2021
ALL-ONE!
REPORT
TAKING CARE OF each other
FOR WE ARE ALL-ONE OR NONE! All-one!
NOTE FROM GRANDSONS
SO MUCH TRAUMA & SUFFERING IN 2020
HOW CAN DR. BRONNER’S HELP HEAL? →
As we reflect upon an unprecedented year, the overarching mandate for 2020 at Dr. Bronner's was to "take care." In the face of a deadly pandemic, the inclination to approach every moment with care became second nature. Our first responsibility was to prioritize the health and wellbeing of our employees and our broader community. This went hand in hand with our unique role as a manufacturer of essential hygiene products.
The uprisings that were sparked by the police murder of George Floyd led to a deep examination of the legacy of systemic racism, by individuals and organizations alike—here at Dr. Bronner’s too. At the heart of this newfound reflection and commitment to action was, again, care.
Despite measurable progress on specific issues, last year was still characterized by loss, trauma, and widening economic inequality. In 2020, over 500,000 lives were lost to Covid-19 in the U.S., and the total wealth of the world's richest increased by more than $5 trillion, while the number of families living below the poverty line rose by 15 million people.
This outrageous inequality is why our executives continue to make no more than five times our lowest-paid, fully-vested employees. In a banner year when company revenue grew more than 43%, instead of dishing out distributions to executives, we gave each employee a “Covid bump” at the end of the year of an additional $5,000 to their performance bonus. We also donated 45% of company profits, for a total of over $15 million, to charitable and activist causes we care so deeply about. In particular, 2020 was a breakthrough year for psychedelic and drug policy reform.
The events of the last year allowed us to see our people-first business practices as a roadmap for resilience. What follows is our look back at how Dr. Bronner’s enacted our All-One! mission during our most challenging year yet.
We want to express our sincerest thanks to our customers, employees, and business partners, as well as everyone fighting for a better, more caring, and more just world for all.
—David and Michael Bronner
July 2021
FACING COVID
PROTECTING WORKER HEALTH
SCALING SUPPLY CHAIN & DONATIONS →
O U R A L L - O N E V I S I O N P E R S I S T E D—even as it was tested by a global pandemic. Our first priority was the health and wellbeing of our employees. That’s why a nurse was brought on site, Covid tests were administered every Monday, and extra sick days were given to employees—who were encouraged to use them even if it were to care for an ill loved one. And that’s why onsite employees were given an extra $100 a week for appreciation pay. Because soap and hand sanitizer are essential to help keep Covid-19 from spreading, it was also critical for us to continue manufacturing our product through surges, lockdowns, and ongoing uncertainty. We also wanted to support those most at-risk, in line with our All-One mission. So we committed to donating 4% of our total hand sanitizer production to nonprofit organizations, such as ones serving unhoused and homebound senior citizens. And we donated to emergency service agencies and first responders who early in the pandemic lacked access to essential hygiene supplies. In all, we gave away more than 100,000 units of sanitizer and an equal amount of soap last year. Read more about our "Covid-19 Mutual Aid Program" →
BLACK LIVES MATTER
CONFRONTING & FIGHTING RACISM
OWNING OUR RESPONSIBILITY →
T H E P O L I C E M U R D E R O F G E O R G E F L O Y D and the protests that followed brought about a renewed reckoning with the deep systemic racism and ongoing trauma that Black people face in this country.
“All-One!” is the central message on our labels—the idea that all living beings are connected and deserving of respect, dignity, and justice, as well as secure livelihoods and economic and educational opportunities, no matter their ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.
“All-One!” means Black Lives Matter!
We are committed to doing what we can to help end systemic racism and white supremacy everywhere. Starting with ourselves, we’re examining our own behavior and implicit biases—and we’ve adopted ambitious Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) goals. We empowered Black leaders within our company to convene a DEI working group, who led the charge on conducting an internal audit, and have started implementing changes to our policies and practices. We also committed $1M over 10 years to the Movement for Black Lives. We have much work to do, and are humbled to be on this path.
JANUARY Dr. Bronner’s Australia supports relief efforts in response to devastating fires in Australia. Donated funds support the Organic Farmers Bushfire Appeal and the Goongerah Wombat Orphanage. FEBRUARY David Bronner speaks at press conference in Portland, Oregon, to announce the expansion of the regenerative organic Sun+Earth standard to cannabis farms and brands in Oregon. | Dr. Bronner’s participates in the B Corp Climate Collective leadership summit and calls for B Corps to center climate justice in their advocacy for climate action and climate policy. Climate justice becomes the focus of the B Corp community’s climate work. MARCH Dr. Bronner’s backs Green New Deal. | Dr. Bronner’s launches COVID-19 product donation program to help meet community need for essential hygiene supplies in response to pandemic. APRIL Dr. Bronner’s hosts a week of employee programming for Earth Month, including encouraging all employees to register to vote and learn from the Environmental Voter Project why voting is an act of environmental activism. MAY Dr. Bronner’s supports supplier Pavitramenthe in initiative to provide COVID-19 relief for neighboring villages in India. | Dr. Bronner’s participates in “LEAD on Climate” federal policy advocacy day with hundreds of other businesses, meeting with multiple congressional offices about regenerative organic agriculture, reducing plastic waste, and other climate priorities. JUNE Dr. Bronner’s stands in solidarity with protests against police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—pledges $1 million over 10 years to the Movement for Black Lives. DECEMBER Dr. Bronner’s All-One International donation program completes its second year and expands its support of advocacy and activism from 2 international markets to a total of 12.| Dr. Bronner’s releases statement in support of the MORE Act. |
ALL-ONE
ALL-AROUND!
all-one activism now international
FOR WE ARE ALL-ONE OR NONE! →
W E G R E W O U R A L L - O N E I N T E R N A T I O N A L I N I T I A T I V E to 12 countries: Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Ireland, Israel, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Panama, United Kingdom, and Taiwan. The program dedicates 1% of international sales from the year prior to organizations advancing social justice, environmental sustainability, and animal rights and ensures that localized mission-aligned brand activism is a major priority for Dr. Bronner's and our local distributors in markets the company sells in around the world. Global mission, local impact! We gave away $266,000 under this initiative in 2020 and plan to donate an estimated $300,000 in 2021 while expanding to Indonesia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, and The Netherlands.
MORE THAN A NUMBER
UNITING PEOPLE & PLANET:
B IMPACT SCORE SHOWS PROGRESS →
D R . B R O N N E R ’ S I S M O R E than a number—we celebrate the Human Spirit using the gift of soapmaking to create love-unity-care in the world! But the B Impact Score is a tool to meaningfully measure the movement of that Spirit in business impact terms. In 2020, our B Impact Score was 178, 2nd highest of any company in the world. What does that mean? We're doing some things right, but there's more work to do! Always!
GETTING TO ZERO
ON OUR WAY TO LANDFILL-FREE MANUFACTURING
IMITATING NATURE – NO WASTE! →
D R . B R O N N E R ’ S W O N the Zero Waste Hero Award this year from Zero Waste USA, but we’re not celebrating yet. The award acknowledges our team-based commitment to Zero Waste. We’re committed but have farther to go. In 2020 our landfill waste as a percentage of total waste actually increased, largely due to new processes using diatomaceous earth as a natural & nontoxic wastewater treatment solution—it’s heavy and we haven’t found an outlet for it yet, along with a few other hard-to-divert materials. But we’re confident that through hard work & tenacity we’ll find a solution!
&!#%! plastic
100% POST-CONSUMER RECYCLED NOT ENOUGH
FIRST MITIGATE – THEN ELIMINATE! →
D R . B R O N N E R ’ S P R O U D L Y P I O N E E R E D the use of 100% post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic bottles for personal care products more than 15 years ago. In 2020, the biggest complaint our customers had about our products was their plastic packaging. We agree, and we’re working on it. Our long-term vision is a Dr. Bronner's without single-use plastic, but we have a lot of work to do before we can get there. It's no small task to switch over and get heavy, mostly liquid, personal care and cleaning products to consumers around the world in a safe, durable, functional and environmentally gentle way. So we have a multi-pronged approach to minimizing and mitigating the impacts of our plastic use in the near-term, as well as innovating and collaborating to find alternatives for the long term. Read more about how we're addressing our plastic use here →
HONOR THY WORLD
BUILDING ETHICAL SUPPLY CHAINS
NEW BOOK SHARES OUR JOURNEY →
W E ' R E O N L Y A S G O O D A S O U R S U P P L Y C H A I N S . The soul of Dr. Bronner’s will always be ethical, humane, and trustworthy supply of our major agricultural raw materials. Regenerative Organic and Fair for Life certification means stability and meaningful living standards for the small-scale farmers and workers who provide our ingredients. It means farmers care for their land using soil-nurturing, carbon-sequestering regenerative organic practices, not synthetic poisons.
Our commitment to ethical supply chains is documented by our VP of Special Operations in the new book HONOR THY LABEL: Dr. Bronner’s Unconventional Journey to a Clean, Green, and Ethical Supply Chain—published by Portfolio Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
SHARing BREAD
2020 FAIR TRADE FUNDS = $1.1M
it feels good to give! →
D R . B R O N N E R ’ S P R O V I D E D $1.1 million to the various fair trade funds involved with our supply chains, that funded numerous social community projects in 2020—school buildings, books and uniforms, scholarships, computer classes, building wells and toilets, solar lights and agricultural tools, farmer compost training, drought relief, medical camps in rural villages, kids’ football classes, distribution of earthworms to farmers to produce compost, and the distribution of reusable menstrual pads in rural India—projects that were all initiated and prioritized by our farming community partners. We want to thank our customers for supporting such impactful initiatives that improve the lives and livelihoods of our fair trade farming communities around the world.
R.O.C. ON!
REGENERATIVE ORGANIC CERTIFIED™
FOR SOIL, WORKER & ANIMAL HEALTH! →
W H Y A S A S O A P C O M P A N Y do we go on so much about Regenerative Organic farming? Simply put, caring about how our ingredients are grown and taking care of the people who grow them are two of the most important ways we live our All-One values. Regenerative Organic prioritizes soil health, human rights, and animal wellbeing. Dr. Bronner’s is doing everything we can to encourage the adoption of ROC farming standards by other companies.
As part of our regenerative commitment, Dr. Bronner's sister companies and close allies in Sri Lanka, Ghana and Samoa added 300+ new acres of mixed dynamic agroforestry in 2020. We also supplied about 20,000 metric tons of subsidized compost to the 2,000 Indian smallholders who grow the mint oil we use. More and more of these farmers practice conservation tillage and plant cover crops, which contributes to improving soil fertility and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
bootcamp for change makers
HOW NONPROFITS CAN LEVERAGE ASSETS
WE CALL IT “CONSTRUCTIVE CAPITAL” →
H O W C A N W E C E L E B R A T E T H E S U C C E S S of Dr. Bronner’s—or any business, when others in the world still struggle? In a connected world, the only real prosperity is shared prosperity, which is why we spend so much of our energy and resources to help create a just and ethical global economy that supports life and living systems.
In 2020, we produced our first-ever “Constructive Capital Bootcamp”—for nonprofit leaders to consider how financial capital and human, spiritual, and community resources can be used in service to create a healthier, more positive future for all of us. Forty-three nonprofit leaders participated and learned from global experts in a variety of subjects like financial management, fundraising, nonprofit leadership, and strategic planning. We also provided consulting grants to sixteen nonprofit organizations and their leadership teams, who received a generous block of one-on-one time with our expert trainers. It takes a lot more than financial resources to change the world—that’s why we give so much more than money! And that’s constructive capital in action. All-One!
