By Becca Bober

Isagenix is a leader in quality products for healthy living, and it is on its way to becoming a sustainability leader as well. John Anderson and Jim and Kathy Coover founded the company in 2002 with a vision of impacting world health and freeing people from physical and financial pain.

Erik Coover, son of Jim and Kathy and the company’s senior vice president of global field development, describes where the company is now.

“We empower individuals, families and communities around the overall journey of nutrition, health and wellness,” said Erik Coover, expounding on the company’s goals. “We provide tailored solutions for what people are looking for.”

Coover says his parents started the company with the intention of giving back. “We’re a legacy company,” he explained. “My parents didn’t start this company with an exit plan. They wanted to create a company that would deliver on the promise of network marketing.”

Isagenix has an estimated year-to-date sales revenue of $1 billion for 2017, a number that Coover says shows how many lives the company is impacting. The company’s three-year plan is to double the number of customers.

In order to grow, most companies must compromise their values and the future of the planet. Isagenix leadership sees things a little differently. For Isagenix, growth is an opportunity to help create a world that future generations can be proud of. The organization’s forward-thinking leaders see sustainability as a necessity, not a nicety.

“We want to grow, but we understand that the bigger you grow, the more potential damage you will do to the environment,” Coover said. “We have to be like these companies that are doing such great things for the planet. We need to be the example first.”

The Isagenix team embodies its sustainability vision through measurable actions. One of the first things the company did to change its path was to eliminate plastic water bottles from all of its office locations. The company encouraged employees to host paperless meetings and ended up reducing the amount of paper the company uses by half. The organization’s Green Today for Tomorrow initiative challenges employees to pick at least one way to be more sustainable. Isagenix is also working on a solar panel project for their corporate office.

One of the most significant environmental impacts the company has had, however, is to compel all of its vendors and potential vendors to provide proof that their packaging is sustainable.

“We challenged all of our vendors to bring forward their most innovative sustainable concepts to implement going forward,” Erik Coover said. “We demanded that they provide sustainable packaging or we would not provide business going forward.”

On the advice of their sustainability consultant, the company has picked a few main projects to focus on, but still faces some challenges. “Some of our Asian offices still have trouble accessing clean drinking water, so it is difficult to completely remove bottled water from those offices,” said Coover about one of the major barriers to success.

For Isagenix, sustainability is personal. “It’s all about people for us,” Coover said. “I have a three-month-old daughter. I just want to set the best example that I possibly can for her. The only thing I can do is be an example for her.”

To learn more about Isagenix products and the company’s commitment to its employees and customers, visit isagenix.com

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Becca Bober has an MBA with an emphasis on sustainability leadership. She has directed a number of corporate sustainability projects and currently produces educational content for online learning systems. She lives in Carefree, Arizona.