Growth and sustainability is a great question. Can a company get bigger because they do more good, and do more good because they get bigger?

Please forgive the plug, but a great book of case studies and findings on the challenge of growing mission based business came out last year: Getting to Scale: Growing your Business without Selling Out by Jill Bamburg. Ms Bamburg is Dean of the MBA in Sustainable Business program at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Her book tells the story of several mission based companies that faced the growth challenge and offers key findings and conclusions.

A lot of what she found says that companies that incorporated a process driven approach to sustainability rather than an ad-hoc personality driven approach have a better chance of holding on to their values (and perhaps their value) over time. Her words are that a business has to incorporate sustainability into the core of it's brand. That’s not to say into the core of it's advertising - but rather the core of it's business decision process.

She offers good fuel to the conversation...

Kevin Hagen
Director Corporate Social Responsibility
REI

Thanks for the comment, Kevin -- and here's a link to Jill's book: http://www.greenbiz.com/resources/resource/getting-scale-growing-your-business-without-selling-out.

I think your point (and Jill's) is right on, that customers are increasingly looking for signs that a company is greenwashing, isn't living up to its green claims or goals, and as a result commitment to green goals is essential to success.

But something I'm always curious to know about is how does a company that hasn't been founded on sustainability or environmental stewardship make that shift. Instead of making your green company bigger and staying green (which is undoubtedly important), how can a company with non-green roots make that shift?

Any other readers out there have thoughts or experiences about evolving a company toward sustainability?

-Matthew Wheeland (GreenBiz managing editor / self-appointed discussion-starter)

its refreshing(no pun intended) to read about Seth's socially responsible way of developing his company. I too share these values while developing SUNPAID. Keep up the good fight!

I'd like to know more about how much control Mr. Goldman has over the future operation of Honest Tea under Coke. I know that when Ben & Jerry sold their company (to Unilever I think?) they were able to stipulate that the B&J ice cream company would always follow 3 rules (which escape me and a cursory Google search at the moment). In negotiating a buy out, can a small company try to guarantee that its way of operating 'sustainably' is meaningfully guaranteed for perpetuity?

I think Honest Tea and Coca Cola made a smart business decision. The easiest way for a Fortune 500 company to enter the "green marketing channel" is to buy an existing business that has an established brand and established distribution channel --while keeping it as a separate company.

Any large business that tries to build a brand under its own corporate umbrella will encounter a great deal of resistance from the "green consumer" -- who is always on the lookout for green washing, whether it is valid or not. Large companies are also at a disadvantage in that many consumers will look for an ulterior motive-so it a a no-win situation for the Fortune 500 firms, so the Honest Tea and Burt Bees examples seem to be the business model that will continue--posing a great opportunity for smaller eco-brands to look for partnerships, investors and buyers.