Sustainability reporting and custom M&Ms

THERE'S a story about an American rock band called Van Halen and candy that goes like this. The band, which was popular in the 1980s, apparently always had a clause in their standard performance contract stipulating that they should be provided with a bowl of M&Ms backstage.

Piece of cake, right? The catch, however, was that all the brown candies had to be removed from the bowl. And when the band was served brown M&Ms once, in violation of the clause, they reportedly wrecked that performance venue to the tune of thousands of dollars in damage.

That might sound like a random rockstar rampage. Yet the clause actually was meant to serve a specific purpose: to check whether the performance venue had read and closely followed all of the band's numerous technical requirements for their show, according to the band's lead singer. For instance, their equipment was so heavy that the floor of one concert venue once collapsed with the weight - hence those thousands of dollars, he revealed. That venue, coincidentally, had given the band a bowl containing brown M&Ms.