Dogged Sustainability

What does it really take to make a brand eco-friendly? For Shine Pet Food, it meant sweating every CO2 molecule-and making hard, expensive decisions.

- By Liz Brody

Many brands say they want to be sustainable, but sustainability isn't just a button to push. It's a complicated series of decisions and sacrifices-and nobody knows that better than Sandra Bosben, founder and CEO of Shine Pet Food.

Bosben never intended to enter the pet business, but she also wasn't planning on getting a puppy the day she pulled into a Starbucks and saw Marty jump out of a truck full of dogs for adoption. I couldn't not take him, she says. Marty had medical issues, so Bosben consulted experts to make his food by hand. That led her to start Marty's Meals, a pet food business in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which 12 years later has evolved into Shine. It makes fresh, organic, human-grade meals, and aspires to change the pet food industry, because feeding cats and dogs creates the equivalent of 64 million tons of carbon dioxide in greenhouse gases (like methane) a year, according to UCLA research-about the same impact as driving 13.6 million cars. But cutting her carbon footprint required a lot of work...and cash.

PROBLEM 1

Where are the best farms?

Most of the pet food industry's pollutants come from raising meat. Bosben wanted to minimize that impact and the solution would affect her entire business model.

First, she wondered: Could she just not serve meat? A handful of pet brands already promote fully vegetarian diets, but Bosben thinks that's risky. Cats are obligate carnivores, she says, and per our nutritionists, dogs do best with some meat. Shine will actually bring out a few vegetarian recipes and a sustainable insect protein this year, but Bosben has also pursued a solution for meat.