still In Leaders’ Circle to encourage others to set bold goals and take action on climate. Please join us! 7
OUR
BRANDS
What do these new Clif products have in common? • Plant-based foods • No GMOs, of course! • Fruits, nuts, whole grains
8
MADE WITH
MADE WITH
Organic Rolled Oats
Organic Almonds
No sugar added!* * Not a low-calorie food. See nutrition information for calorie and sugar content.
PETE MAUNEY
OUR
COMMUNITY
Alewife Farm in Kingston, NY
Clif Bar Invests in an Organic Future
Young Farmers Win by Lindsey Lusher Shute, Co-founder, National Young Farmers Coalition Starting a farm business is an adventure in every sense of the word—exhilarating and risky. It brings intense economic challenges along with critical responsibilities in stewarding the resources of our planet. Success, if achieved, is hard-earned. Thanks in part to our ongoing partnership with Clif Bar, in 2017 we saw a big victory in Minnesota with the passage of a bill that creates tax incentives to lease and sell land to young and beginning farmers. Less than 4% of Minnesota farmers are under 35, and access to land is the number one barrier younger farmers face. As the bill was put into motion, 440 farms applied. With ongoing funding and advocacy support from Clif Bar in 2019, we will achieve even more for the next generation of farmers.
Clif Bar Gives Back
2018
Volunteer hours
20,638 137,416 since 2001
Cash donations
$6,420,384 $49,080,997 since 2000
Product donations
$4,286,062 $35,263,069 since 2005
TOTAL
Growing the Next Generation of Organic Researchers Committed to raising $10 million for 5 endowed chairs for organic research
2 chairs since 2015
Seed Matters grad student fellowships in 18 fellowships since 2013 organic research at land-grant universities 9
GROWING TOMORROW’S
Food System ORGANIC SUCCESS
I S J U S T T H E S TA R T
Clif Bar’s success as a food company starts with the success of farmers. The simple truth is that we can make more choices that empower our farmers to leave our soil, seed, water, communities, and climate better off. All our success, as human beings and for our planet, depends on what we do with these types of choices, especially when it comes to food.
10
Listening to the farmers Clif Bar relies on hundreds of farmers growing crops on tens of thousands of acres in over two dozen countries. Currently 76% of all ingredients we purchase are organic—and our goal is 80% organic or certified sustainable by 2020. But we know it’s not enough to just source organic and pay a premium for it. A true investment in a healthy, just, and sustainable food system is about more than labels and purchases; it requires a commitment to relationships—with farmers and communities, with soil and ecosystems. And like any good relationship, that requires listening. In 2018, Clif Bar listened. We met with oat farmers in Iowa, pea growers in Nebraska, and almond farmers in California. We visited our farmer-suppliers in Latin America many times, learning about their economic hopes and agronomic challenges. Each of these farmers, in their respective language, told the same story. They want what we all want— a better future. And for farmers that means healthier soil, cleaner water, higher yields, and greater financial and farm stability for their children.
Organic Proves More Profitable than Conventional Ag Organic farming was shown to be 22% more profitable than conventional in a 2015 meta-analysis of 44 academic studies by Washington State University.1
Organic created an estimated 158,000 more jobs in 2017 than would have occurred had those foods been conventionally produced.2
According to a Penn State study:3 • The increases
in income in organic farming hotspots were seven times the size of income increases
in conventional farming hotspots. • In organic
farming hotspots, the decline in poverty rates was 15 times greater than the decline in conventional farming hotspots.
Growing our legacy Clif Bar has a history of listening and taking action, and in 2018 we built on that tradition, launching new programs and expanding on past partnerships that will nurture success for future generations. With the University of Wisconsin, we established agronomic trainings in the Midwest to help farmers in our supply chain who want to transition from conventional farming to organic but need education and tools. Our new Clif Ag Fund initiated a partnership to put wind energy on farms in our supply chain, which will cut energy costs for farmers. And we continued our partnership with National Young Farmers Coalition to pass state and federal legislation that improves access to farmland for the next generation of farmers.
1 Crowder, D. and J. Reganold. 2015. “Financial competitiveness of organic agriculture on a global scale.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. June 1, 2015, doi: 10.1073/pnas. 1423674112. 2 M&R Strategic Services. “2010 Impacts of the U.S. Organic Foods Industry on the U.S. Economy,” unpublished manuscript produced for the Organic Trade Association. April 2012. 3 Marasteanu, Julia and Edward C. Jaenicke. “Economic Impact of Organic Agriculture Hotspots in the United States,” Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. February 2018.
11
Clif Bar is now the largest private funder of organic research in the U.S. Research can make a big difference. For example, the lack of seed bred to thrive in organic conditions is a major obstacle for organic farmers. Clif-funded research is now delivering dozens of new varieties that are bred specifically for organic farms. Over the past six years, Clif Bar has invested $1.5 million to fund 18 student fellowships in organic plant breeding in seven states, from North Carolina to Texas and Georgia to Washington. We also committed to raising $10 million to fund five endowed chairs in organic research at leading U.S. public universities, and two have been funded already, at the University of Wisconsin and Washington State University.
2018: A milestone year We made the choice to transition to organic in 2003, and we’ve increased our use of organic ingredients every year since. This year was a watershed marker for us— we reached 1 billion pounds of organic ingredients purchased to date. We’re honored to be a long-term partner in the coalition of farmers, farmworkers, professors, students, activists, and businesses working to grow a healthier, more just and sustainable food future.
Fight Climate Change: Organic Keeps Carbon Where It Belongs A 2017 Northeastern University study4 found that U.S. organic farms sequestered nearly 20% more organic matter in soils than conventional farms. That means more carbon is held in soils and not emitted into the atmosphere as a global-warming greenhouse gas.
Clif’s Ag Fund Helps Create $10 Million to Stabilize Farmers’ Energy Bills In 2018, the new Clif Ag Fund laid the groundwork to help finance a $10 million program to increase the economic resilience of organic farmers in our supply chain. The initial investment will provide long-term energy cost savings from on-farm wind energy for up to 80 farms in windy Midwestern states such as Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Farmers will lease a small wind turbine from United Wind, which will provide electricity at a fixed monthly rate for 20 to 30 years. Farmers won’t have to pay upfront fees or maintenance costs for the turbines. Besides lower energy costs for farmers, the installation and maintenance of the wind turbines will also create skilled jobs. Ghabbour, Elham, Tracy Misiewicz, et al. “National Comparison of the Total and Sequestered Organic Matter Contents of Conventional and Organic Farm Soils,” Advances in Agronomy. January, 2017.
4
12
1 billion pounds of organic ingredients baked into our food since 2003 Clif sourced 137,647,895 lbs. of organic in 2018— that’s about 76% of our total ingredients for the year—which brings our final number to 1,025,000,000 lbs. to date.
Eating Organic Can Decrease Dietary Exposure to Pesticides in Our Bodies Hidden in most of our diets is a vast array of agricultural pesticides, which may collectively pose serious questions for our health. A recent peer-reviewed study5 showed that eating an organic diet can immediately and dramatically reduce the level of pesticides as measured through urine samples. Friends of the Earth and U.C. Berkeley scientists tracking pesticide levels in four families found 14 agricultural chemicals (representing potentially 40 different pesticides) present in all participants. After only six days of eating an all-organic diet, detected pesticide levels dropped between 37% and 95%, or an average of 60%. The most significant drop was in a very dangerous class of pesticides, organophosphates. The results of this study suggest that choosing organic can be a powerful way to reduce our dietary exposure to pesticides—and it’s a lot better for farmers and farmworkers, too!
18 Clif product lines are certified organic or made with organic ingredients. Hyland, C., A. Bradman, R. Gerona, S. Patton, I. Zakharevich, R. Gunier, and K. Klein. 2019. Organic Diet Intervention Significantly Reduces Urinary Pesticide Levels in U.S. Children and Adults. Environmental Research.
5
13
At the Global Climate Action Summit in San Fran, Marcie, Terra, and Garett share Clif bars and some powerful ideas to Start Global Cooling.
14
how
we
R LL Who are we ... and what are we up to? We’re Clif, 1,200 employee-owners strong! At any given hour, we’re mixing ingredients, crunching numbers, meeting with Clif friends and fans at marathons, concerts, and bike-to-work days, and making food magic happen. We calculate, collaborate, estimate, laugh, brainstorm, design—and pause long enough to pet a fellow Clifster’s dog stopping by for treats. A day in the life at Clif involves serious hard work: we bake, wrap, and ship millions of bars to 19 different countries.
Clif by the numbers Almost 400 of us work at Clif’s HQ in Emeryville, California; more than 350 in our bakery in Indianapolis, Indiana; and nearly 300 more at our second bakery in Twin Falls, Idaho. But we range farther and wider: close to 100 work in satellite and home offices—in 19 states and in Canada, the Netherlands, the U.K., and Germany!
15
“I may be a little short on space (see my desk!) but this open environment has allowed me to develop the best relationships with my teammates — I wouldn’t want to work any other way.” CHRISTINE, Craft Quality and Innovation
16
Some of the best days at Clif are when the office isn’t actually in the office at all. Here we’re sponsoring Burton U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships in Vail, CO.
“How is this job different? For starters I have never had a job where you can bring your dog to work. But also knowing that you sit on the floor with managers, directors, and even VPs— and there’s no closed-office hierarchy.” TYRONE, Accounting
Inside Clif HQ in Emeryville, CA: our office isn’t an everyday office. It’s a former WWII valve manufacturing plant turned certified LEED-platinum Clif collaboratorium—and the best contributors to Clif’s unique environment are our people. 17
“I’ve been building or renovating bakeries for most of my 25-year career in the food industry. What’s unique here is we’ve built a cutting-edge bakery with an eye toward our people. It’s a healthy, green, and inviting workplace that beautifully addresses our Five Aspirations.” RICH, VP of Engineering
18
Bakeries are at the core of our business— this is where a lot of the magic happens. MIKE, Maintenance Tech; Inside and out of the award-winning Clif Bar Baking Company in Twin Falls, ID.
19
“I work for Clif Bar and everybody else here. It’s truly a family. We make a product that is good for you. It’s sustainable and we do good work. It just doesn’t get any better.” DOUG, Baking team, Indianapolis
20
Teamwork makes the dream work. At Clif we never underestimate the power of working together with one goal (or five bottom lines) in mind. Whether it’s on the road or on the production line, in the field or the office, we flex our collaborative muscles every day. (And sometimes we flex just ’cause it’s cool.) Clockwise from top left: Sierra backpacking trip with Gary and Kit; Indianapolis community garden; Kali’s employee café; Indianapolis community service; Ride Bikes, Plant Food; Idaho bakery; biking; smiles from Indy; Who says lawyers don’t laugh?
21
“I’ve been fortunate to have CLIF’s support for over 16 years now— I feel like I’ve grown up with the company! Racing for CLIF has allowed me to pursue my bike passion in events all over the world. I couldn’t imagine racing for anyone else.” KATERINA NASH, CLIF Pro Team, 5-time Olympian; dog and coffee lover
22
At Clif we’re not about following fads or jumping on the latest social bandwagon. Relationships, grassroots, and passion are at the heart of what we do. We approach business with honesty and integrity and show up each day ready to give our best. Call us old school—that’s just the way we roll. Clockwise from top left: Clifsters are always looking up; rocking on the Clif stage; puzzling over lunch; our Logistics team making ship happen; Bodhi wags 9–5 at HQ; giving back in Indy; making friends at Freecycle in London.
23
“The culture at Clif is AMAZEBALLS. Clifsters are incredibly talented and passionate about putting good energy out into the world. The opportunity to see that come to life out in the field is so inspiring.� ADRIAN, Experience Marketing
24
“We’re working to run a different kind of company: the kind of place we’d want to work, that makes the kind of food we’d like to eat, and that strives for a healthier, more sustainable world— the kind of world we’d like to pass on to our children.” KIT CRAWFORD, Owner and Co-CEO
Clockwise from left: Sharing the love at Pitchfork Music Festival; Idaho bakery; Special Olympics in Chicago; Un-trashing the Ohio River. 25
n October, employees from 16 companies converged in Ripley, Ohio, to dig, roll, and relay garbage from the shores of the Ohio, one of the nation’s most polluted rivers. The 35 volunteers were part of Clif Bar’s In Good Company® program, which brings together like-minded businesses to lend brains and brawn to nonprofit groups and projects around the country. Our group donned rubber boots and gloves to volunteer with the environmental nonprofit Living Lands & Waters (LL&W). Volunteers fanned out along a stretch of the Ohio, a 981-mile river that touches six states and transports 48 million tons of cargo (think coal, grain, and petroleum) each year; the river also serves as the drinking water source for more than 3 million people. Over the course of two weeks, Teams I and II raced to see which group could pack out more trash. We rolled refrigerators out of the scrub and worked together to excavate tires from the mud. We stumbled over bowling balls, car seats, and a message in a bottle.
Good:
growing the
Working together expands what’s possible Since Chad Pregracke founded the Illinois-based LL&W in 1998, the nonprofit has grown to become the only “industrial strength” river cleanup organization in the world. The crew lives and travels for months on end in a one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly barge covered inside and out with trash-turned-objets-d’art. They host river cleanups, watershed projects, and other key conservation efforts. In November, a month after In Good Company hauled over 56,000 pounds of trash from the river, LL&W announced it had reached a milestone: it had removed 10 million pounds of trash from U.S. rivers. Our In Good Company program brings together businesses committed to making a positive difference through hands-on action. The program grew out of Clif Bar & Company’s tradition of community service, and the certainty that collaborating can create benefits that exceed our expectations.
26
21st century archaeology—what it tells us in real time In Good Company’s volunteers got an up-close-andpersonal view of how LL&W extracted all that garbage— one compostable bagful at a time. “The first day, I filled 10 huge bags with trash from just walking around in about a 30-foot radius. I would clean up the trash from the grass I was standing on, then realize there was a second layer of garbage underneath that and a third layer below that,” said Matthew Dillon, Senior Director of Agricultural Policy and Programs at Clif Bar. “I kind of went into shock, realizing that we humans don’t know what we’re doing to the planet.”
Collaborating in Ohio 592 volunteers • 24,174 volunteer hours 54 companies • 29 projects • 8 communities from coast to coast I N G O O D CO M PA N Y S I N C E 2 0 0 8 :
27
Living in a material world “Our rivers are a mess,” acknowledges Pregracke, a CNN Hero of the Year in 2013. “Most of this trash gets in the river because of improper waste disposal, illegal dumping, and flooding. But I don’t get discouraged. Change is slow. It’s like our barge—it’s heavy and starts slow, then builds momentum. It’s taken 20 years, but change has happened.”
very hands-on way that it’s our personal responsibility, wherever we are in the world, to reduce, reuse, recycle. Especially reduce.”
Reduce, reuse, recycle—or it ends up in the water
Growing community on multiple levels
“What’s so frustrating is you have to throw out every piece of garbage multiple times,” said Val Bisharat, Community Programs Manager at Clif Bar. “You dig it out, put it in a bag, fill the bag, fill the boat, and then unload it all on the trash barge. We all understood in a
In Good Company has been changing minds and behavior for 10 years. Clif Bar launched the program in 2008 after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. We felt compelled to act—and believed if we collaborated with other community-minded businesses,
Jeannie Mong, District Director at EILEEN FISHER, was struck by all the plastic toys. “I have a 5-year-old niece,” she said, “and it’s made me think I’ll buy her fewer toys and give her more experiences instead.”
ith its unique ability to unite, heal, energize, and ignite emotions that transcend the moment, music has the power to make a significant impact on our world. The CLIF GreenNotes (CGN) program channels that power to create positive change in the areas of healthy food systems, homelessness, the environment, and health and wellness. CGN engages a network of 110 artists and over 150 vetted nonprofits, building opportunities for both to collaborate and also expand their capacities to catalyze positive change. In 2018, we focused on three areas:
W
music makes most everything better
• MATCHMAKING ARTISTS WITH NONPROFITS: Both
Land trust seeks like-minded musicians. Must love trees. CGN connected Magic Giant with the Mendocino Land Trust.
groups utilized CGN’s online system to find likeminded partners to work with, at home or while on tour. CGN also designed campaigns for the needs of specific nonprofit partners. Among the snowiest and most rocking were the Frontside Sessions tram concert series, a partnership with Rock the Vote to increase young voter registration, which took place in the air above the slopes at Snowbird.
to California’s Central Valley, planting food gardens, building straw bale homes, restoring forests, and in October 2018, excavating trash from the Ohio River.
Start upstream: 90% of ocean pollution comes from rivers According to the World Economic Forum, 90% of ocean pollution comes from rivers.6 LL&W likes to point out that if you catch it in the river, it never reaches the ocean. “All water is connected,” says Brian Lemoine, Community Programs Project Manager at Clif Bar & Company and the driving force behind In Good Company’s Ohio River project. He decided to bring his 18-month-old daughter a biodegradable gift
“We all understood in a very hands-on we could generate far-reaching benefits for local nonprofits that would welcome a hand—or even way that it’s our personal responsibility, better, many hands. EILEEN FISHER, Timberland, wherever we are in the world, to reduce, Seventh Generation, Annie’s Homegrown, and reuse, recycle.” VAL BISHARAT Numi Organic Tea signed on from the start. Soon people realized that the program was growing community in even more ways than we’d imagined: from Ohio: buckeyes. “It’s not that I’m trying to be all between companies and nonprofit partners, of course, granola about it,” he said, “but no more crap. There’s but also among hundreds of company employees, enough of it out there. After you spend two weeks nonprofit staff, and local volunteers who spent long picking up trash, you realize you don’t need those days working side by side. By the end of 2018, nearly plastic Dracula teeth.” 600 people from 54 companies had volunteered 6 with In Good Company. They’d worked on 29 differhttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-tide-10rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/ ent projects in 8 communities, from the South Bronx
• GREEN THE TOUR: All network artists have access to online resources to increase sustainability on tour, as well as to personal rider and tour analysis. In 2018 we piloted a tour-sustainability program with festival darlings Magic Giant, offsetting their carbon emissions, creating six tabling opportunities for nonprofits, and even planting 200 trees to offset album production!
• SINGING FOR CHANGE: Numerous CGN artists showed up at CLIF events around the country to inspire and motivate guests and volunteers. The Ohio Weather Band even spent three days clearing trash from the Ohio River with Living Lands & Waters and In Good Company—before performing on a (moving) barge!
Snowbird’s Hilary Arens registers voters and talks climate change before a Frontside Sessions show. Even Ron Pope’s fear of heights can’t thwart his incredible knack for singing and storytelling.
CLIF GreenNotes got around this past year, and we will use these successes as a springboard to make even more things better with music in 2019!
29
New Vineyard, New Goal: 75% Organically Farmed Grapes by 2022 Clif Family (CF) purchased a 40-acre vineyard site in Napa Valley’s Oak Knoll District Appellation so it can ensure its own diversity of grapes and farm its own certified-organic fruit. Now, through a combination of grapes from its own vineyards and grapes from like-minded growers, 75% of all grapes that come to the winery will be organic by 2022. (And CF is also working to help growers whose grapes aren’t yet certified organic to transition to organic practices.)
Clif Family Estate Cabs Receive High Accolades This year marked the release—to great acclaim— of Clif Family Winery’s 2015 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon wines, the first vintage made grape-to-bottle by winemaker Laura Barrett.
• 95 points from Wine Spectator for 2015 Croquet Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon • 94 points from Wine Spectator for 2015 Kit’s Killer Cab Cabernet Sauvignon • 93 points from Wine Spectator for 2015 Cold Springs Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon • “Eight Wines You Have to Try in 2019” from Forbes for 2015 Croquet Vineyard Cabernet
White Road Investments: A Different Kind of Investment Fund In 2018, White Road Investments celebrated eight years as an alternative investment firm funding mission-driven companies. WRI currently includes 12 companies that make everything from probiotic-rich foods and direct-to-consumer handmade tile to new ways to cook, charge, and light life off the grid. WRI recently stepped up to the investment plate, forging an alliance with a Portland-based blanket company onomatopoetically called Rumpl, which uses technical materials developed for premium active wear and outdoor gear to modernize the everyday blanket. And the worlds of WRI and Clif Bar came together with some full-circle goodness when WRI invested in Milk Stork, a breast-milk shipping service. Founded by a former Clif employee who was inspired by the challenges of business travel while breast-feeding her twins, Milk Stork supports women’s dedication to their children and careers. Finally, WRI capped off a great year with another wonderful collaboratory get together at Gary & Kit’s Croquet Property, where representatives from all of our peloton companies met for a few days to connect, collaborate, and bond. 30
Since inception in 2006
HAS AWARDED MORE THAN
2,900 grants TOTALING
$31 million TO
1,100 trailblazing nonprofits
What Goes into a Clif Bar? Family- and employee-owned Living wage at Clif bakeries
Climate-neutral business operations
•
MA
Y
P
O
RG
•
Organic ingredients (of course, no GMOs!)
Commitment to sustainable packaging
SI
E
Plant-based food
E
Living income project for farmers
TH 10 WI 0 %
D
Renewable energy
N TIVE E
Zero-waste bakeries
Community service
Investing in organic research 1% of net sales donated to doing good
Distributed by Clif Bar & Company • Emeryville, CA 94608 U.S.A. • 1-800-CLIFBAR M-F 8-5 PST • clifbar.com © 2019 Clif Bar & Company. Trademarks and registered trademarks are owned by Clif Bar & Company, or used with permission. All other trademarks and/or names are the property of their respective owners and are used for historical reference only. CBC18_1719 Printed on paper stock with 30% post-consumer waste, FSC-Certified, and processed elemental chlorine free.