Consumo de alimentos

An overview of the organisations that took part in the study along with a high level description of their area of operation is provided in Table 4.2. By referring to this table and Table 4.3 below it is seen that one of the organisations interviewed is a

Table 4.2: Organisations Interviewed

Organisation Name/Code Organisation Name/Code

1. Pillars of Hercules

(Organic food producer and retailer) 2.(Producer of plant fertilisers from waste)TerraCycle 3. biome lifestyle

(Online retailer of home wares) 4.(Producer of Fast Moving Consumer Goods)Company A 5. Beyond Skin

(Online retailer of shoes) 6.(Producer/Retailer of clothes)howies 7. Company B

(Producer and retailer of business and consumer services)

8. Green Stationery Company (Producer/Retailer of consumer and business Stationery)

9. Recycline

(Producer and Retailer of Consumer Durables)

10. revolve

(Producer/Retailer of consumer and business stationery and gifts) 11. Green Building Store

(Producer/retailer of Building Goods/Services)

12. Terra Plana

(Producer/Retailer of shoes) 13. seventh GENERATION

(Producer of Business and Consumer Cleaning Products)

14. By Nature

(Online retailer of natural products and services)

15. Ecover

(Producer of Business and Consumer Cleaning Products)

16. Belu

(Producer of bottled water) 17. Company C

(Producer/Retailer of Business and Consumer Cleaning Products)

18. Company D

(Producer/Retailer of Financial Products) 19. People Tree

(Producer of Clothes) 20. BioRegional(Sustainability focused charity and creator of spin-off companies)

21. Triodos Bank

(Financial Services to Businesses and Consumers)

22. Suma

(Producer/Wholesales of Food) 23. Company E

charity. The charity interviewed is BioRegional and it develops

environmental

technologies, products and services that it ultimately spins out as separate for profit organisations. Hence, although it might

be unexpected that a charity forms part of the research sample, BioRegional was included as it was thought that they would have a perspective upon the demands placed on environmental organisations and their genesis that would be useful to incorporate into the study. By referring to Table 4.3 it can also be seen that three organisations are a partially or wholly owned by or a subsidiary of a quoted parent.

The partially or wholly owned subsidiary of a quoted company ownership status is pertinent to the research question focused upon rejecting (or not) quoted status (research question five). It was and is intentional to have some organisations in the sample that are partially or wholly owned by a quoted parent. The three

organisations that agreed to take part in the study that fit this criteria are; Company A, howies and Ecover. These three organisations all started out as private

companies and were

subsequently taken over by or received significant investment from a quoted parent company in exchange for an ownership share. The perspectives of these three organisations are of

interest as they provide a useful reflection point relative to the non quoted

organisations’ answers regarding quoted status, as well as, along with BioRegional, adding a breadth of views into this exploratory study.

As well as variations in ownership structure, the organisations interviewed were also of varying sizes regarding staff numbers and turnover. As is seen in Table 4.4 the organisations varied in terms of staff numbers, with the majority (seventeen) having

Table 4.4: Broad Staff Numbers

Staff Number Categories Count

1-10 6

10-50 11

50-100 3

100-200 3

Total 23

Table 4.3: Broad Ownership Categories

Broad Ownership Categories Count

Private (Limited) 17

Partially or Wholly Own Subsidiary of

Quoted Company 3

Co-Operative 1

Mutual 1

Charity 1

less than 50 employees. With regard to monetary turnover this information is not freely available for many of the organisations. However, to provide some

understanding of this characteristic, at the time of the interviews, one organisation had a turnover that was c£60m per annum, five had a turnover in the tens of millions of pounds per annum, eleven had a turnover in the order of single digit millions and six had a

turnover of less than a million pounds per annum.

The roles of the

individuals interviewed are outlined in Table 4.5. As is seen the interviews

were with senior individuals in the organisations. This was a desired outcome given that, as explained in chapter three, senior individuals’ views can be argued to be representative of their organisations. All of the founders interviewed were in operational control of their organisations and many had a title of managing director or chief executive. However this has not been captured separately in Table 4.5 and founders have only been counted once. Thus the three managing directors and or chief executive officers interviewed operate in those roles for the organisations they work for but they are not the founders of those organisations.76 _{It is also seen in} Table 4.5 that a total of 25 individuals were interviewed. This is because at two of the interviews two individuals were present. One interview had two co-founders present and the other had a founder and co-worker present. Also of note regarding Table 4.5 is that one individual interviewed had the title of ‘Director of Corporate Consciousness.’ This is an unusual organisational role in any context. The individual with this role explained it is as being one where their purpose is to ensure that the organisation not only remains true to its principles but also develops new modes of thinking. Specifically, the individual mentioned a desire for the organisation to move away from linear thinking. This role is grouped with the concept manager, as the

76_{The role of ‘member’ is used for the individual interviewed who represented the co-operative. The co-} operative did not recognise formal titles, hence ‘member’ was agreed with the interviewee as being appropriate nomenclature.

Table 4.5: Roles Interviewed

Role Number

Founder/Co-Founder 14

Managing Director/CEO 3

Executive Director - Operations 1

Commercial/Marketing/General Manager 3

Member/Co-worker 2

Director of Corporate Consciousness /Concept Manager

2

individual that had this role explained their role in their organisation in a similar manner.77

As is commensurate with the exploratory aspect to this study, the interview sample as a whole is relatively broad in terms of ownership structure and size. Further as per the targeting, senior individuals were interviewed. It is perhaps self-evident that this sample is not representative of a broader population, as it contains beneath it purposeful assumptions on behalf of the researcher regarding whether the

organisation could inform the research questions. As such the generalizability of the findings beyond the confines of the sample is limited, in so much as not all

organisations with an environmental orientated mission could be assumed to produce similar results. Nevertheless, the organisations interviewed do operate within a capitalist economy and the results do offer a broader commentary on the range of operating maxims that are viable in such an economy, than might be offered in conventional business texts (Collison, 2003).

Prior to outlining the process of analysing the interview data a question worthy of consideration is: why limit the sample to 23 organisations? After conducting 23 interviews via discussion it was concluded that data saturation had been reached, a point reinforced by the interview conducted in January, where it became clear that little further could be gained from conducting interviews at that stage and the time was right to begin analysis.

77_{One other attribute of the sample not highlighted is the split between male and female interviewees. In} total five of the interviewees were female.