green | rising

Battle of the Bees

January 7th, 2008 by Vihar Sheth | Posted in Corporations

Yesterday, I was enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon on the “Internets” and came across an article in the New York Times entitled, “Can Burt’s Bees Turn Clorox Green?“. The article traces the founding and growth of Burt’s Bees, “a niche company famous for beeswax lip balm, lotions, soaps and shampoos, as well as for its homespun packaging and feel-good, eco-friendly marketing,” and a company many of you have probably heard of. What I didn’t know was that the company was sold to Clorox two months ago.

Today, the couple’s quirky enterprise is owned by the Clorox Company, a consumer products giant best known for making bleach, which bought it for $913 million in November. Clorox plans to turn Burt’s Bees into a mainstream American brand sold in big-box stores like Wal-Mart. Along the way, Clorox executives say, they plan to learn from unusual business practices at Burt’s Bees — many centered on environmental sustainability. Clorox, the company promises, is going green.

Also fascinating is the unusual relationship of the company’s two founders, Burt Shavitz and Roxanne Quimby. For more on that, see the article.

What struck me most about the piece is the effort that companies will go through to increase their environmentally-friendly practices. Clorox might have bought Burt’s Bees as a marketing ploy (to increase their “green” image) or purely for financial gain (presumably, the niche products produced by Burt’s Bees have a higher profit margin than your standard bleach). Optimistically though, Clorox bought the company for the reason it’s stated - to become green.

Striking is the fact that Clorox, a multi-billion dollar global business, isn’t able to change from the inside out. According to Yahoo! Finance, Clorox has a market capitalization of just under $9 billion dollars and pulled in just under $5 billion in revenues last year. I’m surprised some of that money couldn’t have been dedicated to launching a green line of products or to changing all of company’s products and practices. Anywho, hopefully the transfer of information and business practices is mostly in one direction, from Burt’s Bees to Clorox.

Why?

So we can more pictures like this, which shows John Replogle, C.E.O. of Burt’s Bees, tasting the company’s avocado butter hair product. And I’m sure parents would love to know that their household product won’t kill their children.

What does the future hold?

Clorox, for one, will face plenty of skepticism. Environmentalists have long said that bleach is harmful when drained into city sewers. The disinfectant has become a stand-in for jokes about chemicals and the environment, and a new round seems to have begun this fall when the company acquired Burt’s Bees.

“Who likes Burt’s Bees now that it’s been bought by Clorox?” Alison Stewart, a host on National Public Radio, said in November. “You know, just slap some bleach on your lips, it’ll all be good.”

Clorox executives have been fighting what they call “misinformation” about bleach for years. The company says that 95 to 98 percent of its bleach breaks into salt and water and that the remaining byproduct is safe for sewer systems. And Clorox sells many products that have nothing to do with bleach — including Brita water filters, Glad trash bags and Hidden Valley salad dressings.

Still, after Clorox agreed to buy Burt’s Bees last fall, scores of customers called Burt’s Bees and accused the company of selling out. John Replogle, the chief executive of Burt’s Bees, says he personally responded to customers who left their phone numbers.

“Don’t judge Clorox as much by where they’ve been as much as where they intend to go,” Mr. Replogle says he told them.

I’m willing to heed Mr. Replogle’s advice, but with very little latitude.