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Steeped in Sustainability: Kogod Launches Speaker Series

Seth Goldman, who鈥檚 twice captured lightning in a bottle with Honest Tea and Just Ice Tea, kicked off AU鈥檚 yearlong program.

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Kogod dean David Marchick speaks with Seth Goldman, cofounder of Eat the Change and Honest Tea.

Honest Tea cofounder Seth Goldman put the tea in Kogod鈥檚 Gamechangers in Sustainability speaker series, kicking off the yearlong program on February 22.听

Cosponsored by the Sine Institute for Policy and Politics鈥攆unded by a gift to the Change Can鈥檛 Wait campaign鈥攖he initiative builds on the reputation of Kogod鈥檚 master鈥檚 in sustainability management, the school鈥檚 fastest growing graduate program. The series features eight innovative Fortune 500 CEOs, small-business founders, and investors who are making an outsized impact on sustainability.听

Dean David Marchick, who moderated the session, called Goldman 鈥渢he most successful sustainable entrepreneur in the country鈥 and the perfect gamechanger to kick off the program.听

Goldman cofounded Honest Tea in 1998; Coca-Cola bought 40 percent of the Bethesda, Maryland-based company in 2008, before purchasing the rest in 2011. Today he serves as chair of the Beyond Meat board of directors and chief change agent of snack company Eat the Change, one of two ventures he cofounded with Top Chef alumnus Spike Mendelsohn. Last September, shortly after Coca-Cola announced plans to discontinue Honest Tea, Goldman got back in the beverage business with Eat the Change鈥檚 new Just Ice Tea line.听

On Campus

Gamechangers In Sustainability: Seth Goldman

Seth Goldman is cofounder听of Eat the Change, a planet-friendly snack brand, which recently launched Just Ice Tea, a line of organic bottled tea to go along with the company鈥檚 mushroom jerky and carrot snacks.

鈥淭ea is an environmentally-friendly crop,鈥 free of harmful chemicals and tractor pollutants, Goldman said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no irrigation, no planting, and no soil tillage.鈥 Tea is harvested by hand鈥攖he top leaves are plucked from a bush, which regenerates for the next season.

Eat the Change sources its tea from Ch谩 de Magoma, situated two-thirds of a mile above sea level in northern Mozambique, where the gardens are less susceptible to the impacts of climate change than in lower-lying areas. The tea leaves are picked, dried, and bagged in the south African nation before being transported via cargo ship to manufacturing plants in California and Pennsylvania, where it鈥檚 then brewed.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the lightest carbon footprint you can make with this product,鈥 said Goldman, who was inducted into the Washington Business Hall of Fame in 2015. 鈥淲e can ship enough tea leaves in one container to take care of us for an entire quarter. It鈥檚 super-efficient.鈥澨

Just Ice Tea, which recently became Whole Food鈥檚 best-selling brand of tea, marks the second time Goldman has captured lightning in a bottle. By the end of its first year in production, Honest Tea was also the bestseller in 17 Whole Foods. At the time, the brand wasn鈥檛 sweet enough to garner a spot in more mainstream markets鈥攂ut as organic foods started appearing on their shelves, Honest Tea slowly began slurping up market share.听

鈥淲e were the best-selling tea in the natural foods industry, but we wanted to move beyond that. The mission had always been to democratize organics, not to just sell healthy food to healthy听people,鈥 he said.听

Coca-Cola continued that mission, partnering with McDonalds to offer an organic, 35-calorie Honest Kids juice box with its Happy Meals, more than 220 million of which are sold each year in the United States. Honest Kids replaced an 80-calorie juice.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 over a billion empty calories that we removed from the American diet,鈥 Goldman said, proudly. 鈥淲e need two-and-a-half Earths to feed the planet the way the United States feeds itself. We have to find ways to deliver nutrient-dense foods that are delicious and environmentally friendly.鈥

Gamechangers in Sustainability continues on Friday with Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano.