Becky Quick, left, co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box, moderates a discussion on “Do Consumers Care?” at the recent Clinton Global Initiative in New York. Taking part in the discussion, from left, are Hugh Grant, chairman, president and CEO, Monsanto Company; Lisa Jackson, vice president of environmental initiatives, Apple, and John P. Bilbrey, president and CEO, The Hershey Company. (The Hagstrom Report)

NEW YORK CITY — Three familiar faces in agriculture — Monsanto Chairman and CEO Hugh Grant, Hershey President and CEO John Bilbrey, and former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, now with Apple computers — all attempted to address the reputation of corporations and their executives on the environment at the recent Clinton Global Initiative meeting here.

Becky Quick, the co-anchor of CNBC’s Squawk Box, who conducted the session, explained that a CNBC/Burson-Marsteller Corporate Perception Indicator had found that the great majority of business leaders have a “favorable” view of corporations, while only 52 percent of the public in developed markets— including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong — view markets favorably. (For details, see link.)

Grant, of Monsanto, noted that agriculture has a strong role to play in mitigating the effects of climate change while “we need to figure out how we produce more food on a shrinking footprint.”

He also said he has had to learn he needs to communicate this message beyond farmers.

“Three years ago I would have said my customer is a farmer,” Grant said. “Now there is more of a recognition that we are part of the food chain. It is very fragmented. It is communicating more actively across the food chain.”

He also noted that half Monsanto’s employees have been there less than four years and that the company’s commitment to sustainability “is a tremendous recruitment tool.”

Grant said it is hard for Monsanto to “talk to consumers,” but that he believes he is succeeding in talking to food companies.

Bilbray emphasized Hershey’s commitment to improving the lives of the cocoa farmers in West Africa who supply its ingredients.

Hershey, he said, is putting cell phones in the hands of 50,000 farmers so that they have better market information and pricing information and communicate with agronomists at universities.

Jackson, who has moved from EPA to become the chief sustainability officer and vice president for environmental initiatives at Apple, said that the company’s consumers expect Apple products to be both “great products and great for the environment.”

Jackson explained that at Apple “We keep our product development secret” but that on its commitment to using clean energy “we want people to know.”

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