Consumer trust in business has shifted dramatically in the last two years, dropping from 58% of Americans to just 44%, according to a survey by PR firm Edelman. A transitory, even cynical, marketing campaign and TV media buy is not going to win back consumers.

What can work is a long-term focus on sustainability. Action, rather than words.  A blend of social activism and profit rather than a pure push for the bottom line. A long-term commitment to doing what’s right.

At Friend of the Farmer, we believe that “sustainable is attainable.” Maybe now, Fortune 500 companies do too.

On Monday afternoon I joined an Advertising Week audience—already groggy from networking and PowerPoint slides—to hear Howard Schultz, the dynamic CEO and founder of Starbucks, and Rob Walton, Chairman of the Executive Committee and Board Member of Walmart, talk about sustainability.

The catalyst for the session was the launch of Team Earth with corporate, public and academic partners, by Conservation International.

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick

Whatever your political persuasion, you have to agree that Walmart and Starbucks provide a huge platform for change:

1. Every day their outlets connect with millions of customers, their own employees and thousands of suppliers. (About 100 million customers, nearly one-third of the U.S. population, visit a Wal-Mart each week )
2. The people who run Walmart and Starbucks are smart
3. Competitors track their moves religiously and adopt them.

So if Walmart and Starbucks were to focus on a single issue or movement—sustainability for example—there should be a significant impact on the population worldwide.

Change or Be Left Behind

At Adweek, Schulz and Walton talked about doing right by doing good.  Sustainability was not a marketing campaign but a change in the way they want to business. That’s good news, because it makes sustainability within a company . . . sustainable.

Shultz said, “the issue is sustainability, the environment, climate control. All of the things that I would put under the umbrella of having a social conscience. It can’t be marketing and can’t be PR. It has to be an integrated strategy that is authentic. Otherwise people will see right through it. First your own people and then the consumer.”

Shultz continued, “the rules of engagement are changing. Every company has competitors. The consumer is so well educated and informed that given a choice they will buy from companies that give back to issues they believe in.”

First Step: Engage Your Employees

Walton agrees that engaging your own employees comes first. “From a marketing standpoint, we didn’t engage in sustainability with [marketing] in mind. It has become part of our communications but is often done by people outside the company. We want to make a difference but in a profitable way. It has resonated with our folks and been very rewarding. We’ve done good and saved tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.”

For Walmart, Sustainability Started with Salmon

Peter Seligmann, the founder of and chief executive of Conservation International, was on the panel to talk about how companies are responding to issues like climate change after years of putting up a brick wall. He gave a little history lesson in company engagement. Six years ago Seligmann convinced Lee Scott, the CEO of Walmart at the time, that there was an opportunity for retailers to make a difference that would be good for the business, good for the consumers and profitable.  It all started with salmon.

He suggested that Walmart, the largest seller of salmon in the world, start by making changes in its production and procurement.  According to Seligmann, Walmart was unaware of the impact their supplier’s farm in Chile was having on the environment. Or that the salmon was dyed red.

The conversation then evolved to a product-by-product review. It helped that Scott had just had his first grandchild and was perhaps—with an eye to future generations—more motivated to do what’s right.

Walton said that the company has developed sustainable value networks focused on different aspects of the business.  “Sustainability has become a part of the discussion” Walton said, “with every vendor, whether it’s packaging, recycling or energy.  We even ended up creating a sustainability index for customers, which rates products in a way that allows customers to evaluate the sustainability of choices they make.  Informed customers will make good choices. If we do our job well those choices will be competitive for sustainable products.”

According to Walton, Walmart’s sustainability initiative has been a significant contributor to the improved perception of Walmart in the last four or five years. Though this was not what the company set out to do, it has had an unintended and very positive consequence.

Starbucks’ Schultz Talks Up Our Collective Responsibility

In a pitch that would make CFOs and institutional investors uncomfortable, Shultz said that companies need to “make deposits on the equity of the brand rather than trying to simply sell the consumer something.”

Shultz suggests that companies shouldn’t “brag about the things they do. Better to have consumers discover it on their own. Have your own people tell their own story.” He went on to say that companies that maintain a singular focus on profitability will be in trouble.

The major reason is that kids in high school and college have significant knowledge about sustainability, the environment and which companies are doing the right thing. “You would be shocked,” Shultz declared. In my own interviews with young farmers the question of sustainability, and a search for honesty in a cynical world, come up all the time.

So if kids are the main driver for a host of product purchases and retail visits, then a real commitment to sustainability—not something invented by thee marketing team—becomes a given. No different than providing decent healthcare for your employees.

Please Sir, a Cow for My Family

Inspiration comes from the most unlikely places. A private meeting Schultz had with Rwandan coffee growers led to employee effort to get dairy cows to the population of that country.  A woman farmer had described how fresh milk for her children would have a big impact on her family and wellbeing. That internal, organic effort will become the basis for a larger consumer-oriented program for Starbucks.

Schultz believes that this kind of experience can’t happen at a business riven by cynicism. “It can only happen at a company where there is a sense of trust, a DNA of doing things that help people, not just about making more money.”

Taking Sustainability to the Next Level

Seligmann of Conservation International said some companies (and countries) are trying to hold on their business like they’re “holding on to their rock and are afraid to let to go.” By comparison, Walmart’s Brazilian team is starting to test messaging around ‘responsible consumption’. Imagine that from a retailer.

Here are four simple suggestions:

• Companies that are leaders in sustainability should engage with Capitol Hill.  Show lawmakers the results in terms of profit and job creation.
• Walmart should help codify and share the methodology of its sustainability index. That would help standardize ways for consumers to evaluate sustainability.  (And companies need rules, too, to be able to run their businesses.)
• Assume that companies want to do the right thing—this time. As Seligman notes, some nongovernmental organizations didn’t want it known that they were talking with Walmart. Just as President Obama says we should engage dictators in dialogue, it seems environmentalists need to establish a seat at the table with big business.
• Print simple suggestions for living a more sustainable life on Starbucks coffee cups. Make it practical. Leave out the proselytizing

Shultz summed up the session with this simple statement. “Sustainability is not a fringe idea. It is mainstream.”  Note to Fortune 500 companies: Can you hear us now?

Starbucks Social Responsibility Report