Chowing down on a puka dog in Hawaii
My internship deals with sustainability and corporate social responsibility communications, and one of my interview questions was, predictably, "What large company's sustainability efforts do you admire?" I say that the question was (or should have been) predictable, but clearly unemployment had hampered my clairvoyance, and I froze, afraid to mention a brand name that had some horrible environmental or social practice known only by true CSR experts. Or worse yet, that I might incriminate one of their clients as a bad example of CSR. Luckily a week-long temp gig a few weeks earlier got me through: I said something about admiring companies that fully integrate sustainability principles into all aspects of their activities, and cited National Geographic's zero-waste policy in their headquarters as an example of an organization expressing its mission -- conservation of the world -- through every little detail of its work.
It occurred to me recently, however, that if someone were to ask me the same question today, I would say Chipotle.
