Clover Sonoma dairy, which claims, “We love our cows and treat them with kindness and respect,” has littered the county with billboards declaring they are "a force for good." Their boast of being a B Corp made me begin to question what B Corporations were all about.
Ever since Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) was founded, our bank was a
B Corporation. I was very excited about the concept, as my perception of
most for-profit corporations (and even some non-profit corporations) is not
the best, and I felt that if corporations tried to do good, maybe there was
some hope.
As an organization, we have found most certifications to be unreliable, so I
am always amazed when I forget that nothing is perfect and there may be more
to something than meets the eye.
We are based in Sonoma County, where the “Happy Cows” are, and because of
this, we have launched our “Stop Animal Cruelty One Glass at a Time”
campaign.
F.E.P. Anti-Dairy Demonstration April 2019
It is here where Clover Sonoma dairy, which claims, “We love our cows and
treat them with kindness and respect,” has littered the county with
billboards.
Their boast of being a B Corp made me begin to question what B Corporations
were all about.
As a vegan of more than 30 years, I don’t see how animal agriculture could
qualify for such a certification as dairies, for example, are responsible
for separating mama cows from their babies, artificially inseminating the
cows (just like human animals, cows have to be pregnant to have milk and the
milk is actually supposed to be for their own offspring), killing and
disposing of males calves as they are “useless” to the dairy industry (just
like human animals the males do not produce milk), and of course, the
eventual killing of all of the females.
But I know how society works, and at this point, to most in society, all of
this still seems ‘acceptable.’
But how in the world could a dairy receive B Corporation status when their
criteria states certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the
highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public
transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose? B
Corps are accelerating a global culture shift to redefine success in
business and build a more inclusive and sustainable economy [https://bcorporation.net/about-b-corps].
Those who are not familiar with the environmental impacts of cows used in
the dairy industry need to understand that each cow produces 120 pounds of
wet manure per day. A dairy of 30 cows will produce 3, 600 pounds of wet
manure in a day, or more than 25,000 pounds (the weight of an armored car)
in a week, and more than 108,000 pounds in a month (a fire truck only weighs
80,000 pounds). [Where weight estimates came from:
http://www.bountyheadbebop.com/forum/index.php?topic=24.0 ]
There are no sewage treatment plants on dairies, and keep in mind that
when the manure dries, it can then pollute the air, water, and nearby
communities.
I contacted the people at “Certified B Corporation” to get some information
on what types of questions they ask companies, and because public
transparency is one of their criteria, I figured it would not be a problem
for them to share that information with me. Not so.
In fact, I couldn’t get any information out of them, and their website
itself lacked questions that were asked of the companies. Their consistent
response was that the information provided to them in order to be considered
and assessed for B Corp certification, along with the disclosure of past
conflicts and answers to questions once accepted as a B Corporation, were
all “confidential,” but I could just go ahead and take a look at their
scores. In other words, it’s supposed to be a matter of “trust,” with no
real “public transparency.”
If Clover has indeed created an incredible new program that somehow deals
with all of this waste – why wouldn’t they want to share it if they are
truly interested in the public good? And why not be open about how they
treat their workers? On a personal note, I do not think their treatment of
animals should be overlooked.
I have no doubt that some companies who have this status are trying to help
make the world a better place while they make a profit, but if this
certification is going to succeed, they need to provide more public
transparency.
F.E.P. now uses a local credit union.
Number of animals killed in the world by the fishing, meat, dairy and egg industries, since you opened this webpage.
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