Our 1% Promise

Running a sustainable company is more than mitigating our environmental impacts. Yes, that’s critically important to us, as is the treatment of our employees, our role in the community, conducting ethical corporate governance, and ensuring a world-class supply chain code of conduct. As such, we proudly dedicate 1% of our annual net sales to like-minded organizations, industry stewardship, and mission-driven efforts that preserve and enhance the quality of life for animals, people, and the Earth.

Animals

“We believe that all animals deserve to live a good life, and therefore we have a fundamental responsibility to protect and advocate for the animals in our families and those that are born, raised, and slaughtered for our pet foods and other pet products,” says Earth Animal co-founder Susan Goldstein.

We’re committed to ensuring all of Earth’s animals have a high quality of life, so we have adopted an Animal Welfare Framework outlining our specific commitments to the humane treatment of farm animals in our supply chain. Our framework is built on the 5 domains of animal welfare in order to avoid unnecessary suffering while maintaining physical health and enabling behavioral freedom. We have put an additional emphasis on the emotional experience of the animal as a key indicator of its welfare. The framework provides a structure for us to work with our farmers and supply chain partners by examining their practices and crafting a roadmap to attain new standards of care.

Read about our Animal Welfare Framework.

Five Domains

People

The Earth Animal family is devoted to creating happy, healthy lives for animals all over the world. But we also strongly believe in the health and well-being of people and the communities we share. When we come together in love and support of one other, Earth’s animals, and the planet itself, we can nurture this vital symbiotic relationship we share for the better.

Our Family Our Communities

Earth

Our journey to finding better alternatives to animal and planet care is never ending. We're on a continuous quest to better the Earth we call home, for the animals and people who share it.

Carbon Off-Setting Flex Forward Life-Cycle Assessment Riverstone Collateral & Displays

Carbon Off-Setting

During the spring of 2020, we recognized how much traveling we do — from daily commutes to trade show travels — and the environmental impact of it all. So we set ourselves a new goal to offset our carbon impact: to create a tool for tracking our emissions throughout 2020 while reducing the impact of travel where possible. We made a commitment to offsetting our carbon impact, and we'll continue to measure our company-wide footprint and coordinate carbon neutral travel commitment through https://nori.com/, a new carbon purchasing platform seeking to reverse climate change by investing in regenerative farming.

Flex Forward

An estimated 300 million lbs of plastic pet food bags are generated each year, but 99% of that waste is not being recycled. We’re working toward a better future to reduce landfill waste and plastic released into the environment. Working together with the Pet Sustainability Coalition and Pet Food Experts Distribution, we’re proud to introduce a project we call Flex Forward - a return-to-retail flexible packaging take-back program. Any branded packaging was accepted during the pilot period, we are now in phase 2 of the project: analyzing results and determining end of life impact opportunities for the recycled plastics. We're excited to share more in the near future!

Life-Cycle Assessment

In order to know the true impact a business has on the environment, you need to track and evaluate processes from start to finish.

In 2019, we conducted a cradle-to-grave, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on our Wisdom™ Dog Food packaging to ensure we were using the most up to date data available when making packaging decisions. This assessment measured the overall environmental impacts of all of our different sized pouches, including shipping cases and pallets, and included impacts from raw material sourcing, manufacturing, shipping, and end of life disposal. We studied 3 different readily available packaging types, regardless of cost, and chose the most environmentally friendly material for all of our flexible packaging, brand wide.

We are also closely monitoring flexible packaging trends and we plan to continue to use science-based data to inform all future decisions.

Riverstone

For many years, we searched for the perfect home for our Wisdom™ Dog Food. We never did find it, so we built our own. We named her Riverstone — a beautiful facility in rural Maryland that’s designed for not only the dog food we’ve dreamed of, but also for being environmentally conscious. Now, to make her even better, we’re instituting an environmental management system to help monitor the entire output of the plant, providing checks & balances to ensure accountability for everything we do. In July 2021, Riverstone became certified to the Safe Quality Food (SQF) Edition 9 for Pet Food Safety. All aspects of the food safety program have been audited and verified to certify the rigorous food safety program requirements that support the internationally renowned benchmarking system, The Global Food Safety Initiative or GFSI.

Collateral & Displays

In our enduring efforts to protect and nurture the planet, we believe in finding new, innovative ways to package, market, and display our products. Every little bit can have a great impact, so whether it’s our reusable shopping bags made from plastic bottles, or our single-material dog food bags (designed for maximum recyclability), you’ll always find we take precious care in choosing what materials we use.

Proud ICON Member of the Pet Sustainability Coalition

The Pet Sustainability Coalition (PSC) was established in 2013 to bring brands, retailers, manufacturers, and distributors together in a collaborative effort to solve the most pressing social and environmental issues in the industry. What was once a small, grassroots organization has evolved into a global powerhouse for sustainability in the pet industry encompassing hundreds of companies world-wide. We are proud to support this organization and work with fellow members to drive real change for all animals, people, and the Earth in all corners of our lovely planet.

When the stars align between two unique companies, you take advantage and create an impactful partnership.

We are the first ICON members of the PSC
Our CMO – Stephie Volo – is the Chairperson of the Board (and also a founding member of PSC)
Two of our directors are on PSC led taskforces (Solving Plastic Packaging and Fundraising/Development)