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Submitted by General Mills

By Mary Jane Melendez, Associate Director, General Mills Foundation

As one of the world’s largest food companies, General Mills has a long legacy of philanthropy. From an orphanage our founder Cadwallader Washburn built following a mill explosion in 1878 to a high-protein powder our scientists developed more than 60 years ago to feed those suffering from malnourishment, our history is rich with examples of strong community engagement.

I experience this tradition of community involvement every day as I lead grant making and community action operations for the General Mills Foundation.

In my role, I am responsible for General Mills Foundation Hunger and Nutrition Wellness Grants, International Giving programs, product donations, disaster relief and operational excellence initiatives. What makes this work truly empowering is General Mills’ continual commitment to revolutionizing the way we work with partners and focus on introducing new and innovative ways to serve our communities.

Rescuing Food from Landfills

One aspect of my job that I am particularly passionate about is food rescue.

Shockingly, every year more than 30 million tons of food piles up in landfills across the United States. This is a problem for several reasons, but most importantly, when perfectly usable food is sent to a landfill, it bypasses the 50 million hungry Americans who struggle with hunger.

Food that is in danger of going to waste is an increasingly important source of donations and an area of high priority for General Mills as we focus on alleviating hunger and advancing nutrition wellness globally.

And we’re making progress every day to rescue food and make adjustments to our operations so that more food can be saved from the landfill and shared with those in need.

Some examples of the work we’re doing include:

• Rescuing products to be destroyed: Last month, we received an inquiry on our corporate blog A Taste of General Mills from The Community Pantry, a food shelf in New Mexico.  We learned that the pantry was storing 23 pallets of Yoplait, Grands biscuits and Pillsbury refrigerated cookies from a truck that had overturned. The pantry had been instructed by an insurance company to destroy the products and when we learned of this, we worked quickly with employees in our supply chain and quality groups to redirect this product to donation and serve families in need during the holidays.

• Finding new purpose for bulk items and ingredients: This spring, an employee saved a $650,000 surplus of pineapple pouches that go into our Wanchai Ferry frozen entrées from going to waste by donating them to Feeding America. Often times, ingredients and bulk items are not priorities as food donations because people don’t think of these items as being used by a family at home. We make these donations work well by partnering with Feeding America, a national network of food banks, to repack and re-label these types of items into family-sized portions. This process saves millions of pounds of edible food from the landfill every year.
  
  
• Redirecting mis-labeled products: Recently, one of our employees identified an opportunity to save more than 8,000 cases of granola bars that had been mislabeled.  These bars, a snack item always in demand at food banks and feeding agencies, were donated and re-labeled by food banks in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Georgia. Collectively, these organizations serve hundreds of thousands of hungry people – many of them children.

But these are just three examples. We work daily to identify opportunities like these to rescue food and get it into the hands of people who need it. And one way we organize these efforts is through a group of employee volunteers called the Product Donations Action Team (PDAT), which has made it a priority to boost awareness of our product donation program.

The Product Donations Action Team 

The PDAT leverages employee expertise in supply chain operations, warehousing, tax, finance and quality to help drive improvements in our food donations processes around the world.  In the end, their efforts result in more food for donations to support those in need.

Last year, this team met with several groups throughout the company to educate them about the opportunities to make product donations and save perfectly good food from reaching the landfill.  The educational effort resulted in an additional $5 million in food being donated in 2011.

These donations – which encompass every brand manufactured by General Mills such as Big G cereals, Green Giant vegetables, Yoplait yogurt and Pillsbury baking products – help feed children and families struggling to make ends meet.

It’s personally rewarding every time we are able to save perfectly good food from the landfill and in turn, feed people who are struggling with hunger. I challenge both companies and individuals alike to think creatively about how we can together reduce food waste and recapture usable food.

At General Mills, we are challenging ourselves to find solutions. Every day we continue our journey. We’ve made a lot of progress, but recognize that much more is ahead of us, especially as we keep our eyes focused on environmental sustainability and working with our communities.

About the Author

Mary Jane Melendez is an Associate Director of Community Action.  Her responsibilities include management of the General Mills Foundation Hunger and Nutrition Wellness Grants, International Giving programs, product donations and disaster relief initiatives.  Mary Jane serves on Board of Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation and on the Senior Corporate Affairs Professionals group through the Minnesota Council on Foundations.

At General Mills, Mary Jane leads the Product Donations Action Team.  This is a cross-functional team that works to ensure eligible food and packaging items are donated, reducing destruction and helping to alleviate hunger.  Since 2009, this team has saved millions of dollars in safe, edible product from being destroyed and directed that product to Feeding America to help feed those in need.  Mary Jane received her undergraduate degree and Masters in Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas.

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More from General Mills:

Causes & Consumers: Breaking Through The Brand Philanthropy Clutter

How Leadership, Relationships & Adaptability Built a Hunger-Fighting Nonprofit

It’s Not Nutritious Unless People Eat It: Consumer Acceptance Guides Companies' Responsibility Efforts

Food Waste: 3 Ways to Compel Change Among Business & Consumers

General Mills' 2012 Global Responsibility Report: Understanding Impact

By Jacquelyn Ottman

Communicating the benefits of “biobased” content, the world’s newest ecological marketing term, is often tricky. Biobased represents all of green marketing’s traditional challenges — including greenwash — but has additional, unique challenges all its own. Happily, strategies and a credible third party label now exist.

Opportunities for biobased products and packaging

There are many reasons for a business to use biobased content instead of traditional petroleum-based ingredients in their products, including:  it helps grow the farm economy, promotes energy independence, and helps manage carbon impacts, providing a useful hedge against potential future carbon taxes. Finally, biobased agricultural and other renewable material can mitigate petroleum’s wild price fluctuations, supply disruptions and geopolitics.

From an image and marketing perspective, a shift to biobased content can enhance reputation with stakeholders, including risk adverse investors. It can boost sales in the B2B and B2C sectors, as well as support and enhance many types of "green" claims. Let’s look at these in more depth.

Selling opportunities are growing in the federal, commercial, and consumer markets. In the U.S., for instance, the federal sector will benefit from an Obama executive order signed in March 2012 to double the amount of biobased purchases.

Initial market research suggests consumer willingness to purchase biobased products and packages. Research commissioned by Genencor in 2011 suggests 40 percent of Americans are "aware of" the term biobased and 77 percent will "definitely" or "likely" buy comparable biobased products.

In the consumer sector, biobased content can halo a brand. Coke’s new partly sugarcane-based PET PlantBottle (with "up to" 30 percent bioplastic), reinforces the brand positioning of Coke’s health-oriented Dasani bottled water and Odwalla juice brands. PlantBottle is now being licensed from Coke by H.J. Heinz for its iconic ketchup brand.

In 2010, 83 percent of U.S. adults identified with "green" values, with various segments expressing their own reasons for likely interest in biobased. For instance, the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) segment represents the deep green consumers who take a holistic approach to all things sustainable and green; Naturalites look for organic food, natural personal care, cleaning and pet foods; Conventionals conserve natural resources; and status conscious Drifters who likely to be seen carrying cloth shopping bags and driving a Toyota Prius. (Source: The Natural Marketing Institute).

Together, these consumers fuel a $290 billion U.S. market for natural products, renewable energy and more benign household products. Well-known brands that actively incorporate biobased content include Ford, Seventh Generation, Stonyfield Farm, and Procter & Gamble’s Gillette ProFusion and Pantene brands.

Marketing challenges of biobased

1. Unfamiliarity. Consumers don’t know the meaning of "biobased." The term is not in the dictionary and is limited to scientific, engineering and B2B usages. USDA, which introduced a “USDA Certified Biobased Label” in early 2011, defines biobased as made from agricultural materials, forestry and marine-based sources; so, even a well-informed consumer needs to learn that biobased products come from more than soy and corn.

2. Risk of Greenwash. Because biobased is unfamiliar but sounds "green," consumers can infer such environmental benefits as “natural”, “renewable” and “biodegradable” which may or may not be the case depending upon the product. Benefits that are too easily and often incorrectly implied or overstated increase reputation risk.

Green marketing lessons of the past still apply. As Mobil learned the hard way, in the early 1990s, their Hefty trash bags which were marketed as "photodegradable" (although not called biobased) were pulled from the market after seven state attorneys general sued saying that the bags would disintegrate (i.e., break down into small fragments under the influence of heat and/or oxygen) but not degrade in landfills for which they were intended and advertised. (See the recently revised FTC Green Guides for further detail.)

3. Science. The ASTM D6866 scientific test standard upon which the USDA Certified Biobased label is based, helps define "biobased" and accurately measure content. Even with this credibility, results present communication challenges. Because the test measures biobased content as a percent of total carbon content, minerals and water are excluded. This can make comparisons difficult between products that contain minerals and water versus those with only biobased ingredients.

4. Red flags. Despite its many benefits, biobased content raises some red flags among some segments of consumers. For instance, some biobased products could compromise performance;  a case in point, the first Sun Chips "compostable" bag made from corn-based PLA bioplastic had to be withdrawn because it was noisy; PLA manufacturer Natureworks quickly reformulated.

Also, some consumers take issue with biobased materials made from genetically altered crops (as is the case with most corn and soy grown in the U.S.), or are concerned about the effect agriculturally-based content may have on food prices.

Some may also question the sustainability of the harvesting practices. Finally, some consumers are concerned that biobased ingredients are imported rather than domestic, thus representing carbon impacts associated with transporting the materials from distant shores, or stealing business from domestic farmers.

5. Confusion and misinformation. Still, many consumers — and even product marketers — mix up the terms "biobased" and "bio-degradable." Both these properties are absolutely independent. Biobased refers to the origin of a material and biodegradable refers to the end-of-life. Biobased does not mean a material is biodegradable and vice-versa.

Success strategies for marketing biobased products and packaging

Submitted by Gregory Papajohn

By Gregory Papajohn and Lee Ann Zondag

How do you continually strive to achieve greatness? Where do you look for drivers, tools and benchmarking? How do you turn your achievements, resources and leverage into impact?

The Civic 50 now offers exactly that opportunity. In partnership with the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), Points of Light and Bloomberg LP, these 50 companies represent the best companies that improve the quality of life in the communities they do business through the application of time, talent and resources.  

The selection: The S&P 500 listed firms were surveyed for civic engagement programs against seven critical dimensions later analyzed by independent assessors. These dimensions included:

• Measurement and strategy:What are the program structure and metrics?
• Leadership: Is the C-suite involved?
• Design: Are corporate departments participating in program activities and direction?
• Community partnerships: Are companies acting as true partners to nonprofits and other companies?
• Employee civic growth: Is the program influencing personal growth and engagement of employees?
• Cause alignment: Do the core competencies and workforce skills of the business align with the supported causes?
• Transparency: Is the company communicating its work to the public and sharing best practices?

But the The Civic 50 is not just another list.

We see it as a declaration of great brands; companies that can inspire and motivate those not currently on the list to join the ranks.

Community, Community, Community

Following the release of The Civic 50 we had the chance to catch up with Jackie Norris, executive director of the Points of Light Institute and Ilir Zherka, executive director of NCoC, co-collaborators in the new endeavor.

Our first question for the duo was one of ground reality: Why should anyone pay attention to The Civic 50 over any of the other rankings and lists that recognize companies for their civic (using this term loosely) efforts?

The response was a resounding one: Community.

Norris and Zherka both explained that The Civic 50 breaks new ground by focusing on how companies engage in their communities. “Often the conversation stops at environmental sustainability or human rights. Here we present you with the opportunity to tell your story in the community,” stated Norris. “To share the heart of who you are – the full complement of what your people do outside of their families for neighbors, communities, their government,” added Zherka.

We also believe that The Civic 50 provides a new place to communicate – not where you comply and hold yourself accountable to others’ standards (such as can be the case with sustainability indices) – what you proactively decide to do on-the-ground, in your town, and on your teams.

The Name Game

We next asked about the thought process and choice of the words “civic” and “engagement” to describe The Civic 50. "Don’t overthink it," they said. It was simple, really: they thought about what they woke up to do every day – engage people and passions to take action. And, voila!

The Big Three

Time, talent, and resources are the fundamental components of the survey – and comprise civic engagement – that truly capture the essence of the work The Civic 50 companies do in the space. Main findings:

• Time: Between the 430,000 employees of IBM [NYSE: IBM], which took the top spot in the inaugural list, 3.2 million hours were spent volunteering in 2011.
• Talent: More than two-thirds of the top 50 companies say they “frequently” or “always” use the professional skills of their workforce to address social issues and real community challenges.
• Resources: The top five companies provided $1.5 billion in grant support to community organizations, 17.5 million volunteer hours (valued at over $375 million) and $150 million in matching donations.

“[The contributions of time, talent and resources] demonstrates that the best companies in America are deeply committed to strengthening their respective communities,” Zherka concluded.

So whether we reference Morgan Stanley’s [NYSE: MS] (No. 6) Volunteer Month or Citigroup’s [NYSE: C] (No. 2) Global Community Day, organized volunteer programs show that top companies encourage employees to give back to their communities through the use of time. Talent-based programs like Aetna’s [NYSEF: AET] (No. 4) research on the role of ethnic diversity to deliver the highest quality of healthcare and FedEx’s [NYSE: FDX] (No. 12) work to improve communities’ disaster response and recovery programs exemplify how company knowledge and skillsets can be applied to better communities and professions.

Lastly, partnerships with community organizations and employee gift matching programs like those of GE [NYSE: GE] (No. 9), McGraw-Hill [NYSE: MHP] (No. 8) and Campbell Soup [NYSE: CPB] (No. 7) show that top companies – and employees – are making financial investments to strengthen their communities.

Planning for the Quarter…  Century

Shifting base for a second, Jim Collins challenged attendees at this year’s World Business Forum to plan for the quarter century (read: not quarter as in three months, but quarter as in 25 years). Collins was emphasizing what we believe is integral to the whole purpose of the GolinHarris CHANGE team. We look up and down the short- and long-term (positive) impacts you, an institution, can – and should – have.

Zherka demands a similar approach for The Civic 50 applicants. We must look beyond the fiscal quarter, he challenged, asking future applicants to “exist to change behavior.”

For sure, companies listed – and those who applied – for The Civic 50 are looking to change behavior and influence a long-term positive impact. The top companies have even reached a point where their civic programs and use of time, talent and resources in communities are not seen as separate CSR entities, but rather an integral part of the brand identity. IBM's Smarter Cities Challenge is one such example, awarding 100 cities around the globe $50 million worth of IBM expertise to address topics from urban agriculture to public safety.

Campbell Soup, known for its soups and strong community work, prioritizes health and education where Campbell employees live and work by promoting access to nutritious meals and activity through the Nourishing Our Neighbors initiative. And General Electric, known for its innovative thinking, converts its belief that innovations can improve healthcare for more people into action by supporting community health centers around the globe.

It is endeavors like these that help everyone come to the same page and understand not only why companies must make investments and engage with their communities, but also the benefits these commitments have on communities, employees and companies. It’s interesting to note that a lot of the companies on The Civic 50 are household names and aspirational brands, often ranked on Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies and Best Companies to Work For lists.

Coincidence? We think not.  

Interested in knowing all of the companies that made the list? Meet “America’s most community-minded corporations” here.

 

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Editor's Note: As Lee Ann and Gregory exemplify, The Civic 50 is the first comprehensive ranking of S&P 500 companies that best use their time, talent and resources to improve the quality of life in the communities where they do business. Beginning in January 2013, Jackie Norris, executive director of the Points of Light Corporate Institute, will launch a new blog series for CSRwire to go in depth into the seven dimensions and illustrate how these 50 companies are demonstrating best in class corporate citizenship practices. Stay tuned!

Submitted by Guest Contributor

Ben & Jerry’s is one of the most well-known brands with a social mission.

Rob Michalak, Director of Social Mission at Ben & Jerry’s, answered a few questions about what becoming a B Corp means for the company, and what other businesses can learn from their experiences. In conversation with the B Lab's Katie Kerr.

How do you define success in business?

A successful business is one that creates prosperity for all stakeholders.

Ben and Jerry’s wrote a book on values-led businesses and sustainability.  Why then become a certified B Corporation?

Certified B Corporations codify what being a progressive, socially conscious business is all about. By becoming a Certified B Corp we are supporting the movement for business to play a leading role in providing social as well as economic benefits to society-and of course great products and services. 

Why do you think B Corporations are important?

I think we’re seeing in society right now the need for corporations to stand for something more-think of the Occupy Movement and people speaking out against the divergence of wealth and corporate greed.  The B Corp movement is an answer to that. It’s a model that can ensure companies provide benefits to society in a way that’s transparent, balanced, and people can believe in.

What is the “change you seek”?

Ben & Jerry’s overall mission is to make the best product we can, be economically sustainable, and at the same time, create positive social change-specifically to advance new models of economic justice that are both sustainable and replicable. The B Corp model is a great one to provide the rigor and standards to ensure that we are living up to our own mission and that we push further.

What do you hope to accomplish by being part of the B Corp community?

We want to constantly challenge ourselves to be better. The B Corp community is made up of organizations that share similar goals and have high standards that we can use to challenge ourselves and improve.

To define true success in business, we need to learn from each other. We are all trying to find a path for business to contribute to society on many levels. I hope that Ben & Jerry’s can provide insights and experiences that can benefit other organizations, and we look forward to other companies providing lessons to us.

How do B Corp standards help further your objectives to transform business?

The B Corp standards provide a very comprehensive framework for us to review our progress against our own goals and to establish new ones. The B Corp standards are shared by other organizations, so we can be part of and use a more universal baseline to measure our progress.

Was it difficult for Unilever to approve Ben & Jerry’s B Corp Certification?

Not really.

Unilever has always expressly supported Ben & Jerry’s progressive business model by ensuring it continues in perpetuity through a unique governance structure that is, essentially, a benefit corporation structure. Unilever knows that the value of the Ben & Jerry’s brand is linked to Ben and & Jerry’s being a values-led business. Sure, there were lots of meetings to review legal and operational aspects of becoming an official B Corp, but B Corp certification helps build trust with out consumers that Ben & Jerry’s remains a values-led business.

Is there anything you learned by going through the certification process?

Going through the B Corp certification process reaffirmed those things we have been measuring internally and gave us confidence that this business model can serve society the way progressive economic models should. We also realized there were areas that we weren’t looking at that deserved our attention and needed to improve.

What would you tell someone considering becoming a Certified B Corp?

I would applaud their decision to become a certified B Corp.I would tell them that it’s not easy.  Creating positive change is never easy. Being a Certified B Corp does take a lot of work but with that work there’s a lot of reward. 

Ben & Jerry’s hopes that the B Corp becomes the standard and the norm for businesses in the world.

Sidebar: How Can Ben & Jerry’s be a B Corp if they’re owned by Unilever?

While divisions or individual brands within larger corporations are not eligible for certifications, subsidiaries of larger corporations are eligible.

Subsidiaries, including Ben & Jerry’s, must meet the same social and environmental performance standards as any other Certified B Corps.  However, because Ben & Jerry’s is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Unilever and therefore has no meaningful shareholder accountability, Ben & Jerry’s is required to meet additional audit and transparency requirements, including a mandatory audit and disclosure of its full B Impact Assessment, not simply its B Impact Report.

In addition, because of the unique governance structure between Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s Company Board, which has responsibility for its Social Mission, Ben and & Jerry’s must make public relevant excerpts from the acquisition agreement between Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever, which demonstrate that Ben & Jerry’s is legally required to consider the impact of its decisions not only on Unilever as sole shareholder, but also on all Ben & Jerry’s stakeholders.

For more details, check out bcorporation.net/benjerry.

More:

SSIR Article Attacks B Corps, Points the Finger at Ben & Jerry's

[Ed note: This article has been updated since it was published]

The following article is part of our lessons in sustainable business series by students at the Presidio Graduate School.

By Bettina Baylis

In 2010, Chipotle, under criticism for some of its sourcing policies, was looking for a way to maintain its growth rate and also strengthen their “food with integrity” values.

Chipotle Mexican Grill, founded in 1993 by CEO Steve Ells, is based on the idea that the quality of their ingredients matters. As they grew into a national chain, their core mission was refined and named “Food with Integrity,” and they increasingly became public champions of the benefits of eating sustainable food. Embracing this strategy created a competitive advantage and helped drive phenomenal growth; by December 2010, they had 1080 restaurants and $1.8 billion in sales.

While they had sometimes failed to deliver on their promised integrity, they had measurable successes. The percentage of food sourced from sustainable suppliers grew enough for them to claim by the end of 2010 that the majority of their meat was "naturally raised" (their term for animals raised without hormone injections and antibiotics). Forty percent of the beans they served in 2010 were organic, and all the cheese was from milk produced without rBHT. In 2010, at least 35 percent of one of produce items were sourced from smaller local farms (defined as within a 350 mile radius of the restaurant).

But meanwhile, the company’s reputation for having a responsible supply chain took some hits. Since 2006, Chipotle has been accused of lack of transparency on their “Food with Integrity” mission. Despite new environmental commitments, the company dragged it's feet on signing on to an agreement in support the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an NGO founded by Florida tomato farmworkers, the company signed on October 4th, two days after a protest outside Chipotle's headquarters.

Strategy and outcome

By 2010, Chipotle realized their reputation was at risk. In order to meet their growth targets, they needed to reconnect with their existing customers and attract new ones. They needed to find a way to rebuild consumer faith in their mission of ‘Food with Integrity.’

The strategy Chipotle decided to implement was to promote its increasingly green farm-to-table-to-consumer supply chain. It launched a multi-pronged initiative to “change the way people think about what they eat,” building on their original “Food with Integrity” vision. Their new 2011 “Cultivate a Better World” campaign focuses on connecting with consumers emotionally, and telling the story of why Chipotle sources sustainable foods, beginning with a fun consumer website and social media presence.

• Chipotle created the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation, a non-profit focused on three food issues: supporting family farms; increasing animal welfare and pasturing; and increasing nutrition and reducing obesity in children. To date, they have donated almost $1.5M to these causes. Donations include sales from in-store “Boorito” events (first begun on Halloween 2010), where customers who came dressed up in Family Farm-themed costumes on Halloween received a burrito for $2.

• Chipotle hired the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to produce “Back to the Start,” an emotionally powerful animated short on the importance of raising pigs sustainably. It went viral on YouTube (viewed more than 6.8M times as of September 2012), and the campaign and film have won many awards, including for Best Integrated Campaign and Best Film for Branded Content at Cannes (June 2012). In addition, 60 cents of each download of the movie’s theme song, Coldplay’s “The Scientist” sung by Willie Nelson, is donated to the Cultivate Foundation.

• Chipotle organized the first “Cultivate” festival in Chicago to help build community in a target market, and to bring together “food, farmers, chefs, artisans, thought leaders and musicians” according to their website. There are similar festivals planned for 2012.

• Chipotle expanded their Farm Team invitation-only loyalty program. Customers build points not by purchasing food, but by playing games online that educate about food supply and production. The awards points are then redeemable for discounts in the restaurants.

Lessons learned

The ‘Cultivate a Better World’ integrated marketing campaign continues to be wildly successful. It creates strong awareness and connection with consumers, and reinforces Chipotle as a very public leader on important food issues. The downside of the campaign is that it can feel slick and packaged, especially once you notice how very few numbers are supplied to support their claims. This feeling increases as you hear more about Chipotle’s lack of transparency. One example is their policy of avoiding third party-verified standards. Chipotle is more likely to craft its own definitions and follow them without independent oversight. This leads to a credibility gap: one wonders if they are telling us a feel-good story, or the truth? After reading their 2011 annual report, it is hard not to wonder how often to they have had to substitute in conventionally-raised meat for their much promoted humanely raised, and whether they are vigilant in alerting their customers when they do?

Chipotle has potential to do so much good in the humane and sustainable food movements. They need to address their lack of transparency not only for their own strategic benefit, but also for the credibility of the movement itself. It is time for Chipotle to take the lead and start disclosing more clear and detailed information about their food and how it is sourced. They could use existing best practices, such as the Global Reporting Initiative, to guide them. With their ability to connect with consumers, they should find their credibility grow even stronger if they disclosed some of their failures along with their hard-earned successes.

Image courtesy of Chipotle 

Submitted by Guest Contributor

By Karl Hofmann, President and CEO, Population Services International

Have you washed your hands today? Probably not enough.

In Washington, D.C., the consequences aren't too severe. A few more colds and coughs than any of us wants or needs, but probably not much more than that. Elsewhere in the world, for billions of people, the consequences can be far more serious, absurdly serious. Even fatal.

Global Handwashing Day is a good occasion to remind us of the importance of this deceptively simple public health intervention. As Unilever's Myriam Sidibe noted in her recent column, more than two million children lose their lives every year to preventable causes such as diarrhea and pneumonia - largely because they are not washing their hands.

As in so many other areas of global health, strong and targeted public-private partnerships can make a huge difference in addressing this challenge.

Realities & Gaps: Influencing Millions

A chief lesson learned from Population Services International's [PSI] 40 years of experience in global health is that there is a need for robust distribution networks for health products and services. Moreover, these networks must be accompanied by communication campaigns, which educate families about health issues that affect their communities and motivate them to adopt healthy behaviors. 

For example, it is important to ensure that a rural store has a constant supply of soap to sell to local families. However, it is equally as important to help those local families understand why buying and using that bar of soap consistently will help protect their health, and to create drivers that encourage them to do so. 

It's easier said than done of course.

The public sector does not have the capacity to address these dual needs alone. Constrained public budgets necessitate new approaches, new business models, and new partnerships to ensure that life-saving products and information reach families, regardless of whether they live in an urban setting or a rural community.

Today, new partnerships between NGOs like PSI and companies like Unilever, Alere, and Merck are responding to these gaps, creating game-changing health solutions that can be replicated on a global scale. 

Establishing Win-Win Partnerships

These private-public partnerships for health work because they are symbiotic.  

NGOs benefit from corporate ideas, innovation, consumer insight, and a constant pursuit of “the next best” health technology or tools that can help turn the tide against major threats to global health. Conversely, companies benefit from NGOs’ on-the-ground understanding of local markets and health realities, as well as their strong relationships with local governments. Combined, these factors help position companies to enter new markets, grow their businesses, and save lives in the process.

Simple Directive, Tough Habit: Saving Lives Through Handwashing

A new initiative launched in 2012 between Lifebuoy (Unilever’s leading soap brand), PSI (one of the Unilever Foundation's global partners) and local governments is focusing on establishing behavior change programs in schools and communities across Kenya, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe – three countries where handwashing with soap practices are low.

In Kenya, for example, 28 percent of school children report washing their hands with water at key times during the day, yet only 1 percent report using soap.  

This simple act of handwashing with soap can significantly reduce the number of deaths among children due to diarrhea and pneumonia -- two of the leading killers of children in these target countries. The new Unilever-PSI initiative will help children get into a habit of correctly and consistently washing their hands with soap at critical times of the day. 

Using Lifebuoy soap products and communication materials, teachers and community health workers will work to change behaviors among school aged kids through handwashing programs and activities, such as song writing, comic books, and even hand washing pledges. 

We know that when children learn and understand healthy behaviors, they help pass life-saving information to their families at home and future generations – setting off a powerful ripple effect. 

Together PSI and Unilever aim to reach over 250,000 school aged children and their families in Kenya, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe over the next year to help them build better handwashing habits. Through these three pilot programs, Lifebuoy, the Unilever Foundation, and PSI hope to prove the efficacy of this approach, and replicate the program at scale across a number of countries.

In doing so, we move closer to realizing our mutual goal of impacting the health and hygiene behaviors of one billion people by 2015. Will you join us?

Join the conversation with Unilever, PSI, and its partners at #IWashMyHands as we launch a worldwide dialogue to push handwashing up the global health agenda. Visit PSI’s homepage, weigh in on Twitter, make a pledge on Facebook -- and spread the word.

Related:

Saving 600,000 Lives a Year: What Will It Take?

Submitted by Guest Contributor

By Nancy Lee, President, Social Marketing Services

What do heart attacks, traffic fatalities and landfills have in common?

The incidence of each can be reduced through Corporate Social Marketing (CSM), one of six major types of marketing and corporate social initiatives described in Good Works!, a book I recently co-authored with David Hessekiel, president of Cause Marketing Forum.

Corporate social marketing uses business resources to develop and/or implement a behavior change campaign intended to improve public health, safety, the environment, or community well-being.  Because beneficial behavior change is always the focus and intended outcome, real differences are made for individuals, society, and the corporation.  Three examples support this promise, each described in more detail in Good Works!:

Supporting Brand Positioning: Subway Restaurants & the American Heart Association

If you were responsible for securing a brand positioning for SUBWAY as the healthy fast food option, you would no doubt be grateful for your company's long-term partnership with the American Heart Association. The company's logo appears front and center on the Heart Association's website, most recently (June 2012) when it was announced that the Subway restaurant chain would be the first to display the association's Heart-Check Meal Certification logo next to certain selected meals.

Building Traffic: Best Buy & e-cycle

“No matter where you bought it, we’ll recycle it” is the headline on Best Buy's e-cycle website with information on recycling old, unused or unwanted consumer electronics including computers, keyboards, monitors, cell phones, TVs, and more.

Best Buy's 2011 Sustainability Report highlights the impact of their global sustainability strategies including the outcome that they collected 83 million pounds of consumer electronics and 73 million pounds of old appliances, averaging 387 pounds of e-waste each minute in U.S. Best Buy stores.  Although they don't report on the traffic and sales these customer contacts generated, it would be substantial, as those bringing their used and unwanted items in were likely looking for replacements.

Improving Profits: Allstate & Teen Pledging Not to Text and Drive

Given the statistics that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, car crashes are the number one killer of U.S. teenagers, it might not be surprising to find that Allstate Insurance is interested in influencing safer teen driving. Messages on Allstate's website impress parents with the tragic facts that nearly 11 teens die in car crashes every day, and nearly 1,000 more are injured. 

Allstate's social marketing effort encourages teens and their families to pledge not to text and drive.  The movement began in November 2009, with every participant pledging receiving a thumb band with the words TXTNG KLLS, to wear as a daily reminder of their commitment.

 Two years after its launch, Allstate had received more than 250,000 “X the TXT” pledges.

To garner maximum marketing benefits, a corporate social marketing campaign should target behaviors that directly relate to one or more of the company's products or services. And as these campaigns increasingly leave their positive mark on society, from reducing heart attacks to landfills to traffic fatalities, the lingering issue of whether it's somehow wrong to gain a competitive edge from a social issue will lose steam.

About the Author:

Nancy Lee is President of Social Marketing Services, Inc., adjunct faculty at the University of Washington, co-author of Good Works! Marketing and Corporate Initiatives that Build a Better World and the Bottom Line (Wiley 2012), and co-author (with Professor Philip Kotler) of nine other books.

Previously:

Three Types of Marketing Initiatives That Do Well by Doing Good

Cause vs. Marketing: Good Works! (If Done Right)

Submitted by Guest Contributor

By Myriam Sidibe, Global Social Mission Director, Unilever-Lifebuoy

It’s common knowledge that prevention is better than cure; yet, every year an estimated 2 million children don’t reach their fifth birthday due to the largely preventable diseases diarrhea and pneumonia. Prevention need not be complicated; for diarrhea and pneumonia the simple practice of regular handwashing with soap is one of the most effective and low-cost public health interventions available.

From a health and hygiene perspective, the power of prevention is massive.

Saving 600,000 Lives Every Year

Research demonstrates that handwashing with soap reduces the risk of diarrhea by 45 percent, pneumonia by 23 percent, and improves levels of school absenteeism by approximately 20 to  50 percent.  The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimates handwashing with soap could save the lives of over 600,000 children every year - the equivalent of 10 jumbo planes of children saved every day [UNICEF]. 

While most people do have access to soap, the number of people who regularly wash their hands at the right times – such as before eating and after using the toilet – is worryingly low. For example, India is the leading market for Unilever’s health soap brand, Lifebuoy, in terms of soap penetration – 99 percent of homes report having soap present - yet the country has the highest child mortality related to diarrheal disease. Further, across a global review of 11 countries, the average rate of handwashing after using the toilet is only 17 percent. This dips as low as 3 percent in Ghana and 1 percent in rural India.

And this reality is not just confined to countries where child mortality is high – rates of handwashing in the U.K. and U.S. are surprisingly low - proving that handwashing with soap is by no means an integral part of everyone’s daily routine. 

Addressing the Gap Between Hygiene and Prevention

Unilever’s health soap brand, Lifebuoy, is uniquely placed to address this gap and help reposition hygiene habits as new norms, especially where a new habit can mean a matter of life and death. Right from the beginning, Lifebuoy was born as a brand with a social purpose – it was literally marketed as a “lifesaving product” to help Victorian England tackle cholera outbreaks.

Well over 100 years later, Lifebuoy still saves lives by making handwashing with soap a reality for millions of people. Indeed, today Lifebuoy reaches over 55 countries including eight out of the 10 countries with the worst childhood mortality related to diarrhea disease. Every second, 111 mothers across Asia, Africa and Latin America buy a Lifebuoy product to help protect their families’ health and hygiene. 

But there are clear challenges, despite our widespread reach. So in addition to our historical efforts, Lifebuoy has set out a bold and ambitious challenge to positively impact the health and hygiene behavior of one billion people by 2015, a commitment that was publicly stated as part of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan in 2010.

Whilst inspiring people to change their behavior is not easy, getting them to integrate these new behaviors into their daily routine is even more challenging. We have learned so much about how to influence habits and constantly build these insights into our programs.

Influencing Behavior: Affecting Social Norms & Commitments

For example: fear of diseases is not a motivator; peer pressure is crucial. Habits don’t come over night and need to be practiced for a certain period of time before they become ingrained in a daily routine. Pledging in front of people that matter encourages people to hold themselves accountable and stick to their commitment.

And we don’t stop there! We partner with leading hygiene, behavioral sciences, marketing and digital experts to ensure that our behavioral change program continues to resonate effectively with mothers and children across the world. 

Our results are increasingly encouraging. We have seen double-digit growth in soap consumption along with a direct correlation with an increase of handwashing habits at crucial occasions in key countries. We also see that our results last beyond the duration of the program, giving us even more confidence in our ability to make a difference to society as well as the bottom line. 

Now we have taken this collaborative approach one step further by partnering with public organizations and governments to expand and deepen our expertise, maximize our resources, share costs and, most importantly, ensure greater scale and impact. With organizations like Populations Services International [PSI], Millennium Villages Project [MVP], Water, Sanitation for the Urban Poor [WSUP], London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine [LSHTM] and governments across the world, we are scaling up our handwashing programs and enhancing the health impact of our programs. 

Millennium Development Goal 4

This approach is going to prove crucial as we work with our partners to make handwashing with soap a reality for all and achieve Millennium Development Goal 4 to reduce child mortality levels by two thirds. However, there is so much more we can do.

We are increasingly pioneering new models of co-investments from both public and private sector resources to ensure the scale of hygiene promotion programs is enhanced and targeted towards the most vulnerable demographics– under-fives and their families in most at need countries. Of course, there has been skepticism along the way. But it is diminishing as levels of scientific proof and the long-term commitment we put forward in our joint programs show increasingly positive results. 

As we gear-up to celebrate this year’s Global Handwashing Day on October 15th, let’s put the spotlight on governments, international institutions, civil society organizations, NGOs, and the soap industry to push hygiene up on the global health agenda and unlock the true potential of handwashing with soap.

Everyone has a role to play and can help by telling friends and family about the importance of washing their hands with soap to get more people practicing this important, lifesaving habit. You can also show your support and help more children reach their fifth birthday by pledging on our Facebook page. With every pledge, Lifebuoy and its partners will help more children receive hygiene education through their dedicated handwashing behavior change programs.

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Editor's Note: Join the conversation with Unilever and its partners at #IWashMyHands as they launch a worldwide dialogue on pushing handwashing up the global health agenda. Weigh in on Twitter, make a pledge on Facebook -- and let's join hands on saving 600,000 children every year.

About the Author:

Myriam Sidibe is Lifebuoy’s Global Social Mission Director and is one of the only people in the world with a doctorate in public health, focused on handwashing with soap. She has spent 14 years working with thousands of children understanding the most effective ways to get them to wash their hands with soap at key occasions like before eating or after using the bathroom. Myriam leads Social Mission activity in 55 countries throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America with the aim of changing handwashing behaviors of one billion people by 2015 – that’s the biggest hygiene behavior change program in the world.

Myriam is one of the driving forces behind the creation of Global Handwashing Day, which recognizes the need to raise awareness of handwashing with soap as a simple but lifesaving habit that can prevent disease. She represents Unilever and often partners with organizations such as Millennium Villages, the World Bank, PSI, WSUP, MCHIP and USAID to educate people about the importance of handwashing with soap, and run programs that will help form healthy handwashing habits for life.

Would you buy a carrot if it looked like something that belonged in the Sexmuseum Amsterdam instead of a prop in a Bugs Bunny cartoon? Well, if you live in the United Kingdom and do not mind the sight of carrots like the ones pictured here, shopping for produce other than cucumbers will become a tad more exciting. Confronting diminished supplies, the venerable supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has announced that “ugly fruits and vegetables” will now be available for purchase. The company has no choice but to greenlight the sales of produce that looks as if it belongs in a red light district.

The core reason, however, is not to spice up a mundane trip to the grocery store, but to confront the UK’s driest spring in almost 60 years. Add the triple whammy of a very wet June and an unseasonably rainy fall, the aftermath has been a 25 percent drop in the UK’s total farm production yield. Meanwhile, food waste continues as an unending problem on both sides of the pond and retailers’ emphasis on having only perfectly shaped produce in their stores only adds to the problem. Now it is time for food retailers to join other companies and take a more practical approach towards this issue.

For years British supermarket chains leaned on their produce suppliers to meet a high standards appearance with the result that perfectly edible food often ended up in the dustbin. But according to The Guardian, the recent odd weather patterns have led to even more produce showing blemishes or scars. The lack of perfect and pretty produce has been a financial strain on farmers already flummoxed by constant climate volatility as they have less product to sell on the market.

Therefore, Sainsbury’s, which dates back to the Victorian era and now operates over 1100 stores, has embraced this year’s “bumper crop” of ugly vegetables and fruits. The company has pledged to use dowdy looking fruits and vegetables for its prepared foods and baked goods. Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s has promised an education campaign to encourage its customers to accept imperfect produce, teach them how to prepare it and, in the meantime, support British farming. One of the company’s executives, Judith Batchelar, attempted to engage Sainsbury’s customers by asking questions such as “How do you feel about ‘ugly’ fruits and vegetables?” and whether they would be willing to buy and eat them.

At a time when foods prices are on a trajectory going nowhere but up, the sudden affection for doppelgänger fruits and veggies is actually a slick business opportunity. With both sides of the Atlantic suffering during this relentless 2012 drought, and hunger a growing social problem, the hunt for frumpy looking veggies is an opportunity to change consumer behavior--and maybe even lead to a little mischief in your local produce section.

Image credit: Unsplash

Submitted by Jay Coen Gilbert

By Jay Coen Gilbert, Bart Houlahan, Andrew Kassoy, Co-founders, B Lab

The Truth About Ben & Jerry’s presents a dangerously inaccurate legal analysis of current corporate law and completely misses the point about the need for new corporate form legislation.

The sale of Ben & Jerry’s is a distraction. 

Authors Anthony Page and Robert A. Katz, by generalizing their analysis of the unique situation of the sale of Ben & Jerry’s to conclude that there is no need for new corporate forms designed to serve the needs of social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and the public interest, have failed completely to account for:

1. The facts of Delaware corporate law, arguably the only corporate law that matters when it comes to scaling high impact businesses,
2. The practical reality of how corporate law is applied in the boardroom given the lack of clarity in existing corporate statutes across the country,
3. The needs of the growing marketplace of impact investors who are demanding greater accountability and transparency,
4. The needs of social entrepreneurs as shareholders to have additional legal rights to ensure, not simply hope, that directors consider social mission not just profit margin when making decisions, and
5. The needs of some social entrepreneurs and impact investors to have the freedom and legal protection to build businesses that seek to optimize impact rather than profit. 

The primary objective of the benefit corporation is to enable mission-driven businesses to be built to last and scale with their missions intact, not to entrench individual charismatic leaders. Once elected by the shareholders of the corporation, benefit corporation status, ensures, as existing corporate forms to do not, that a company and its directors and officers are clearly empowered to pursue the creation of value for the public even if doing so fails to maximize value for shareholders, and that impact investors are clearly empowered to hold a company accountable for maintaining the mission in which they invested.   

On both accounts, existing corporate law – both the letter of the law and the practical reality of how it is interpreted, in operating and in liquidity scenarios – fails the test. Benefit corporations meet the test.  Becoming a benefit corporation gives a company more choice and, as we’ll point out, it also gives social entrepreneurs and impact investors more power and consumers more protection from greenwashing.

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It is true there are dissenting voices in the academy on whether or not current corporate law actually requires corporations to maximize shareholder value, but that misses the point for two reasons: 

First, because the legal establishment believes otherwise. The authors fail to acknowledge this by failing to reference any Delaware case law since Dodge v Ford in 1919 (most famously, Unocal v Mesa, 1985 and Revlon v MacAndrews, 1986). Specifically, the most recent past and current Chancellors of the Delaware Court of Chancery think otherwise.  Think of the Chancellors as something like the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court for business in the United States because the majority of public traded corporations, 63 percent of the Fortune 500, and most corporations that seek venture capital, are incorporated in Delaware.

In EBay v Craigslist, 2010, then Chancellor William B. Chandler III said, “Directors of a for-profit Delaware corporation cannot deploy a [policy] to defend a business strategy that openly eschews stockholder wealth maximization - at least not consistent with the directors' fiduciary duties under Delaware law.” And in Wake Forest Law Review, 2012, current Chancellor Leo E. Strine, Jr. says:

“These commentators seem dismayed when anyone starkly recognizes that as a matter of corporate law, the object of the corporation is to produce profits for the stockholders and that the social beliefs of the managers, no more than their own financial interests, cannot be their end in managing the corporation.”

Second, it misses the point because, not surprisingly given the above, practicing corporate attorneys think and act otherwise, and therefore corporate culture operates otherwise. If electing benefit corporation status does nothing other than create clarity between entrepreneur, directors, and investors, that the directors of a benefit corporation are required, not just permitted, to consider the impact of their decisions on stakeholders, then, as the authors themselves state in their conclusion, it is a useful innovation. 

Even in a state with a permissive constituency statute like Vermont that allows directors to consider non-shareholder interests when making decisions, as the Vermont Assistant Attorney General wrote in an informal opinion sent to the Vermont Secretary of Commerce and Community Development in March 2000 in reference to a hypothetical scenario involving the sale of a Vermont corporation (remember, Ben & Jerry’s coincidentally announced their sale in April 2000), there is a hard to quantify limit to the latitude directors are given to turn down a purchase offer. 

That latitude would be greater for a benefit corporation. Benefit corporations would not only enjoy greater legal protection to choose to remain independent, or to choose to sell to a non-high bidder that would better meet the needs of workers, communities, and the environment, but also to choose to make decisions that create incremental value for society even if at the expense of maximizing value for shareholders. 

But benefit corporation status does more than that. 

Benefit corporation status also requires that the corporation seek to create a material positive impact on society and the environment as assessed and publicly reported against a credible and comprehensive third party standard. Current corporate law does not address these issues of corporate purpose or transparency, but increasingly, entrepreneurs and investors care about these issues, as does, and perhaps because so does, a skeptical public that wants to support a better way to do business.

In their conclusion, the authors state that ‘proponents of benefit corporations . . . should be pressed to identify real and unavoidable instances of the Ben & Jerry’s scenario.’  Based on our analysis above, here are two:

1. If Ben & Jerry’s were incorporated in any of the roughly 20 states in which no constituency statute exists, including Delaware; and
2. If Ben & Jerry’s justified any corporate decision on the benefits that might accrue to society and not to shareholders.

The latter would seem particularly relevant for social entrepreneurs or impact investors, if not also for consumers, policy makers, and those of us that make up society.

Additionally, as about 20 practicing corporate attorneys, including a former President of the American Bar Association, stated in a White Paper entitled The Need and Rationale for the Benefit Corporation (Clark et al, 2011), and as the Vermont Assistant Attorney General seems to concur in her informal opinion, ‘Based on the limited case law available, courts [even in states with constituency statutes] seem reluctant to wade into these issues and often fall back on shareholder primacy [i.e. maximizing shareholder value as the de facto sole legitimate corporate purpose].’ Here is the relevant section from the White Paper:

While it is clear that directors of mission-driven companies incorporated in constituency statute jurisdictions may take into consideration the interests of various constituencies when exercising their business judgment, the lack of case law interpreting constituency statutes, coupled with the context in which many of these statutes were enacted, makes it difficult for directors to know exactly how, when and to what extent they can consider those interests.  . . . Based on the limited case law available, courts seem reluctant to wade into these issues and often fall back on shareholder primacy.

Without clear authority explicitly permitting directors to pursue both profit and a company’s mission, even directors of mission-driven companies in constituency statute jurisdictions may be hesitant to “consider” their social missions for fear of breaching their fiduciary duty...

Further, permissive constituency statutes only create the option (and not the requirement) for directors to consider interests of constituencies other than shareholders. Thus, directors have the permission not to consider interests other than shareholder maximization of value. Mission-driven executives and investors are often in minority shareholder positions and would prefer that directors and officers be required to consider these expanded interests when making decisions, with a shareholder right of action providing the “teeth” to enforce such consideration. This is particularly true in situations where a company is considering strategic alternatives and directors’ discretion in making business decisions is more limited by traditional principles requiring shareholder value maximization.

The authors draw three lessons for social entrepreneurs which we address in order. 

Lesson #1: A hybrid legal form is neither necessary nor sufficient to maintain a social enterprise.

Whether or not a benefit corporation is necessary (it is in the circumstances discussed above) or sufficient (it is not), as the authors themselves state in their conclusion, electing benefit corporation status might prove useful, not to mention easier and less expensive than hiring ‘shrewder’ lawyers to ‘(re)discover tested solutions to perennial challenges’, particularly in aligning expectations between executives, directors, and investors, and ‘cultivating consumer loyalty.’

Lesson #2: Financial success is critical to maintaining control.

We agree: no margin, no mission. The authors are correct in stating that the biggest threat to an entrepreneur losing control of her or his mission-driven business is running the business poorly.  This is too often overlooked or underestimated and can’t be said loudly enough.  But it is equally critical to remember that benefit corporation legislation seeks to enhance mission control, not entrepreneur control.

The objective of a mission-driven business ought to be to create value for society, not to create long term control for the entrepreneur. That’s why benefit corporation legislation creates accountability to shareholders (to create value for shareholders and to create value for society) that simply doesn’t exist in the constituency statute states that the authors laud.  In this important respect, benefit corporation legislation recognizes that it’s not about the people, it’s about the system. Which brings us to lesson number three.

Lesson #3: It’s the people!

While this is true enough, it is also true that people are enabled or constrained by the system in which they operate. As a point of law, no matter how thoughtful or noble or harebrained the people, depending upon your point of view, there is zero flexibility for the people (in this instance a company’s directors and officers) to decide to pursue a corporate purpose other than maximizing value to shareholders. 

As the authors themselves state, ‘executives at [benefit corporations] likely feel less pressure to maximize profits at society’s expense.’  Their ensuing question regarding causation (i.e. whether [benefit corporations] make directors ‘more virtuous’ or vice versa) is like asking which came first the chicken or the egg.  The practical thing to know is that chickens lay eggs. And that benefit corporations, assuming they ultimately behave like Certified B Corporations, will create higher quality jobs and improve the quality of life in their communities more so than ordinary businesses.

Whether causal or correlated, let’s have more of them, please.

What about the authors’ remaining point that, in the end, directors don’t make the final decision, shareholders do?

True, but shareholders don’t get to vote until a sale offer is presented to them.  The negotiations over the terms of the sale have already taken place, so shareholders only choice is to say no.  Ignoring how infrequently less-informed shareholders vote against the recommendations of a board, simply exercising the right to say no is not a very compelling method for scaling high impact social enterprises that are built to last. 

Moreover, the authors miss several important elements of benefit corporation legislation that give ‘the people’ more power.  Shareholders of benefit corporations have additional rights of action (i.e. the legal standing to bring a lawsuit) –- rights that do not exist under existing corporate law, even in states with permissive constituency statutes like Vermont -- to hold directors accountable to consider the impact of their decisions on all stakeholders and to pursue the creation of a material positive impact on society and the environment as assessed against a credible and comprehensive third party standard. 

That positive impact can now be judged more easily not only by shareholders, directors, or if need be a judge, but also by the general public (aka ‘the people’) for whom the benefit corporation is required to publish publically their annual benefit report which includes that assessment of their overall social and environmental performance against a third party standard.  It is largely this transparency provision in benefit corporation legislation that would give ‘the people’ (whether they be investors, consumers, policy makers, or employees) useful information to form an educated opinion about, for example, whether or not they feel Chevron’s ad in this same Fall issue of SSIR about their support for education in America tells a complete story about their overall corporate social and environmental impact.

Because benefit corporations meet clear and higher standards of corporate purpose, accountability and transparency, it offers entrepreneurs clear differentiation and it offers investors and consumers additional protection.  Rather than a potential ‘unhelpful distraction’, benefit corporations are making it easier for social entrepreneurs, impact investors, and we the people to create the change we wish to see in the world. 

Perhaps most importantly, the authors’ exclusive focus on a legal analysis of the Ben & Jerry’s sale misses something crucial – that ultimately performance matters more than policy. Lost in the inordinate focus on whether Ben & Jerry’s could’ve or should’ve resisted the sale to Unilever is an examination of what matters most to many observers – namely, what has happened to Ben & Jerry’s post sale?  

The best way to judge the sale of a mission-driven business is to assess to what extent that mission has been maintained post sale as evidenced by its ongoing performance. And in a world in which the public (perhaps appropriately) doesn’t trust what a company says about itself, maybe especially so for a business that claims to be one of the good guys, verified performance matters even more.

We’ll examine this lingering question soon in Part 2. Stay tuned.

About B Lab:

B Lab is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to harness the power of business to solve social and environmental problems, and whose activities include working with businesses and investors to advance benefit corporation legislation and certifying businesses that have met rigorous and independent standards of performance as Certified B Corporations. For inquiries, contact Jay Coen Gilbert at [email protected] or 610-296-8283.

Related:

SSIR Article Attacks B Corps, Points the Finger at Ben & Jerry's

Some Real “Truth” About Ben & Jerry’s: A Lawyer's Perspective