featureftsla

FTSLA METRICS

The Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association (FTSLA) is a non-profit trade organization made up of companies engaged in the organic food trade. The organization serves its members by providing assistance, tools and education that helps members improve their sustainability performance and share their results and experiences with other members.

We began reporting FTSLA metrics in 2009, making a commitment to report annually on our results in 11 key sustainability areas. By signing FTSLA’s Declaration of Sustainability, we joined with other companies in committing to the following principles of sustainability:

1. Our companies will endeavor systematically to reduce and eventually eliminate their economic dependence on substances extracted from the earth's crust, such as heavy metals and fossil fuels.

2. Our companies will endeavor systematically to reduce and eventually eliminate their economic dependence on synthetic and bio-accumulating toxic substances produced by humans, such as fossil-fuel based plastics, synthetic pesticides/herbicides and soil amendments, manufacturing and building materials, other synthetic toxic materials as well as growth hormones and genetically modified organisms.

3. Our companies will endeavor systematically to reduce and eventually eliminate their dependence on materials and processes that degrade the 'stocks' and 'flows' of 'natural capital' such as soil, air, water, plants, habitat, etc. harvested in environmentally damaging ways and quantities.

4. Our companies will endeavor to systematically reduce and eventually eliminate their economic dependence on actions that increase inequity in the way resources are distributed. Companies must implement active approaches that guarantee all workers in our industry access to fair wages, sufficient benefits and quality work conditions.

Frontier is pleased to be a member and supporter of FTSLA. We believe that by standing together with other companies committed to organic food and sustainability principles, we have a greater impact than each of us standing alone.

The information presented here represents the 11 key sustainability areas of FTSLA that we concentrate on to drive improvement.

Organic, Land Use and Biodiversity

Our company sourcing objective is to use only sustainably sourced botanicals in our products. We define sustainably sourced botanicals as those that are certified organic, Fair Trade certified or sourced from our own Well Earth partners (only one Well Earth product is not also certified organic). We're committed to increasing the amount of sustainably sourced botanicals we purchase every year.

  2009 2010 2011
Pounds Organic Product Purchased 2,986,000 3,669,000 4,035,000
% Organic Pounds Purchased of Total 56% 55% 56%
Organic Certifier QAI QAI QAI

See Sourcing for more information on organic, Fair Trade and Well Earth sourcing.

Distribution & Sourcing

Raw materials are shipped to us through a variety of methods. Overseas products generally are shipped on containers and then by truck to us. Occasionally air freight and rail are also used. We do not track the quantities transported by various methods.

Customer orders are shipped by truck or by Federal Express, United Parcel Service or U.S. Mail. We do not track the quantities shipped by each method.

Facility Energy and Green Building

Our energy objective is to efficiently use only directly or indirectly sourced green energy.

Energy used in our facilities is natural gas (heating) and electricity (cooling, lighting). Equipment is powered by electricity except in the case of the steam sterilizer, which uses natural gas.

See Energy section under Operations for more information.

  2009 2010 2011
Total Facility Energy in BTU’s 12,437,650 13,818,942 19,318,693
BTU’s per Square Foot 71,072 76,032 67,732
BTU’s per Production Unit 578 546 672

Climate Change and Air Emissions

Frontier’s climate change objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and offset 100% of remaining direct and indirect emissions.

All Scope 1 (fuels burned on site) and Scope 2 (electricity) emissions are offset through Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) with Green E Certified RECs.

See Emissions/Climate Change section in Operations for more information.

  2009 2010 2011
Scope 1 Emissions (tons) 192 207 407
Scope 2 Emissions (tons) 1,541 1,779 2,142
Total Scope 1 & 2 Emissions 1,733 1,987 2,549
Metric tons of CO2e/square foot 0.001 0.011 0.009
Metric tons of CO2e/production unit .00008 .00008 .00009
BTU’s per Production Unit 578 546 672

Water

Our water comes from Powesheik Rural Water at our Norway plant. Our Urbana and North Liberty facilities both use city water. All waste water is handled through the waste water systems at each city. The Norway facilities parking lot is designed to capture and channel water through bioswales into a restored wetland on the property.

See Water section in Operations for more information

  2009 2010 2011
Total Annual Water Use (Gallons) 1,793,090 1,587,500 2,165,000
Gallons per square foot 10.3 8.7 7.6
Gallons per unit of production 0.08 0.06 0.08

 

Solid Waste Reduction

Our resource use and waste objective is to achieve zero waste sent to landfill and to maximize the efficient use of materials.

We revamped our waste system last year and expect to significantly be able to reduce both the tonnage and percent of waste going to landfill this year. Our goal is to reduce it from 32% to 25%. We are unable to find an efficient method for tracking all of the materials we reuse, which includes cardboard boxes in shipping, pallets in warehousing and drums in processing. If we were able to track this, it would increase our total waste, but reduce the percentage going to landfill.

See Waste section in Operations for more information.

  2009 2010 2011
Total Waste (tons) 508 496 560
Percent land filled 32.1 32.3 32.3
Percent Composted 5.1 0.4 0.01
Percent Recycled 62.7 67.3 67.6
Percent Reused NA NA NA
Total tons waste per square foot 0.0029 0.0027 0.0020
Total tons waste per production unit 0.00002 0.00002 0.00002

 

Packaging & Marketing Materials

Our packaging objective is to efficiently use only packaging and packing materials and made with a high percentage of renewable materials.

Our information is incomplete and so metrics in this area cannot be calculated at this time. We have created a database for packaging materials on our main computer system linked to usage and purchase data. We are populating this database and expect to have the data needed to report packaging metrics later this year.

See Packaging and Packing Materials section in Products & Packaging for more information.

Labor

Our employee health and well-being objective is to provide a safe working environment, opportunities for growth and development, and a high rate of employee satisfaction.

See Employees for more information.

  2009 2010 2011
Total Employees 281 327 338
Percent Women in Workforce 71 73 69
OIR 3.57 4.32 2.99
Recordable Incidents 8 12 0
Employee hours training Not tracked Not tracked Not tracked

 

We address working conditions at source through our purchases of Fair Trade botanicals and our own Well Earth ethical sourcing program. Our Well Earth program standards address issues of working conditions and fair labor practices. Each Well Earth supplier is visited and inspected at least once before being accepted into the program and on-going visits are made at least every few years.

Our goal for next year is to purchase 25% of all botanical pounds from Well Earth partners. While there is no specific goal related to Fair Trade growth, we continue to add to our line of Fair products as sources for these become available.

See Sourcing for more information.

  2009 2010 2011
Percent Pounds Purchased Fair Trade 3.5 5.7 6.2
Percent Pounds Purchased Well Earth 9.1 15 20

Animal Care

Not applicable.

Consumer Education

Internal — We use a weekly column in our company newsletter, Green Matters, to communicate a variety of information about sustainability, including goals, projects and results of our sustainability program as well as sustainability tips for home. Other communicating and training is done at orientation for new employees and through supervisors. There is no formal sustainability training program for employees at this time.

External — We use company vehicles such as our newsletters, website and social media platforms to share sustainability information. Our most significant stakeholder communication on sustainability is this annual Sustainability Report, which is on both our wholesale and retail websites where it can be easily accessed.

See Customer Communication section in Customers for more information about our external communications.

Governance & Community

Our community objective is to have a positive impact on the communities where we do business

One way we do that is through our social giving program. Our goal is to spend at least 3.5 to 4% of pretax income. We have three main funds we draw upon, the Frontier Foundation, the SO1% fund and the AC1% fund. We also budget some monies for other giving that do not fall under these areas such as our community giving team donations that are spent in our employee communities. And we have a company charitable giving employee match program and paid time for volunteer work policy.

See Community for more information.

  2009 2010 2011
Total Donation Dollars 173,575 236,142 208,630
Donations as percent of net pre-tax income 3.2 4.7 6.4

 

See Community Background for information about our governance, including our board of directors and ownership structure.

Frontier’s sustainability report is prepared by Kathy Larson, Frontier's Vice President of Sustainability. The reporting years represent the end of our fiscal year which is July 1 through June 20. Data is collected directly from a number of departments. A staff accountant also assists in the collection and organization of much of the data collected for this report. Over the last year, we have increased the role of the accountant and systematized more of the data gathering, a process that we will complete next year.

Management of the sustainability program is done by the VP of Sustainability who reports directly to the CEO. Sustainability results are reported to the Board of Directors as well as the rest of the company and the public through the publishing of this report.

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Frontier is pleased to be a member and supporter of FTSLA. We believe that by standing together with other companies committed to organic food and sustainability principles, we have a greater impact than each of us standing alone.