Aaron Perry
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David Bronner, CEO (“Cosmic Engagement Officer”) of Dr. Bronner’s, discusses essential Earth-restoration actions and announces the Regenerative Organic Certification being launched in 2020 by an alliance of leading companies and organizations (Dr. Bronner’s, Demeter, Rodale, Patagonia, Compassion in World Farming, Kiss the Ground, 1% for the Planet, and others). This new certification focuses on three primary criteria: Soil Health, Animal Welfare, and Social Fairness.
The grandson of founder Emanuel Bronner, David also discusses the family’s unique legacy, including many of the socially and environmentally sustainable practices at Dr. Bronners, which generates over $100,000,000 in annual revenue with approximately 225 employees. Dr. Bronners is a leading purveyor of organic and biodegradable soap and personal care products, sourcing sustainably grown hemp seed oil, coconut oil, and essential oils from fair trade farms world-wide. Famous for the “Moral ABC’s” printed on Dr. Bronner’s soap bottles, the company is guided by a deep ethical commitment to people and planet that is rooted in spiritual consciousness.
Under David’s and his brother Michael’s leadership, the Dr. Bronner’s has grown from $4 million in 1998 to over $111 million in annual revenue in 2019. David was born in Los Angeles, California in 1973 and earned an undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard University. David and Michael established Dr. Bronner’s as a sustainable leader in the natural products industry by becoming one of the first body care brands to formulate with hemp seed oil in 1999 and to certify its soaps, lotions, balms, and other personal care products under the USDA National Organic Program in 2003. Both actions resulted in high-profile litigation with government agencies, DEA and USDA respectively, that Dr. Bronner’s ultimately won, cementing Dr. Bronner’s activist orientation in the natural products marketplace. Over the years, David and Dr. Bronner’s have been key leaders in fights for GMO labeling, industrial hemp farming in the U.S., high-bar organic and fair trade standards, cannabis reform, and a fair minimum wage. Today, David is helping to lead the effort to establish the Regenerative Organic Certified standard, dedicating time and re-sources to creating an integrated, comprehensive program that addresses soil health, animal welfare, and fair labor practices to advance sustainable and ecological alter-natives to industrial agriculture.
Dr. Bronner’s partners with certified Fair Trade projects to source all major ingredients, including olive oil from Palestine and Israel, coconut oil from Sri Lanka, pepper-mint oil from India, and sustainable palm oil from Ghana.
Connect and More Information at:
Website: www.drbronner.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drbronner
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrBronner/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbronner/
Regenerative Organic Certification: https://regenorganic.org
Entheogenic Healing: https://psi-2020.org
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Welcome to the YonEarth Community’s Stewardship and Sustainability podcast series.
Today we are visiting with David Bronner, hey David.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Yeah, it’s great to have you really excited about our conversation today.
Right, right on, thank you.
So David Bronner is CEO or Cosmic Engagement Officer of Dr. Bronner’s, the top selling brand
of natural soaps in North America, and producer of a range of organic body care and food products.
He is a grandson of company founder, a manual Bronner, and a fifth generation soap maker.
Under David and his brother, Michael’s leadership, the brand has grown from $4 million in sales in 1998
to over $122 million in annual revenue in 2018.
David was born in Los Angeles, California in 1973 and earned an undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard University.
David and Michael established Dr. Bronner as a sustainable leader in the natural products industry
by becoming one of the first body care brands to formulate with hemp seed oil in 1999
and to certify its soaps, lotions, bombs, and other personal care products under the USDA National Organic Program in 2003.
Both actions resulted in high profile litigation with government agencies, D.E.A. and USDA respectively,
that Dr. Bronner’s ultimately won, cementing Dr. Bronner’s activist orientation in the natural products marketplace.
Over the years, David and Dr. Bronner’s have been key leaders in fights for GMO labeling,
industrial hemp farming in the United States, high bar organic and bear trade standards, cannabis reform, and a fair minimum wage.
Today, David is helping to lead the effort to establish the regenerative organic certified standard,
dedicating time and resources to creating an integrated comprehensive program that addresses soil health, animal welfare,
and fair labor practices to advance sustainable and ecological alternatives to industrial agriculture.
Dr. Bronner’s partners in certified fair trade projects to source all major ingredients, including olive oil from Palestine and Israel,
coconut oil from Sri Lanka, peppermint oil from India, and sustainable palm oil from Ghana.
So, David, it is such a joy to have this opportunity to visit with you, and clearly Dr. Bronner’s has become one of the global leaders
in developing sustainable and regenerative supply chains throughout the world.
And I was thinking as a way to dive in, we might just start by asking you why bother with all of this?
What is it that’s motivating you? Clearly, you could have taken Dr. Bronner’s in a number of different directions.
Yeah, right on. Well, I guess we got to start with my grandad, Dr. Bronner.
His source passion was, well, he himself was the generation German-Jews filmmaker.
His grandad was something to manual.
At first, he began so manufacture in 1858, the small southern German town of Loweheim.
The grandad came of age and got out really poor in the last century.
And he came up, and by the time in the 20s, when he was apprentice to another so-making family,
his dad and two of the running family operations, we had a really big factory in Loweheim,
another southern German town, pretty much one of the biggest so-bakers in Germany.
And my grandad had, you know, he basically got a map, the equivalent of a master.
So a master, a chemistry master, so maker.
And so I had a family enterprise, but early on was pretty activist.
He was very zymist and political.
And his dad and uncles were kind of like, you know, like, please don’t knock the boat, you know.
It wasn’t Naziism and then fascism.
The Metro dimensions were not apparent in the late 20s, but it was just still, you know,
just a time of unrest.
And just, I mean, I get out a lot of ideas on things so making it.
Just repeatedly clashing with his dad and uncles.
It just became over the age of 21 in 1929 and landed in the Chicago Milwaukee area.
It became a consultant in the US open industry, like PNGs of the world,
helped design factories and launch products.
And I met his wife and married and I had to be children by the 30s.
And over the course of this time, he became increasingly desperate with the right to pillar to get his family out.
And his two sisters got out, one ended up in it.
He lives in Israel, a lot in Louisiana.
His middle sister, I came over to the States.
And she got out in 38 right before the borders were closed.
But his parents, like a lot of police law Jews, that they were going to write out the madness.
And unfortunately, the fact that her hearing eyes in the 1940s, they were reported and killed for the answer.
So in his time, his wife, Paula, my dad’s mom, I went out with two, I took sick leave.
And so my grandmother was just dealing with immense tragedy.
And somehow in the midst of this, she was having these mystical experiences,
the one that’s in the love of the heart of reality.
You know, clearly saw that all the fake traditions were at their heart,
pointing at this transcendent mystery of love, that even in a world of suffering and absurdity,
tragedy that if humanity could realize our transcendent unity,
and that we’re all children of the same divine and source,
then embrace across religious and ethnic divides,
that we could have burnt a nuclear catastrophe,
which you saw, the next holocaust, we didn’t figure this out.
We were going to solve parish.
So he went forth around the country, lecturing on his peace plan.
We call them YVC.
And it was a bit of the ecological pioneer here, the onslaught,
like this industry in a post forward to the era,
moves increasing to a petrochemical basis,
pesticides into sets that fertilizers and everything coming out of the war effort,
we’re starting to be applied to our two crops,
and in personal care, you know, natural social and above,
we became petrochemical-based factors for shampoo and body care,
and yearly onslaught a problem of making this move
and the damage of the environment.
So, you know, he stayed true to what we had become,
kind of an old-fashioned soap recipes of his family.
And as he went around the country, lecturing,
he would sell the soap on the side.
And then we got out that this was pretty dang good soap.
And people were coming to get the soap without necessarily sticking around
to what he had to say.
So, he began to download what he had to say on a label.
So, our label now has the more YVC, like 3,000 words on each port,
just kind of downloading his vision of peace and unity and love.
Kind of the one love, the one true religion of love,
it’s a heart of all the faith traditions,
and you know, seeing that, you know,
when you don’t make fundamentals, beliefs,
and you make, you know, food way,
that it all is that same, same, mysterious love
that’s just way beyond any of us.
And so, with the rise of the counter-culture
and, you know, the recognition and rejection of corporate America
and the war machine and the era of silence,
and you know, all of the growing understanding of the damage
and the ecological catastrophe we were flipping on the environment
through our industries and agricultural practices,
and industrial agriculture, in particular,
means that’s a massive harm to the earth.
So, with the rise of the counter-culture,
they really embraced the soap that was concentrated in versatile,
great able, you could wash your hair, your kid, your dog,
your kids shoes, let us start the river, and don’t worry about it.
So, you can’t really, you know,
become the iconic soap of the era.
And, but he always, you know,
he always kind of saw the, you know, after business grew.
I mean, for him, it was a nonprofit religious organization.
It was not, I mean, it was the business very much
was sort of the all-envisioned.
And eventually, he lost the IRS in the late 80s
to disagree with those tax exempt status,
and we were forced into bankruptcy,
and my dad, who actually, he had his own business,
and I actually grew up working with my dad’s business.
My dad oversaw the soap production up in LA.
He didn’t, my dad moved down here to San Diego,
or kind of San Diego, in the early 60s.
But, so I grew up in LA.
My dad oversaw it was a large chemical manufacturing operation
and oversaw the production of the soap.
He also developed things like firefighting foam
for forest and structure fires.
And I grew up selling firefighters and using foam
for my dad and just following my dad around,
which is now standard on most fire trucks
like the rest of our foam system for a structure of forest fires.
But, so my dad and mom and my uncle basically
came, my granite got Parkinson’s,
and so my granite basically retired.
And my dad and mom and uncle,
and I kind of righted the ship,
fired a lot of bad advisors,
so we got a terrible advice.
We actually did many groups, he has four profit,
but we always had a non-profit,
dealing with the heart of what we’re about.
So, you know, fast forward,
I guess, so my granddad,
you know, I went through a lot after college,
I graduated in 1995,
and went to Amsterdam.
I had some really mega-seconded experiences.
It really opened me up,
just kind of tied into the light and love
with the heart of reality.
And realized that what had really been selling it,
sailing over my head from my granddad,
pretty much my whole life,
also made perfect sense of it.
It was like, wow, you know, he’s been honored,
he’s been talking about this whole time,
and you know, growing up, it was a lot.
You know, it’s like the most unique dispassion bird,
you know, it was just a lot to deal with,
but now all of a sudden it was like, oh my god,
it’s like so hot, so I’m going.
And also this is a time of like,
just recognizing the disaster Western civilization
and just the alienation from nature
and the insecurity we feel in a deep way,
that we compensate it with like material consumption
and domination,
and just the way we’re just shredding and treating nature
as just like resource to extract stuff
and make stuff.
And you know, just seeing that the damage
we’re reading all these ecological systems
in collapse and communities being shredded
around the world,
and I adopted a big idea
at that time as well.
It came back and it took a little bit for me to join
up with a family company when it was a mental health counselor
for it,
but eventually decided I wanted to,
my ex-wife, Chris,
a missing woman who’s now running a portion of her account,
her condition focused on trafficking and refugee issues.
We were, she had pregnant
and I had to sort of think in about the long term,
and I had gotten to the point where I was ready to work
with my dad.
You know, it was one of the things I had to cause,
it was something I had to use like a dollar
or my family company.
But, you know, as I’m sure you realize,
wow, if a company like Dr. Browns
were off a new job,
I’d go for a second.
So, let my dad know that
in my art,
Otter was born on March 7, 1997,
the same data Dr. Brungard died.
So, they’re kind of high-fiving in and out.
And surely after my dad was diagnosed with stage for lung cancer
and given six months.
And of course, when I made that decision,
the company accommodated the family business.
And we had an amazing year together.
We really doubted the ropes
and set the up for some of the sadest.
But when I came in,
it was like very,
much vowing.
You know,
Dr. Brungard died.
Dr. Brungard died.
Dr. Brungard died.
And the other things we did
is put in a five-new one compensation cap.
So, no matter how big the business got,
no executive would make more than five times
of those paid warehouse position.
So, you know,
you can just see how things were going
and just a way,
you know,
just so many people
just started buying yons and bigger houses and cancer cars.
You know, like,
we were just like,
no, it’s not going to happen here.
And we’re going to run this in a way
that liberates more and more profits to help drive
our partner projects.
And, you know,
and as I came in the industry,
I mean, one of the first things we did was
was incorporate an emcee oil into the liquid soaps.
And emcee oil was with a high and I make a three,
which is a triple unsaturated, triple double bond fatty acid.
That’s essential for helping our mind function.
But in a cosmetic product,
it’s very smooth.
You made our lather.
Well, it rolls like a weed.
You’ll need a lot of pesticides and fertilizers to grow it
versus things that cotton take as a huge amount of herbicide.
But then it’s also positioned in the drug war,
just really showing the absurdity in the entire area
of the drug war.
So out of control,
it was scheduling a non-drug every cultural crop.
It was a schedule one substance.
It was a way for us to kind of engage on that
and just start to shift the loss in this country
and start having a much more rational pro policy.
That’s what it now.
We had a lot of adventures.
We were fighting D.E.A.
A lot.
But, you know, in 2018,
with the Farm Bill,
we finally fully legalized that farming.
In the…
Sustainable agriculture.
Not, you know, I mean, back when I was like,
oh, yeah, this is a solution, everything.
But, you know, over time,
you were just meeting brands like Waikki,
or your Ramati brand.
It’s going to be integrated.
All their, all their your Ramate is produced in, you know,
in the rainforest,
but the Waikki tribe,
in a totally sustainable way.
And they go to market and partnership with their suppliers
and they’re not hitting farming communities
around the world against each other.
And that equal exchange
and other fair trade companies.
You know, we were,
for I was inspired to, you know,
just realize like,
wow, I have no idea
where our coconut oil is coming from.
I mean, we’re buying from brokers like everybody else,
on price and stock.
We know visibility to the growing conditions,
social conditions,
environmental conditions.
So, in realizing that,
whatever coolness we’re doing here in headquarters,
where we’re manufacturing the soap,
we have 10 times more in impact, you know, supply chains,
and our agricultural supply chains.
This is so much more people,
farmers, workers involved,
so much more land involved.
So, what we’re doing in a supply chains matter,
in a way a lot more than what we’re doing here,
out that we should be taking care of our own house.
But really taking care of your,
taking responsibility for your supply chains is crucial.
And we realized that, you know,
the first thing we needed to do was go organic, you know,
like just realizing the disaster,
conventional industrial agriculture,
you know, just all this synthetic fertility,
and pesticides,
and poisoning of farm workers,
and the farmers,
and your ecosystems,
and that, you know,
we needed to farm that,
in a way that replicates nature,
you know, look at a forest,
there’s no chemical inputs,
it’s all self regenerating.
How does our farming
and the system replicate that?
So, you know, we went on a big long adventure
to figure that out,
and then also realizing that organic,
because it ended up itself,
addressed the social conditions.
You know, generally it’s better,
but sometimes not,
and you really need a fair trade,
it’s some kind of certified body to just make sure that, you know,
farmers,
well, we can make sure the prices are being paid right,
but to make sure the workers are,
that’s translating to the workers,
and all that.
So, we were dual sort of,
about organic and fair trade,
but the part of the fair trade really was,
just in promoting,
best regenerative organic practices,
I tell you,
who’s deals with compost
and mulching,
and, you know,
over time,
you just, like,
really got good at figuring out,
and most of our agriculture supply,
our raw materials are,
from perennial tree crops,
so coconut, palm,
olives,
and so, you know,
what is the best
agricultural regenerative approach,
and realizing that,
it’s really about intercropping, you know,
in an annual system,
it’s about a smart rotation, you know,
maybe it’s on your rotation,
and it’s on the explosion,
crops,
and you’re making sure
you’re,
you’re suppressing nitrogen,
and,
and,
and, you know,
not over-telling soil,
and all that.
But in a perennial system,
it’s more about intercropping,
complimentary species
that could be a bit of forest,
you’ve got tall trees,
mid-level trees,
bushes, and ground cover,
and,
and,
and,
when you look at a cropping system,
so, if you can take,
for example,
and gone on our palm,
and palm is such a destructive crop,
so, you know,
hemp is a symbol of all that’s good,
and palm is a symbol of all that’s bad,
you know,
it’s generally grown on,
in this horrible way,
that these corporate lentations
are ripping up rainforest,
and,
just doing a rainy thing out with that,
communities be shredded,
look,
wetlands,
just, you know,
all this carbon in the wetland,
is,
just,
that,
oxidizing out of the sphere.
But,
there’s nothing inherent about palm,
it’s bad,
and it’s just the management system.
If you take a regenerative management approach,
it’s actually really great crop,
because it’s very efficient,
producing oil.
And what we’re doing is,
we’re working with small holders,
and gone on,
and,
and,
they’re intercropping
with toco,
banana and cassava,
and that’s basically replicating,
you get the tall palm trees,
you get the little,
cocoa and banana,
and then the ground covered,
it’s a cassava.
And,
if you were to take the same area,
and do monoculture blocks,
it would be to those,
versus,
I’ve been,
a smart, dynamic,
inner planning,
we,
you,
you,
you,
you understand that,
how the economy is going to fill in,
you’re doing a lot of pruning.
You’re going to double the yields.
You’ll have double the biomass,
double the yields,
just requesting a whole lot more carbon,
and you,
you see so much more,
you,
you’re generating a whole lot more income
so,
so yeah,
so that’s,
you know, basically,
you know,
we do leverage our profits externally
for a lot of other causes,
but we feel like,
you know,
for some of us important,
is really just making sure that,
you know,
our headquarters
and then,
and our staff here,
and then all of,
the farmers and workers involved
in our supply chains
that take care of them,
that,
you know,
if everybody did that,
that we would start to really,
you know,
solve,
like some of the huge problems,
you know,
the kind of change
in environmental,
the kind of change
in ecological catastrophe,
generally,
if, you know,
if businesses,
and then, as consumers,
take responsibility,
for making correct choices,
and, you know,
the analogy,
you know,
and I’ve come to see myself
in solidarity
with high animal welfare,
pasture-based life-sauk,
ranches, grass-fedded,
you know,
it’s all about any lesson
that I’m making,
and making those choices,
and, you know,
or plant-based diet,
as I’ve chosen,
but looking at your place
of farm
and you fork is a pitch for it and knife is a butchering knife, what does your farm look like?
What is your section of the garden look like? Are you supporting a farmer who can really take
out a land and the people and the animals? It just looks amazing on the orders that look like a
monoculture desert disaster. And that’s as that causes his pervade, that we can really
terraform the earth, right? Everybody starts choosing this. One-third of the earth’s surface is
under rough farm and rainland management and you’ll rather some high tech solution. All we need
to do is just choose which area we’re getting and just start to really shift and make our farming
emphasis systems. Revitalize rural economies, make friendly habitat for wildlife. Just take
care of the farmers and workers and make heaven on earth. Along with decarbonizing the economy,
we’ve got to do that too. That’s absolutely beautiful, David. Boy, there’s so much that you’re
sharing with us and I really appreciate it. I want to circle back to one of your earlier comments
regarding your grandfather. It’s making me think when my grandpa was still alive, he
gardened, he was an organic gardener and he was a prisoner of war in World War II. He was on
the black bar. You just barely survived that experience. And afterward he had such a grounded
and simple spiritual approach to life and he understood that good soil and good clean quality
food was essential. And I remember as a kid talking with him about that and as I grew up
recognizing that this industrial chemical-based agriculture was insanity. He was madness. He was
one in the family who said, you’re absolutely right. And he had a perspective that helped me
understand that what had been normalized over the last several decades was actually a massive
aberration and to use your keyword here. It was a disaster and is a disaster and I’m so struck
by your influence from your grandpa and I’m just curious if you might share with us before we dive
into some of the other technical stuff with regenerative ag and so on. If you might just share one or two
of your fondest memories from when you were a kid with your grandpa that might help share his
persona with with our audience. Yeah, you know, my grandpa was, you know, he was coming from
the mountain top all the time. And, you know, I mean, it was really important to him that his grandkids,
you know, really rocked and downloaded the boy we see. And, you know, he went blind in the late 60s.
He attributed that to shock treatment he received when he was kind of forcefully
internment in a mental hospital and that kind of a car theater. You know, he was out there like
talking in peace and unity and love and like got on the authorities radar. You know, he escaped
but he went on his mission but always, you know, always blame that for his tailing site. But like,
we like to say that our labels are designed by alignment. I don’t think you understood just how busy
things are getting. And so, you know, but he knew we were supposed to memorize the labels, you know,
and we come in and he’s like, what’s the 13? You know, and I’m like, oh, yeah, we’re literally
blind. So, I think, you know, pick up the label and like, kind of blows my hand like this.
I got it. Yeah. So, and yeah, you know, just, you know, just so we might want to
see some passionate about, you know, about all one unity and just on it. Just non-stop.
Yeah. Yeah. Those, those labels are so iconic. And my mom wanted me to be sure to mention that
she loves giving bottles of the soap to her girlfriends and his gifts. And she loves that
they’re so natural and so versatile. And of course, seeing the bottles that brings me back to some
of my earliest memories running permaculture workshops a couple of decades ago down in New
Mexico. And, you know, it’s now easy to find the bottles in places, you know, some of the big
box retailers, of course. But, you know, 20, 25 years ago, they were niche. It was not so easy to
find them. And what it would a tremendous story. And I’m sure there are a bunch of us listening to
this discussion who have personal experiences of reading all of those beautiful messages on the
bottles while showering or on the toilet or whatever. We’re out and that’s it. That’s part of
this genius to realize, you know, like putting a message on the bottle, you forget a magazine.
And in the bathroom, he’s got you. Yeah. You’re going to, you know, he’s going to download his
what he’s got going on. And that was, yeah, in the showers. And, you know, we have a camp, I mean,
it’s not a product for say we’re, you know, burning man, we’re not. It’s actually my role as a
four-member of maps, the multi-disciplinary association of psychedelic studies. And we’re just
doing a lot to integrate psychedelic therapy and medicine. But on the play of Burning Man and
other festivals, there’s a project of maps called Zendo into psychedelic harm reduction. It’s
like if you’re having an overwhelming experience, rather than go to the mint tent or some other
not very good place to be when you’re way out there. Like we have a very good kind of safe spot
because I know it’s called in the series, you can just really kind of help calm things down, get
out of my craziness and just kind of do some real good work oftentimes with like tough stuffs
coming up. And people who do some real work and have a real positive outcome just need to take
some space. And so that’s our mission out there on on cloud. But what I did is in 2009, I built
a full machine because my dad, when he died, this is kind of overwhelming to be running both his
business and Dr. Broner. So we just had to shut down the phone business. But I was just remembering
10 years later, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, oh, how do you do that? How do you raise a
family about business? And I’m just going through a lot. And I was just remembering the joy that
we brought the world to phone. Just like glass and foam all over the place. We actually made
a version for Hollywood to take stone. And we’d like to go to the old folks homes and take
hairs. You know, it’s just ecstatic, you know, people would just lose it. You know, when you blast
foam on the world. So I brought some fun. I brought a foam machine that’s a great man based on
the design. And we were just cleanup blocks. I hope you’re white, you know, and you’re just like,
you know, and so so that that just grew into now a really amazing camp. You know, that, you know,
we host maps and send it out there. And see, where was I going with this? I was a, so we’re
blast and foam. I mean, it’s very ecstatic and fun and super, super ridiculous,
awesomeness. Yeah. But there was a point here that I forgot what I was making.
Well, I was picking up your thread about after your father’s passing and having the responsibility
of two businesses and taking on so much with respect to regeneration, stewardship, sustainability,
it’s such an inspiration to see how you’re keeping the joy and the frivolity and the youthful kind of
childlike playfulness in what you’re doing. And that was really kind of coming through the thread
of the story that you’re sharing with us. Oh, yeah. I mean, my dad was just, I mean, that was
this a big part of his personality. It was, you know, in some ways, he worked against my dad,
my dad, my dad was the best dad in the evenings. I saved the world and kind of absent a lot. And
you know, my dad, you know, kind of compensated and really making sure our family knew he’s
the soul and our family and all that on the community. And like it was all about, you know, kind of,
you know, rather than the cosmic vision, he was more like, what can you take care of,
right in front of you? And, you know, it’s really our central moral inspiration. What’s
which pragmatic and practical kind of deal. And, you know, I feel like through trying to honor both
my granddad and my, you know, I really can probably move so my family on the all one tip, you know,
and that’s the psychedelic integration is most kind of in that the way it can just really open
our hearts and minds to each other and the natural world and the soul. You know, a facility that
experienced the unity in one place, but also my dad in that, you know, fair trade or gender
organic, you know, how we actually make that, you know, just really pragmatic ways how we leverage
our business, you know, what we’re actually doing to, to really, you know, effectively, you know,
drive change. But my dad was also just full of fun. I mean, he was just a fun guy.
So it’s all the best funny stories and, you know, so open and phone was amazing, you know,
we just go around and just blast phone on our world and this is the most awesome phone
saying ever. And my brother, so we have these six pillars and I’m gonna give myself an
intro while we’re getting quite a forget time. But it’s like, oh, I got right here, look,
key sheep. But these are six pillars. So it’s like, you know, how do we construct, you know,
construct the capitalism we’re all about. You know, we got to, let’s see, so we got ourselves,
that’s like, you know, making sure we have a profitable business or customers, you know, quality
and all that. Our employees is making sure they’re fairly compensated and then our suppliers
and our fair trade region are getting our supply chains and then our earth, like just, you know,
our just large ecosystem and another earth and making sure, you know, taking, doing things
in harmony and then our community and leveraging our profits and in cool way, just be helpful
and power up allies and awesome stuff. So my brother though, so here’s a red picture of my family.
So here’s, so let’s meet over there and then my brother Mike, he’s becoming president and I’m
the customer engagement officer. That’s my mom, Trudy. This is a CFO and my brother and mom,
Michael, is a CEO and that’s actually our cosmic fire truck. That’s not our mic on my dad.
So my brother though, it’s like, he y’all started going off the six principles and he says,
that, you know, we got these six awesome principles, but I like to talk about trying, and I was like,
what, you know, he just like, I always said and dropped this one day in front of like everybody,
a whole step. I’m like, what’s trying, oh, and he’s like, well, we got, you know, the soap,
which is like the, you know, kind of business and then your business and make sure you’re
all efficient and stuff. And then we got the soul and that’s like, you know, all the social stuff
we’re doing, but then enjoy it. Like, that’s MSG, that’s the fun. We got to bring joy to the world.
We got to have fun, you know, and I’m fun and forget it. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, yeah,
we’re on, man. So, but yeah, I mean, that’s totally a big part of what we’re doing in our
event marketing department. It’s super fun. Another real fun thing we just made, data dead,
a holiday. So, we have a mostly Mexican American workforce here in San Diego. And, uh, and we just,
uh, for the first time, we had all international distribution partners in town and, uh, we had a
data dead party, which I never did. And like our workforce, our, our love our staff were just,
it was amazing. And in Murna, it is like this next level cosmetic makeup artist and just maybe
look awesome. I’m going to show it to you and find it on my phone. Um, but uh, it was so much fun.
And, and, but I went real, took a real serious, like, hey, this will be, you know, you’re honoring
your ancestors, you know, and it was just really cool to check in with what we call dad, grandad,
melancholy. I just really appreciate it. I went, what a beautiful holiday. And then, um,
and then we’re honoring our Mexican American workforce. And you can celebrate Halloween correctly.
It’s like terrible that you can’t like just totally go for it on Halloween. As you get
to the ordinance it. Yeah. So, so now, but, but we said you have to dress up for Halloween. It’s not
100% participation on Halloween. There’s, the holidays canceled. I love it. Good
incentive structure. Yeah. Totally. Uh, while you’re looking for that picture, I’m going to just
remind our audience. This is the Y on earth communities stewardship and sustainability podcast
series. And today, we’re visiting with David Bronner, the CEO of Dr. Bronner’s. That’s cosmic
engagement officer. And I want to give a quick shout out to several of our sponsors who make this
episode possible. Not includes beauty counter, equal exchange, purium, earth coast productions,
Lidge Family Foundation, Patagonia, Waylay Waters, and the Association of Waller Schools
of North America. A huge thanks to all of you for supporting our podcast series as well as our
community mobilization work in towns and cities throughout the United States and North America for
soil regeneration, climate action, and culture of kindness. And I also want to give a big shout out
to all of our Y on earth community friends who have joined our monthly giving program,
which is another great way you can support this work that we’re doing. And if you haven’t yet
joined it, and you’d like to, you can go to Y on earth.org and click on the donate button and
just select any amount that would be good for you to give on a monthly basis. And that really
helps sustain all of this work that we’re doing. So a huge thanks to everybody for your support.
While I’m at it, I want to shout out a handful of the URLs and social media resources for Dr.
Bronner’s not includes drbronner.com and that’s drbronner.com. Twitter is drbronner. Facebook is
drbronner and Instagram is drbronner. So it should be really easy for you to connect in with all
this amazing work that David and his team and family are doing. And we’re going to dive in a little
bit to some really important resources, especially at regentorganic.org. And we’ll hit on probably
a couple of others as well, but that there’s some really important regenerative soil stewardship
and agriculture resources at regentorganic.org that I want to make sure to bring your attention to.
And David, were you able to find that picture you were looking at?
Yeah, here we go. Oh my gosh.
Yeah, that’s that is a high quality makeup art right there.
Yeah, a big blow. That’s two super amazing nights. As far as this next level.
So obviously we have to make that a holiday. Yeah, that’s so fun.
Absolutely wonderful.
Yeah, I was great to hear about Patagonia obviously is a key partner in the regentorganic space,
but equal exchange, you know, they were the OG that inspiration really for us to really get
after a supply chain. You know, just really think about it. You know, along with quite a key.
So just want to shout out them. Yeah, absolutely. Big time. Yeah, what they’re all doing is
tremendous and remarkable. And I, you know, I want to give a shout out to what you guys are doing
with some specific data here that I pulled from one of your most recent reports. It was either
the 2019 or 2018 report where your CEO multiple on your median wage, your average wage is under five
times. Whereas in most corporate United States corporate companies, we’re seeing CEOs getting paid
312 times what the average workers are getting paid instead at Dr. Bronners. It’s under five times
a difference. And, you know, there, there have been some tremendous trailblazers like the
Mondragon cooperatives over there in the vast region of Spain over the last several decades,
helping to implant the importance of not having such a massive pay differential as a way to sustain
community. And you guys are also, you’re starting permanent wages over $18 and hour. And that’s
well beyond what many communities are discussing in terms of a livable wage right now. And I just,
I, it’s tremendous. You guys have 122 million in sales and you’re giving over 7% of that to your
charitable and sponsorship efforts. That’s nearly $9 million in the, in the last year that I was
looking at. And David, I mean, that’s the kind of leadership that I think deserves all kinds of
accolades and shoutouts. And, and for other corporate leaders, other entrepreneurs, other family
businesses to start to really understand some of the details behind what makes a super successful,
sustainably oriented, regenerative business like Dr. Bronners.
Yeah, but on thank you. Well, yeah, I mean, one, you know, been inspired by a key allies,
you know, just being open to what, what can we do better? You know, what’s the next best thing
we can be getting after. And yeah, and then just being willing to get after it, I guess.
Yeah, you know, take some risks and a lot of our work. But I think what we found was, you know,
we didn’t have to rate prices too much to go organic and regenerative organic. You know,
it’s definitely, but there’s a premium involved to take care of things correctly. You know,
unfortunately, our whole industrial agriculture machine is subsidized by, you know, this huge
financial subsidies that do the exact worst thing to our ecosystems and they are, and you know,
we basically externalize a lot of costs of, you know, destroying our farmland and our soil and
and ecosystems and our health. That’s all generalized and not priced into our consume consume
and products we buy. So, so there is a cost associated with, you know, going through the right way
versus, you know, products produced up to that conventional kind of chemical treadmill.
Yeah, but, you know, it’s not that much. And in our case, what we, you know, we found, we first
we converted it, I think half of our soap line, you know, we didn’t want to just go all in on,
you know, just, I mean, I was kind of ready to, but I think my brother had the right idea of
what we were supposed to, you know, what’s just made sure that, you know, this is the, you know,
our customers are ready to follow us on this journey. And, you know, we were definitely rewarded
and we saw those, you know, increased sales with the, you know, the organic skews and product line.
So then we went all in, you know, think in 2003. And, yeah, you know, just making sure we do have
a sustainable profit margin. And there’s been definitely times when that margin’s got real squeeze
and you know, we just, we can buy and just, you know, all kinds of stories or no cash and very
real profit, you know, that you’re just getting through just with a lot of luck on top of,
top of, you know, everything else. But, you know, generally, just making sure we’ve got sustainable
margins and not trying to, you know, fair keeping a good quality price. And, yeah, you know, just,
what we’ve found is that, you know, I don’t think we set up out to do this, but that spending
the amount of money that we do on activism, because we support it with us, we kind of,
we’re going to get our culture, we’re becoming quality and raising them in wage or GMO labeling,
or any kind of 12-bit fishing that we get a lot of luck, we get a lot of potential, you know,
or media. So what other companies would spend on a marketing budget, we’re spending on activism,
but we’re kind of getting the same result, we’re getting a lot of, you know, awareness,
brand awareness, a really cool way. And, you know, I’m just kind of driving more top and bottom
line in a way that’s like not the orthodox approach, but it’s really effective and we’re hoping
that just, you know, and actually, you know, there are other companies that did it before us,
and after us, and, you know, we’re just part of, you know, an ecosystem of progressive businesses
that are really showing the rest of the world that, like, look, you can really incorporate
sustainable regenerative practices in your core business model and toys to see.
And Patagonia, of course, is, you know, the, you know, exhibit a, you know,
a lot of scenarios, it’s a huge inspiration, and, you know, we kind of feel like that there
is a line as could be, and then we’re really proud to be a partnership with them on that
regenerative, again, extended, and that’s basically bringing together the best of the soil,
animal welfare and care labor movements into a single certification. So we don’t have to have,
like, separate animal welfare and separate, so as I’ll separate for trade, you can all,
even have a one-stop shop certification and really kind of taking the best of all of the
criteria, and, you know, but we’re just finishing up our pilot phase of the certification,
and it’s not just us in Patagonia, it’s Rodalex, Dameter, it’s a farewell project,
it’s compassionate, we’re farming, we’re leading farm animal welfare organizations,
and then other, a lot of other really cool companies and farms, and, you know, we’re
graduating to standard, we’re going to be, you know, getting all the feedback and making the
adjustments and then launching it at X4 West, you know, in March. So we’re just on a verge,
you know, we feel like this is like an amazing consumer-facing standard,
and so much to look for it, and know that, you know, just everything they want to have happened,
and the product they advise happening, you know, it’s settled, we’re really excited. It’s kind of
like biodynamic without the mystical kind of preps of stuff, and I’m all about the moon, and,
you know, love, but, you know, I love everything about biodynamic, and looking at the farms and
organism, fertility, feed flows, and really understanding all that. Every giant of organics, kind of,
that, minus the, you know, more mystical side, so it’s, you know, maybe a little more accessible
with your average, you know, conservative farmer, sure, and, yeah. So what do you think about
dynamics? Yeah, this is so exciting to hear about, and of course, Dameter, one of the partners in
Regen Organic is a biodynamic certifying body, and just amazing to see what’s coming together here
with this, and that’s a major announcement, and a major step that you guys are taking in March at
XOS, it’s tremendous. It’s very interesting, because we’re through the wider community networked
increasingly with organic farms, regenerative farms, biodynamic farms, all around the country,
and even internationally. And what I’m hearing and seeing is that even, and especially in some
of the conservative communities, like among fifth generation Mormon farmers in Utah, for example,
working on five, six thousand acre farms, the, the spiritual side of biodynamics is actually very
approachable in those communities where prayer and working with a sense of divine presence
is perhaps a little more natural or a muscle that’s getting exercise a little bit more, and so
it’s very dynamic right now, seeing in many of our more conservative communities that biodynamics
is actually being engaged and adopted in ways that often in our maybe more secular communities,
we don’t see quite the same way, and so it’s just beautiful to see all these different efforts,
and sort of the intelligence of all these different companies and organizations, much like a
miscellulial network in the soil itself, really kind of optimizing and bringing forth the super
intelligent strategies that we have to heal our world, to heal each other, and to, to really embrace
this all-one message that Dr. Bronner has been sharing for, for so long now.
Yeah, well, yeah, right on, and that’s beautiful, you know, and we, we, we’re part of the game
Brown and Ray are to let on, you know, definitely there’s there’s this, you know, very developed
Christian farmers that are really leading the charge on our genetic agriculture, you know, they
can place in the path, and you know, we totally respect that, and you know, I’m more on the all-one
path myself, but my mom and my sister and my brother-in-law have developed Christian
just completely respect for that path, and we’re actually potentially going to be funding Ray
wants to produce a, kind of, a regenerative act, a bit boy, his dream is to do a feature link
documentary, but we’re going to sponsor a shorter video, so he really wants to make the case for
regenerative act to a Christian audience and put it in a Christian frame, so that’s something that
hopefully, you know, it’ll be doing next year, yeah. I’m so excited to hear about this, we have a few
friends and connections in the Midwest that I would love to weave into this conversation,
we can obviously take that offline, but I’ll drop a hint, there’s an amazing evangelical preacher
who is in Ohio doing all kinds of permaculture food forest work, his name is David Tungler, and
we’ll be releasing his podcast episode sometime here quite soon, and I don’t know if it’ll be
before or after the episode that we’re doing with you, David, but he’s really leading the way
with a beautiful vision and a beautiful theology around taking care of this planet and being
really stewards of it, and the more we can help connect these dots, I think, the more likely we are
as a society to grow, to evolve, to heal, in a way that has us taking good care of our places and
good care of each other in our communities. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I’d love to make an
introduction on that, and I already know each other, but yeah. Yeah, this is really fabulous, and
I want to hear a little about what you’re doing with Sun and Earth, and the way you’ve been helping
to lead the movement around and have itself, and of course, some of the other natural plants,
and mushrooms, and so on out there that you’ve been working with, and maybe you can tell us a
bit about what’s going on with Sun and Earth. Of course, you’re wearing the hats, so folks can
see that if they’re watching the video. Yeah, absolutely. So one of our key causes here is
any cannabis prohibition, and I agree to our second dog allies, I found for myself on my path,
that I’m not an heroic user, but just a little bit, just really helps you put me in a more
meditative, prayerful mode, just more appreciative of life surroundings, my loved ones,
and natural world, just me in touch, and elevating me out of whatever stupid mood I might be in,
just appreciate life, and I really kind of feel that there’s a sacramental dimension that’s
really important in that society is like we need to correct the cultural schism that occurred in
60s, and all of these sacraments were associated with the kind of cultural rebellion, but we’re
certainly to heal that up, and actually one of the maps, one of the biggest things we’re doing
with MD&ED, for our puners, this and PTSD is like we’re healing our veterans, and the veteran
population is, you know, this is poorly traumatized by, you know, these long wars and deployments,
so taking kind of a medicine of the counterculture to heal the wounds of the soldiers, you know,
I think it’s a little side of the times, we’re starting to really heal the split, and I mean,
obviously there’s still a lot of partisan stuff going on, but, you know, underneath the surface,
I think there’s a lot of healing starting to happen, we’re kind of moving through some stuff,
because the country, you know, hopefully, but anyways, so cannabis, you know, it’s up to one of
the safest medicines on the man, and we just need that understand respect, plant medicines,
and indigenous medicines, and we’re just healing and knowing and being in the world, like,
this is really crucial for that kind of what else, I think, a lot of the Western
disease, you know, like our depression and anxiety and addiction, like, we’re just
disconnected from nature from ourselves, and how do we heal that? It’s really these medicines,
like this is like the healing we need, we need to bring them in, it’s fast possible,
we don’t really help reconnect us to ourselves, and to keep our natures and nature in general,
you know, wake up to pretty much all of the social and environmental issues that we need to be
grappling with, and so it’s an important mission, so, but any kind of prohibition and, you know,
just stopping this kind of disaster of mass incarceration, where we’re very safe and beneficial
plan, what we realized is, you know, we kind of thought like, oh, wow, our cannabis is about
consciousness and, you know, somehow, industry and corporate,
corporations will be different, or something. In any way, it’s about a 2014-16, you realize that
that cannabis is pretty much just another flower that’s being commoditized, and just the horrible
way that corporate industrial interests do, that every other commodity crop, and we’re seeing
these huge interroves that are, you know, light, you know, under artificial light, very
fossil fuel intensive, as intensive synthetic fruit facility, and that the small family craft
farmers, namely, which are back to the land, organic pioneers, you know, the multi-generational
that parents, you know, went back to land and it grow on, you know, festivals, and you know,
kind of stuff, raisin chickens, you know, they got, you know, some, some cannabis plants over there,
you know, but it’s an integrated, you know, like, multi-craft, you know, musical agriculture
farm, and, you know, how do, you know, these farms are not just being completely destroyed,
like, just the same story they’ve seen with everything, crying out like what we’re seeing with
coconut oil, you know, and so our coconut project is, it’s re-locked, I’d agree, out of a
tsunami relief project, and, you know, it’s the same story around the world, you know, this huge
corporate plantations come in, and it’s placed like vibrant farming communities, and, you know,
for small fair land, and they become, you know, farm workers just lay wages on plantations,
you know, like, how do we keep small farmers on their lands, they can really take care of it,
you know, regenerate organic is a management intensive, it’s knowledge intensive, it’s not chemical
intensive, you know, to let itself to smaller, more productive farms, you know, and how do we promote
that, and so around, that need to borrow raw materials has a really good story, so our coconut oil
comes out in Sri Lanka, and it’s like a thousand farmers doing regenerative organic practices in
Palma, where we talked about that in Bona, it’s all awesome things, now we’re producing a whole bunch
of cocoa that, you know, we’re looking at launching a chocolate product, a bull ride line,
and we tell the story of the Nanomagag Forestry, our olive oil comes from Palestinian farmers
in the West Bank, primarily, but then the balance from the Israeli side, from a Jewish farming farm,
and they’re a Christian project, so you got Muslim, Christian Jewish olive oil and our soap,
but it’s all regenerative in the next level, and so, you know, what we’re seeing with with cannabis
is that because of federal prohibition, if the camps farmer can’t access the U.S.
the organic program, because organic is certainly regulated, and even regenerative organic,
because of the term organic, cannabis farms cannot access the regenerative organic program,
so, you know, we’ve saw this crucial need for consumer-facing certifications standard,
someone can trust that their medicine was produced, you know, in the righteous way,
that it’s in the soil, it’s under the sun, no chemicals, fair labor,
and so, seminaries was what we came, it’s kind of the parallel effort to regenerative organic,
and we clear that pedigree is not involved in this, they’re not related, you know,
being this face, you know, they’re totally respectful we’re doing, but we’re over here working
just with some next level farms and companies in the cannabis space to kind of build out a
consumer-facing standard certification that kind of replicate regenerative organic in the cannabis
space, so we’re starting to see some more traction, so, you know, it’s just been launched in
this past year actually in April, so, you know, next year we’re really excited to see some
irregular traction, you know, it’s a brand-new drill, we don’t even want to see all kinds of farms,
and brands certified with it, and just, you know, we feel like cannabis is going to, you know,
as big or bigger than beer and wine, yeah, um, this is really important, you know, by dynamics,
it’s got a huge amount of traction in wine, and you feel like suddenly Earth can get, you know,
a lot of traction in cannabis, yeah, you know, kind of replicate that wine model.
That’s really beautiful, well, I love how all that you’re doing is coming back to how
we’re caring for people, and also specifically our caring for soil,
so I love the name Sun and Earth, right, it really embodies that.
Yeah, absolutely, and, you know, it’s fixing cannabis too, because it’s like so much of it is
artificial lights in your, you know, next to Sun, you know, like, it’s natural Sun to this Sun,
in the soil, because a lot of it’s like, even if it’s outside, if they’re in bags or, you know,
re-enhoused with something, you know, you get in the soil, you know, this kind of should be farm,
like, you know, in the regenerative organic way that’s in the soil under the Sun.
I imagine that someday our science will be able to understand and observe differences
in the quality of the medicine and the quality of these plants based on whether they’re grown
in real soil with real sunlight or not, and I don’t know if we’re there yet, but it seems that
there’s a qualitative difference. You know, I think so, I think it’s, you know, vibrationally,
you know, a definitely way better, and, yeah, I mean, just, you know, whatever’s in the soil is
going to be in the flower, and so if you’re using a bunch of pesticides and a month or whatever,
you know, that’s, you know, just like food, that’s what you’re getting, and, yeah, and conversely,
you’re getting just nutrient density, all kinds of micronutrients and soil through our,
and the cannabis flower that’s farmed in the soil versus in a chemical kind of medium.
So yeah, exactly. Well, this is just, just tremendous, everything that you and your family and
your team are doing, David, and I know it’s a very busy time, and I just want to thank you on
behalf of the Wieners Community Network for taking the time to visit with us. And before we sign off,
is there anything else that you’d like to mention or to share with our audience?
Well, I would say, you know, thank you for having me, and just been a pleasure, and thank you for doing
all the awesome things you’re doing. It’s great to hear the community and awareness you’re building
around these issues. And so, you know, we’re involved in Oregon and the Salis Simon therapy campaign,
so I just got back there, I was up there yesterday. Yeah. So it’s really important to bring
into the culture that these are very powerful medicines, and not to be produced lately, you know,
respectfully, and ideally, however they’re prepared for, facilitated and integrated,
they’re really optimized, they’re the power that they have to help heal us, and open us up,
in a really great way. And so the therapeutic context is, you know, you have a,
someone who can really facilitate a real good experience, is trained in trust,
you know, rather than just kind of decriminalize and launch them into the culture without
that kind of container, you know, because we’ve got indigenous traditions, like we’re on Iowaska,
you know, there’s, you know, a certain volume of containers, you don’t, you don’t take these
signals outside of that. And so we’ll show like what Oregon’s doing is really important,
side 2020, side as 2020.org is the website on that one,
senatorat.org, it’s the senatorat.org. That’s ESI-2020.org. Yeah. We’ll put that in the show notes too.
Right on. Thank you. And yeah, I think we hit it on it.
Well, what a joy to have this time with you, David, and thank you for all the work you’re doing.
And thanks so much for visiting with us. It’s been a lot of fun.
Yeah. Right on. Thank you. Yeah. Have a great night.
You too. Yeah. Bye.
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