The story of how Sandra Noonan landed her job as chief sustainability officer for the fast-casual restaurant company Just Salad offers a vivid illustration of the appeal of net zero for a growing number of consumers — and the mindshare companies can claim by being transparent about the details of their journey.

Noonan, a former marketing professional who began her own personal net-zero journey in 2019, was drawn into the restaurant by its reusable bowl program — for $1, patrons can buy a polypropylene container that lasts for more than 100 uses. Those using the bowls receive a free topping as a thank-you for helping Just Salad reduce its single-use packaging, and the initiative will be expanded to digital orders in 2022. Noonan relates that she started carrying her bowl pretty much everywhere, That "love affair" inspired her to join the company, which runs 47 locations in the U.S and Dubai, in September 2019.

That program doesn’t cost the company anything extra, but it’s helping the restaurant move closer to a net-zero operating stance — even though the company hasn’t actually declared a specific net-zero commitment.

With that in mind, here are some themes (in no particular order) that emerged during two VERGE Net Zero breakout sessions last week: "Restructure Your Business to Reach Net Zero” and “Native Net Zero: Integrating Emissions Goals Into Products."

  1. Make net-zero central to corporate governance
  2. Invest in top-down and bottom-up engagement
  3. Bake net-zero into R&D priorities, and share

Read the full article about embracing net-zero efforts at organizations by Heather Clancy at GreenBiz.