Kickstart: Making a business case for sustainability with Hot Pockets

Efforts to create business environments that are more environmentally friendly and sustainable aren't going to go away, despite current pushbacks from some critics, for one simple reason: They pay off.

"Leading companies know how important it is to embrace this movement because it's what their consumers and what their customers, whether they're businesses or individuals, are demanding," says Baiju Shah, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. "And for all companies, it's becoming more and more of a competitive advantage."

Our sister paper Crain's Cleveland Business writes that the comments from Shah and other executives at the 2025 Sustainability Summit in Cleveland noted that more sustainable manufacturing means lower costs by embracing solar, wind and other renewable energy.

Reducing unneeded packaging also saves cash, and that's a message that goes beyond plastics. Food brand Nestle saved about 5 million pounds of cardboard waste by removing the "crisper sleeve" from its Hot Pockets snack packaging after more than 30 years, Crain's Cleveland writes.

"We changed the crust, and we removed this very simple little piece of cardboard," said Adam Graves, Nestle's president of pizza and snacking. "Five million pounds of cardboard is saved by removing this small thing, that scales to a big thing."

Now that shoppers have gotten used to bringing their own bags, upscale grocery store chain Whole Foods Market is getting rid of its 10-cent discount for consumers who had their own.

Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon, began the bag credit program in 2008 to encourage shoppers to bring their own. Now that BYOB is commonplace, the company says it has achieved its goal and it's time to end the reward, although it still encourages the practice, WGN reports.

Whole Foods was the first chain to eliminate plastic bags at checkout. During the past 17 years, other chains have replicated Whole Foods' move at their stores while municipalities and states have enacted restrictions on single-use bags, the website Grocery Dive notes.

Color supplier Riverdale Global is getting down to the roots of ways to improve the environment as the Aston, Pa.-based company partners with the CRC Watersheds Association to improve conditions along three creeks that empty into the Delaware River: the Chester, Ridley and Crum.

The project will include a sponsorship for tree planting, participation in the CRC's annual streams cleanup project on March 29 by Riverdale employees and their families, and an "adopt-a-site" volunteer project in April.

The CRC district covers more than 132 square miles in southeastern Pennsylvania.

"This partnership with CRC will expand on Riverdale Global's commitment to the environment," the company said in a news release.