Pet Industry Sustainability Coalition | United States

Organization overview

The Pet Industry Sustainability Coalition (PISC) is a non-profit organization that launched in 2013 with the mission to accelerate environmental and social sustainability for the pet sector. Their goal is to support a thriving, sustainable pet industry that balances the environmental limits of our planet with exceptional innovation. While PISC started with eight founding members, they have grown to nearly 150 supporting companies including suppliers, brands, and retailers.

In order to support their growing member base the Coalition provides tools, resources and education for companies looking to advance their sustainable agendas. A membership with PISC includes implementation hours that companies can leverage to gain traction on projects. The Coalition brings world-renowned partners to the table including B-Corp, World Wildlife Fund, Sustainable Packaging Coalition, Sustainable Apparel Coalition, and Natural Capitalism Solutions.

PISC designs business solutions that identify cost-saving opportunities in order to enable companies to act; while also, providing leverage around issues that are too large for single companies to overcome. The Coalition focuses both on implementation within their individual member companies, but also has a collaborative focus that enables companies to work together on pre-competitive issues.

Early successes

Though relatively young, the Coalition has an impressive number of achievements that show tangible progress amongst its members. In 2015 the Coalition successfully piloted the first U.S. zero-waste pet conference, was called out by Petco as the only platform where competing companies can come together, and its Executive Director was honoured with a ‘40 Under 40’ award from Pet Age Magazine.

The Coalition’s members are highly engaged with 55% attending semi-annual events, 35% utilizing the online toolkits, and overall engagement growing by more than 185% since 2013.

In March of 2015, the Coalition released a series of case studies detailing sustainability accomplishments and savings from member companies.

Additionally, over fifty Coalition members have completed a customized assessment to baseline their sustainability performance and are actively working with the Coalition to chart a roadmap for improvement. Developed by Coalition partner B-Lab, the assessment uses a globally recognized set of questions that over 25 thousand companies have completed.

The collaborative model

PISC’s view is that any authentic goal towards sustainability must take a circular economy approach. This involves moving away from the linear thinking of ‘take-make-dispose’ to a restorative and regenerative model. In order to fully impact the sustainability of a product each sector of the industry has a unique role to play. Currently, the Coalition is partnering with Petco, World Wildlife Fund, and dozens of pet food manufacturers to develop voluntary best practices for sustainable ingredient sourcing.

The Coalition has identified several other key collaborative action opportunities; including, developing transparency around labour and sourcing, creating a culture of pre-competitive collaboration on sustainability, standardizing sustainability terms like ‘natural’ and ‘eco-friendly’, and establishing drivers to encourage consistent environmental and social improvements within the sector.