Leveraging the Power of ARCH
ARCH is an acronym for “automatically reducing the cost of healthcare” — a powerful system that can educate, motivate and track employee progress as the entire workforce is systematically encouraged to make simple dietary improvements that can improve their own health — while simultaneously lowering the cost of healthcare for the corporation. Conveniently, as millions of people and corporate bottom lines get healthier, we will also be reducing what is, by far, the leading driver of climate change, animal agriculture.
With ARCH, senior management will have the ability to measure, track and analyze changing eating habits across the entire enterprise (by location, department, age, sex, VP area, etc.) and will be able to see how those improved eating habits are relating to changes in BMI and prescription drug usage—and ultimately, the reduction in the corporate-wide cost of healthcare.
With the board of directors and senior executives actively promoting the ARCH message, the results are likely to be even more impressive. Since the cost of healthcare is the single largest category of expense for so many organizations, it’s only natural that senior management would want to track it carefully and continually promote actions that are likely to reduce it—like encouraging, helping and providing incentives for everyone to move steadily in the direction of more whole food, plant-based eating.
As I always said when I was a process-improvement management consultant for fifteen years, “What gets measured, gets done!” Now, with ARCH, we have a simple system for measuring and reporting food choices—the driver of 70% or more of our nation’s healthcare costs. Our collective food choices also have a tremendous impact on our ecosystem’s ability to sustain us all.
The Bottom Line. ARCH offers the opportunity for top management to seize a strategic advantage over their competitors. Remember when GM announced that they were spending more on healthcare than they were on steel?
Along with the fringe benefits of millions of employees getting healthy and thousands of corporations saving money — conveniently, we will simultaneously be doing some wonderful things for the environment. How so? Simply by eating more plant-based foods and less meat, dairy, eggs and fish, we will have dealt a sharp blow to the world’s leading driver of climate change, animal agriculture.
I wrote about my vision almost a decade ago relative to what is possible:
As the first wave of CEOs begins to take advantage of the many benefits that come from a healthier workforce, other companies who don’t undertake similar initiatives will have trouble competing with those who do. — J. Morris Hicks
In closing, on June 11, 2024, my SOS Memo was all about ARCH — and the best possible chance to bring it to life. In a nutshell, I describe why Amazon may very well be the best-suited corporation in the world to jumpstart the global transition away from eating animal-based foods.
That strategically-focused SOS Memo #282 features an envisioned leadership role for John Mackey, the co-founder and longtime CEO of Whole Foods Market, which was acquired by Amazon in 2017. SOS Memo #282 describes what I believe to be the “perfect storm” for sharply dismantling the #1 driver of climate change, animal agriculture.
More Information about ARCH and the 4Leaf Survey
- On this website, check out the ARCH by 4Leaf Introduction
- ARCH by 4Leaf one-page document (First drafted in November 2016)
- One-page ARCH Vision Document
- The Online 4Leaf Survey at 4leafsurvey.com
- The Online Survey at eCornell
- 4Leaf Survey in Seven Languages
- English one-page version of the Survey (2019 revision; visual scoring algorithm)
- Two-page ARCH Talking Points—Why it will Work
- ARCH by 4Leaf Demo (10-28-22)
Envisioned Corporate Launch of ARCH: Game Plan for Senior Management
J. Morris Hicks, engineer. writer. big picture guy. 