How The Purpose Pledge Is Redefining Business Ethics In The Trump Era

A new coalition of food and wellness companies is looking to redefine business ethics in the Trump era. Called The Purpose Pledge, these companies are creating a community of practice based on economic fairness, environmental sustainability, and independent governance. As major food and beverage conglomerates are beating a hasty retreat from their previous ESG, sustainability and DEI commitments, The Purpose Pledge is pointing a new way forward.

The Purpose Pledge was initiated in 2022 by Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, worker cooperative consultancy LIFT Economy, and the nonprofit organization One Step Closer. “The Purpose Pledge is a call for meaningful action. We’re inviting the world’s most exceptional purpose-driven companies to challenge themselves and each other to take even bigger steps forward. I believe that this effort can be a global beacon for change in how business is done,” said Lara Dickinson, co-founder and Executive Director of One Step Closer.

The ten Purpose Pledge commitments include product quality, independent governance, supply chain integrity, fair and balanced compensation, living wages, inclusion, community engagement, climate positivity, circularity for zero waste and capability building. Participating pilot companies include Dr. Bronner’s, Gaia Herbs, Guayakí Yerba Mate, Kuli Kuli, Lundberg Family Farms, Mountain Rose Herbs, MUD\WTR, Nature’s Path Organic Foods, Numi Tea, Organically Grown Company, Pachamama Coffee Farmers, Philosopher Foods, SIMPLi, and Wildway.

“It’s about transparency. Consumers will be able to go to the website and look up a company to see how they are progressing with their commitments.” The companies, many of which already are Certified Organic, Non-GMO, fair labor or regeneratively grown, are building a “community that fosters collaboration and shared accountability around… how we define what it means to be an authentic, purpose-led business.”

The Pledge grew out of a shared frustration over greenwashing in the food industry. Pledge participants see it as complimentary to B Corp certification, which has come under fire for allowing companies with significant ethical and environmental issues to carry the same label as much higher performing brands. The Pledge also runs counter to widespread DEI and ESG backsliding by major food and retail companies in the early days of the second Trump presidency. David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s, noted, “There’s that tendency to go along to get along — to kiss the ring of power… administrations come and go. We’ll ride this moment out.”

And by requiring progress on living wages, compensation and governance, The Purpose Pledge prioritizes workers that companies rely on, but typically take advantage of.

At least half of the ten lowest-paid jobs in the US are in the food industry, which is the largest employer in the United States. According to the Food Chain Workers Alliance, compared to workers in other industries, frontline food industry personnel are 68% more likely to live below the poverty line and continue to be among the lowest paid workers in the U.S., earning a median income of $28,000 per year. Eighty-six percent of food workers surveyed earn poverty wages and only 13.5 percent make a living wage. Women in the food industry earn 66% of what men are paid and frontline food workers are more likely to be women of color, people of color, and immigrants than the general workforce. Food workers are also more likely to be food insecure than their peers in any other industry. In 2022, frontline food workers were 93% more likely to be food insecure, and food workers were 60% more likely to rely on SNAP.

The food industry is just a microcosm of the economic inequality and desperation that the Biden/Harris Administration failed to mitigate and enabled the Trump campaign to cruise to victory. Declining real wages and the increased cost of living has put enormous pressures on working people. About one in three Americans say they’re struggling to afford their usual expenses and more Americans are having difficulty paying bills.

Over one in three Black adults and nearly two in five Hispanic adults were food insecure in 2023, and over 47 million people lived in households experiencing food insecurity, an increase of 13.5 million compared to 2021. Poverty is up 65% since 2021, child poverty has tripled and 67% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. If wages had kept pace with productivity since 1975, Americans would have a $24 an hour minimum wage, and would have earned nearly $50 trillion in additional income, or over $2.5 Trillion annually. While some states have increased their minimum wages through ballot measures, the federal minimum wage sits at $7.25, and hasn’t increased since 2009.

Meanwhile, the average cost of a loaf of white bread has increased from $1.38 to $1.94 since 2020, a change of over 40 percent, while beef, eggs, and many processed consumer goods have gone up even more. All in all, grocery prices have climbed over 30% in the past five years, driven largely by outsized profits from consolidation throughout the supply chain. So while they pander to the Trump Administration by cancelling DEI and ESG promises, the largest food and retail companies are benefiting from the crisis.

A study by the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank found that corporate profits drove half of the price increases in 2021 alone. Consumer packaged goods companies in particular saw record profits, coasting off higher input costs, media hysteria over supply chain crunches, smaller pack sizes and lower unit volumes. Walmart captured 30% of SNAP shoppers’ grocery dollars and over 94% of SNAP recipients said they shopped at Walmart. Walmart and McDonald’s have the most employees using SNAP, and 70 percent of SNAP recipients worked full-time every week, their benefits barely lasting two weeks into the month.

The major economic gains of the Covid-19 pandemic were concentrated among the top 1% of earners, particularly the top 0.1%, including Walmart’s Walton family who saw their net worth skyrocket by tens of billions of dollars. On average, CEOs make 399 times what their workers earn, but this ratio is dwarfed by leading food companies such as Coca-Cola (1,883 times), McDonald’s (1,224), Walmart (933), and Kroger (671).

These are the structural economic issues that The Purpose Pledge community is up against.

It is why this movement of brands is prioritizing living wages, fair compensation and independent governance in their business models. But like the employee owned enterprises, unionized companies, and consumer and worker cooperatives that have tried to do likewise, they must still grow and turn profits to survive in a competitive marketplace. What then may be just as compelling to The Purpose Pledge is that study after study shows that consumers continue to gravitate to companies leading with strong values, fairness and sustainability. It is not altruism, but a new set of business ethics.

In an era when the largest food companies are tripping over themselves to win the race to the bottom, a small group of like-minded businesses is instead stepping up. Their success will show that despite heavy competition in the marketplace and reactionary pressures from the current administration, food brands can still do better by doing better. So while today The Purpose Pledge may seem ambitious and even aspirational, someday it may just be brass tacks, just a humble baseline for doing business in the United States and beyond.