Last month, 18 Georgetown McDonough School of Business MBAs visited a sustainable dairy farm as part of Associate Professor Ed Soule’s Principled Leadership in Business and Society course. According to a press release, the class visited Fair Oaks Farms in Fair Oaks, Indiana to get a first-hand look on how sustainable businesses work.
“It’s one thing to read a case about a sustainable business, but seeing it and meeting the people adds another dimension,” Soule said. “The other objective of the trip was for them to interface casually with the [farm’s owners], to pose questions, and get a more nuanced understanding of the business.”
Fair Oaks Farms is owned and operated by Sue and Mike McCloskey. The couple founded Select Milk Producers, which is the sixth largest dairy cooperative in the United States. Fair Oaks Farms is built upon one of the McCloskey’s six dairy farms, and has become an agri-tourism destination. Around 500,000 paid visitors descend upon the farm each year to learn how Fair Oaks Farms has minimized its environmental footprint and maximized the comfort level of the cows through innovations, such as an operation that converts manure into compressed natural gas that powers a fleet of tanker trucks.
According to Fair Oaks Farms’ website:
“Fair Oaks Farms brings Reduce, Reuse, Recycle to a whole new light. Our entire facility runs on cow and pig manure. We transform our farms’ waste into energy by way of our anaerobic digesters, we reduce our dependency upon natural gas and electricity during the milk and manufacturing process. This year the use of CNG will reduce the amount of diesel that our milk tanker/trailers use by 2 million gallons. Our barns and plants are also powered by this cutting edge “poo power.'”
Soule had once researched genetically modified seed technology and was intrigued by the McCloskey’s efforts to operate a sustainable dairy farm. The professor first met the McCloskeys on campus, and became interested with their business model.
Following the trip, Soule hoped his students “came away with an appreciation for how the McCloskeys have managed to harmonize their commitment to the environment, their concern for animal welfare, and the imperative to improve the financial profile of their businesses.” One MBA on the trip, Emma Loughman, described the farm as an “epicenter of innovation.”