Mackey, Schultz, Anderson and Ells - "Trail Bosses" of the Triple P

By Roger Hudson - July 11, 2012 | Tickers: CMG, TILE, SBUX, WFM | 0 Comments

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If there's a "golden hour" on the Triple P, this morning it yields a golden moment!

Quail and pheasant calls leave my bird dog quivering beside me. Distant thunder promises early summer rains to help green the grasslands of the cattle on the back forty. And cooing doves herald, not just the new day and greener pastures, but a new economic dawn - the syncing of the business cycle with that of the water and nutrient cycles for a golden age of green commerce.

Golden hour. Golden moment. Golden age.... Golden companies. These are few. But their numbers are growing. And their pioneering ways of making a Profit while caring for Planet and People elevate their visionary founders to Trail Boss status on the Triple P.

"Residents" of the Triple-P John Mackey, Ray Anderson, Howard Schultz and Steve Ells, founders of public companies Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM), Interface FLOR (NASDAQ: TILE), Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) and Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG)) are the real heroes of this new dawn. Their trail blazing entrepreneurial work in establishing Triple-P-Outposts keeps giving cowhands like me consumer and investment options to help, like the coming rain of this golden moment, steadily green the earth.

Triple-P-Consumers

Consumers increasingly find it responsibly chic to visit these Triple-P-Outposts. And the trend is only growing! Every purchase turns into a green act of economic redirection as they buy organic food and earth-friendly cleaning products, zero waste carpet, Fair Trade coffee and fast "food with integrity." Every purchase is a demonstration that Planet and People matter...and is becoming increasingly Profitable (read about the Triple P's of sustainability here).

With the sound of cash registers ringing up such sales, the barbed-wire-fence mindset of profit above all is coming down. And as a consequence, the boundaries of the Triple P ranch are extended, reaching just a little deeper into the badlands of Planet- and People-indifference which this One-World can no longer afford.

Triple-P-Investors

Investors too have their ears cocked. They are listening and watching this bull market amongst companies committed to being sustainable. Purchases at their Triple-P-Outposts (stores) is making them increasingly profitable.

Lucrative personal stock buys in Whole Foods Market, Interface FLOR, and Starbucks, with some luck in timing, illustrate my point. Buying low, investing long, in solid companies, can yield multi-bagger dollar returns as illustrated in the table below.

Best of all though is that the yields of each of these golden companies have been far greater than the simple return on the dollar, as their Triple-P-Ratings would imply. Each company in the above portfolio has a high single digit Sustainability Rating of (8) or (9) out of a possible (9). This metric values a company's ability for comprehensive wealth creation - their making a Profit (growing Economic Capital) while caring for the Planet (growing Natural Capital) and caring for People (growing Social Capital). Whole Foods Market is the star Triple-P-Company with a score of "3" for Natural Capital, "3" for Social Capital, and "3" for Economic Capital, giving it a Sustainability Rating of (9) [3+3+3=(9)].

Average the three companies Sustainability Ratings and you get a Triple-P-Portfolio rating of TPP-8.33 out of a possible 9. This figure offers a convenient metric of a portfolios performance in terms of growing both personal wealth and the common wealth of healthy soil, clear skies, pure water and social equity.

Again, just as with each Triple-P-Consumer's purchase, with each such Triple-P-Investor's buy the fencelines shift. The boundaries of the Triple P Ranch reach just a little deeper into the wasteland of Planet- and People-indifference. And another "40 acres" is added to the Triple P under responsible Trail Boss management.

More Trail Bosses Waiting in the Wings

Other entrepreneurial visionaries are on the Triple-P-Trail too.

Jonathan Wolfson, co-founder of Solazyme, Scott Griffith, current Chairman and CEO of Zipcar, and Elon Musk of Tesla could well one day be awarded Trail Boss status on the Triple-P. Their work to commercialize new carbon-lowering platforms to a. grow oils from algae with application in fuels, cosmetics, food and pharmeceuticals; b. re-think transportation with a car sharing model as viable alternative to car ownership; and c. eliminate toxic emissions entirely from the roads; is truly ground breaking.

I personally have invested in Solazyme and Zipcar and the figures in the table below are more filled with hope than pretty, as the current return on Zipcar shows. But again, I am long on both these companies which I judge to be solid and time will tell if they truly qualify for the Triple-P company A-​list - Profitable and caring for Planet and People.

Benediction

Golden moments are all too few and far between. But this morning, in the early light, with the promise of rain and a bird dog quivering at my feet, one provides a glimpse of what is coming - a golden age of golden companies each rated a winning OW-333(10), a rating synergistically greater than the sum of its parts, and truly sustainable because the world in which it operates is sustainable too.

On the trail towards sustainability, like a warm fire after a cold night of riding herd, that's good news.

In the mean time, Triple-P-Consuming and Triple-P-Investing foster Triple-P-Lifestyles that help Trail Bosses of Triple-P companies generate Profits while caring for the Planet and for People.

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