Camilla Sanders
Austra Kase
Susanne Merkler
Kajsa Kronkvist
Martina Leonelli
Jönköping International Business School
Guenola Nonet
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A company providing excellent alternatives to dairy in response to issues of climate change, health and social responsibility. Sustainable development is embedded the heart of the business.
They foster a culture of:
Oatly is contributing to the “post-milk generation” in Sweden and now all around the world. The company wants to “make it easy for people to eat and drink so that they can feel good and at the same time avoid worrying about wasting the planet’s resources” . Most companies make these claims, we know. But you can walk the supply chain of every Oatly product available with the click of a button, you can challenge the company on controversial issues and they will respond with openness and honesty.
Oatly´s will is to promote dairy substitutes as much as possible, regardless if the profit goes to the company or to another company. What matters is the wellbeing of our planet and our people.
Operating in this way is innovative in itself, and has won the company's global success. Their products are constantly adapting and evolving, providing us with viable alternatives to make the vital switch to diets and lifestyles this planet is able to sustain. Supported by the latest research, Oatly provides information on nutrition and climate change through its products, strengthening the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
As Sustainability Students, it was a true inspiration to work on a project about a company like Oatly who have the determination to bring real value to the world and have an actual understanding of what true value is. We saw how Oatly began from a research project in a University, the motivation for which was to make discoveries in a less resource intensive product that was accessible to anyone. This largely came out of the wish that no one be excluded. With the rapid acceleration of the climate movement, climate change began to be the primary driver of the company which today, in 2017, is the heart and soul of the company.
To us, the core of this is about responsible consumption and production. It was the greatest joy for us to see Oatly truly identify and take on this responsibility and give us as consumers help in making better choices for ourselves, and for this world.
As the latest research tells us, climate change is driven by human activities and is extremely dangerous. The way we live is the driving force of the issue.
Despite its reputation, Sweden is actually the 7th biggest climate contributor per capita with 3.8 planets needed to sustain the level of consumption of a typical Swede. According to the latest research, one of the four most important behavioural changes an individual can make is to eat a plant based diet due to the intensive environmental impacts we know now come as a result of animal agriculture.
Oatly recognises this. This has become the core of their company. They see climate change as the imperative of our time. So much is at stake.
Oat milk is less resource intensive than cow milk as only 0.20 kg of harvested oats and 0.035 kg of rapeseed oil are needed to produce 1 kg of oat drink. Hence oat products are a perfect solution to feed the growing world population, which is expected to increase by 2.3 billion people by 2050. Producing higher amounts of food rich in nutritional value but which requires lower inputs is what the company focuses on. Oatly constantly works to reduce the company’s carbon emissions, choosing trustable suppliers, working on innovation and using renewable energy in the production centre.
Eating a plant based diet, which Oatly is making so much easier for people to do, will also limit the cruelty that is inflicted on so many animals in the agricultural industry. Moving away from animal products can lead to a fairer, more just and ethical world.
We can see the benefit of Oatly as being a leader. A leader for other businesses to show a way of being in the world. Business as a civil servant. As a giver and not a taker. The company works towards gradual, sustainable growth, to become a world player, in order to truly show how ethics and conscientiousness can be a business case won. If this inspires others to think differently about the role of business, then Oatly could end up contributing even more than producing fantastic products responsibly...they could pave the way for important social change.
Helene Thörnlund, Project Manager of Sustainability at Oatly said this; “I have never experienced in another company that sustainability is considered before cost in some areas.” Despite this, the company has experienced very fast growth, especially in the last two years. Oatly shows us that profit and purpose do not have to be enemies.
Oatly is making products available that can substitute dairy. Because of the aforementioned impact of dairy, and a multitude of other studies, this contributes massively to efforts to reduce global emissions. Oatly works consciously on this effort and incorporates it into much of its marketing strategies. As the company says on its website, with a page dedicated to educating about the different carbon footprints of different diets; “Our food system is destroying the very environment upon which future food production is dependent.”
In recent years the debate on diet and climate change has become louder and louder and seems for many to continue to be a sensitive issue. Its embedded in culture. Oatly takes on the challenge to shift our cultural thinking about food, and they do this because of what's at stake if we don't. Their products make it simple to be plant based and it is through them that they spread the message of global sustainable development. As young people, it is immensely encouraging to see companies being brave and doing the right thing to protect our future.
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Oatly is a Swedish company which began as a research project at the University of Lund back in the 1990s. Developed originally to find a milk substitute that was suitable for everyone regardless of allergies, religious, health, or ethical reasons. Today, Oatly is a global, oat-based food and beverage producer with sustainability embedded in its core. Oatly is a unique company because of its culture. That culture is one of fierce transparency, a genuineness in its pursuit of good and an honesty, the likes of which is a hard find in today’s world. As Oatly CEO, Toni Petersson said; “sustainability is our reason for being.”
