Little did I know that Ben & Jerry's, yes, the ice cream company, took such a great environmental responsibility as they do. Saw an article in a Swedish magazine about their new campaign in Sweden, where they are about to start sending out the message "if it's melted, it's ruined" in their advertising.
Clearly the punch line is a jib at environmental change, the effects of which we see speeding up around us everyday. Climate change may be our biggest problem today, funny how some leaders in the world simply refuse to acknowledge the gravity of the situation (yes George, I am talking to you, and you too John Howard, don't think just because you are half way around the world we don't have our eyes on you)!
Through Google I found an old article in The Guardian (apparently the Ben & Jerry's campaign is far from new, weird I have never heard about it before...) describing how Ben and Jerry (as in the two old guys behind the company, not the company itself) always have gone through great lengths to try and run their company in such a responsible way as possible.
Even though they today are owned by Unilever, hardly the first company I think of when it comes to caring about the world and the people in it, they continue working with Ben & Jerry's to uphold and strengthen the values of the company making sure it keeps supporting the local and global community as best it can.
Among other things they are trying to cut emissions of green house gases by 10% from 2002 levels by 2007. That is a even more ambitious than the Kyoto agreement!
They have also started what they call the Climate Change College, where six people aged 18 to 25 receive education on climate change in order to create campaigns raising awaremness on the issue.
Furthermore, Unilever has invested in thermoacoustic research, a way of cooling things with sound instead of using traditional technology where potentially environmentally dangerous gases can escape in our atmosphere.
Why? Well, in this case I feel that is such a sad question. It saddens me that I actually get genuinely surprised whenever I hear about a company that tries to give something back, think before it acts and actively change practises it knows may give them more profit but also harms their surroundings. Why? Because, in the words of Spike Lee, they want to do the right thing! And in the long run, perhaps that in itself is value creating...
Acknowledging that Ben & Jerry's is a relatively small company, he says he hopes it can send a message to larger businesses. "If you can't get the government to sign up to Kyoto, and you can't get regulations, the best you can do is have successful companies showing that you can do these things," he adds.
"When you are led by values, it doesn't cost your business, it helps your business. It's not a cost, it improves your profitability." That may seem counterintuitive at first, he says - but it works. "If your support the community, they will support you."
That's the double truth, Ruth! Then why is it so hard to understand...?
Ben and Jerry give talks about running a socially and environmentally aware business, and inevitably, Jerry says, someone will ask how they can bring about change in their own company. He tells employees they can make changes in their own departments, but that ultimately no company will make big changes unless it is led from the top.
"Unless you have leadership at a company that is passionate about it, it's not going to happen," he says. He explains that when managers at Ben & Jerry's were not passionate about the social and environmental values of the business, they found it tough going.
"For them, it becomes a sort of burden. They're thinking price and quality and time of delivery, and to add in another factor - social values - it makes their job harder," he says.
Absolutely. If the head is stupid, the body suffers. So wouldn't it be sweet if we could get a Sarbanes-Oxley for the environment and the social responsibilities of companies? Making corporations and the people that run them think twice about their decisions when it comes to expansions, cut backs, product design, packaging, production, recycling issues... Like my mum used to say, "money isn't everything you know." She was right then, and she is still right today. Funny how that only seems to be valid on an indivudual level though, and not on a corporate level.
Really good article on Ben & Jerry's though. Definitely a shining example that companies can do more for the environment. We shouldn't have to make new laws, or make it even harder to run a company, to make that happen. Instead we can use the most powerful weapon in existence today: consumer awareness (Seth Godin stated, and rightly so, in his book "All marketers are liars", that marketing is an awfully powerful tool, well, if so, the even more powerful counter measure is consumer awareness...).
Vote with your mouth.
Eat Ben & Jerry's.
But remember; if it is melted, it is ruined!
Comments