This report distills the lessons of almost a decade of work with individual companies, starting with the Environmental Defense-McDonald's Waste Reduction Task Force, established in 1991, and continuing through the Alliance's current portfolio of projects with such companies as SC Johnson, Starbucks, United Parcel Service, and Dell. To date, the Alliance has focused on the consumer products, retail, and services sectors. Work with leading companies in these areas provides maximum leverage for our work. Millions of people use the products and rely on the services of companies like SC Johnson, Starbucks, UPS, Dell, and McDonald's every day. Environmental changes made by them have beneficial repercussions throughout their supply chains.
Action taken by market leaders often leads their competitors to follow suit.
With support from the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Alliance staff formally evaluated our progress in executing these projects and in disseminating to strategically chosen larger audiences information about the environmental change we have achieved. This report is one vehicle in that dissemination process-an opportunity for us to evaluate our experience, consider strategies that have been successful in our work, and distinguish the models and guidelines that have emerged as reliable in our past projects. We consider our experiences to be only instructive guidelines, ideas to keep in mind, rather than general rules to follow in every situation. Finally, we realize that our knowledge is limited and hope that, in sharing our experience, we can create a forum for the productive discussion of experiences and insights that will help other advocacy organizations and businesses work together to maximize their environmental returns.