At the North Clark County 2008 Business Opportunity Expo a few weeks ago, Ben and Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield made the claim that business has become the most powerful force in society today.
Greenfield spoke passionately about his company, which is firmly based in using that power for good.
What blew me away about Ben and Jerry’s was not only how Ben and Jerry bumbled their way to the top of the ice cream hierarchy, but that they didn’t particularly want to be in business. How, in fact, they shunned the idea of becoming (gasp) businessmen and were ready to get out while business was booming for fear of becoming another cog in the economic machine.
After all, they were a couple of hippies who saw big business as exploitative of employees, destructive to the environment and a drain on the community.
It was a chance meeting with an eccentric restaurateur named Maurice that saved the future of Chunky Monkey and Phish Food.
“If there’s something you don’t like about the way business is done, why don’t you just change it?” Maurice asked.
That hadn’t occurred to them, Greenfield said. And so Ben and Jerry set out to be the change they wanted to see in the world.
Their first ever in-state Vermont public stock offering ensured that as their business grew, the community, as owners, would prosper. They established a foundation and devoted 7.5 percent of the company’s pretax profits to it. They took a pledge of sustainability, contracting with local family farms, established partnerships with nonprofit organizations and created a two-part bottom line measuring success both by how much money the company makes and how much good it’s doing.
And Ben and Jerry’s has made a lot of money because people like those pledges.
I was raised by a couple of hippies. I grew up with the idea that big business stood for the same wicked things Ben and Jerry once thought. So, two years ago, when I came to work for the Vancouver Business Journal I insisted to my father, “I’ll write the truth.” (What actually got his blessing was that I work for a bunch of Cougars.)
The truth is, I didn’t know what business stood for, but the first issue I worked on was the VBJ’s annual Philanthropy Issue – a primer of the many ways local businesses give back to make this a better place to live.
In writing about the rising cost of providing medical benefits for this issue, I was pleasantly surprised to hear every company I interviewed say that although the cost is going up – ensuring the health of their employees is just the right thing to do. And for some of them, doing so also has been profitable.
Maybe I’m naive to think that if every company adopted a two-part bottom line, we could change the world. But it can’t hurt to try.
We’re still collecting stories of corporate good deeds for the next Philanthropy Issue, publishing in September. If any of your colleagues have been particularly generous or creative in their giving, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email at mpatrick@vbjusa.com. The deeds can be big or small – good is good.
