PCC Reveals Progress on ESG Goals in 2022 ‘Co-op Purposes Report’
PCC Community Markets has released the first part of its 2022 “Co-op Purposes Report,” which details the cooperative grocer’s progress over the past year in the areas of community, standards and environment. For the first time, PCC has divided the report into two distinct pieces. The second, due in the coming months after the completion of a financial audit, will discuss the co-op’s 2022 business performance, updates on its membership program, and insights into its compensation philosophy and structure.
This volume of the report is divided into three sections – responsible sourcing, regenerative operations and community food systems – and also features PCC’s first-ever statement of equity and inclusion.
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“In these complex times, we are rooted in the belief that good food is essential to nourishing and transforming communities, and that how we do things matters at least as much as what we do,” noted PCC CEO and President Krish Srinivasan in the report’s introduction. “We approach decisions with the values that define us as a co-op. When challenges arise, we ask what best serves PCC’s mission in the same breath that we ask what the most fiscally prudent path is.”
Among the grocer’s ESG accomplishments in 2022:
Responsible Sourcing
- Codifying all existing standards and establishing a new process for collaboration and documentation of standards compliance.
- Working with Tulalip Tribes to bring their King salmon (Chinook) into its stores as part of the PCC Chinook Sourcing Standard, which also aligns with PCC’s equity work to support suppliers and producers that are historically excluded from the marketplace.
- Launching new PCC lines, including cheeses, chocolate chips and lotions, in accordance with the co-op’s standards and commitment to honest products.
Regenerative Operations
- Embarking on a new set of five-year science-backed social and environmental goals. PCC first embarked on the five-year goal structure in 2017, which guided it toward such sustainability accomplishments as carbon-negative store operations and a 31% reduction in water use intensity.
- Exploring ways to minimize landfill waste with pilot programs to help members and shoppers recycle plastic film and cork.
- Opening a new store in downtown Seattle and relocating the Kirkland store, both of which earned Living Building Challenge (LBC) Petal Certification by the International Living Future Institute, the world’s most rigorous green building standard.
- Having two-thirds of its leadership team consist of women, including its CFO; VP, marketing and purpose; and VP information technology.
- Strengthening its justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) work by prioritizing staff training and developing a process to provide better access to job opportunities for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) and LGBTQIA+ candidates. PCC developed a three-year JEDI framework in 2022 that establishes goals and objectives for how it operationalizes the work in the areas of culture, consumer and community. The plan is currently underway.
Community Food Systems
- Raising more than $384,000 to support programs collaborating on hunger relief efforts and the preservation of healthy seas and local farmland.
- Providing more than $80,000 to protect and steward threatened farmland across Washington state.
- Investing more than $268,000 to bolster organic and sustainable food systems and healthy communities.
In April, Progressive Grocer named PCC among its 10 Most Sustainable Grocers.
Celebrating its 70th year in 2023, Seattle-based community-owned food market PCC operates 16 stores in the Puget Sound area, including the cities of Bellevue, Bothell, Burien, Edmonds, Issaquah, Kirkland, Redmond and Seattle. The Seattle stores are in the neighborhoods of Ballard, Central District, Columbia City, Downtown, Fremont, Green Lake, View Ridge and West Seattle. The co-op also plans to open a new store in Madison Valley.
