This past fall, a Teak Media hero, Jerry Greenfield, stepped down from his role in the company he founded, Ben & Jerry’s. No longer morally able to support the company whose values were not aligned with his own, he retired, leaving partner Ben Cohen to carry on the arduous task of trying to buy the company back from Magnum, the ice cream division of Unilever, which is the behemoth company to which they sold their revolutionary ice cream company. In the Free Ben & Jerry’s campaign, Ben Cohen, who recently spoke at the Globe Summit, aims to get the company he and Greenfield founded back into the hands of socially responsible business leaders.
The selling of Ben & Jerry’s to Unilever in 2001 was an impetus for the founding of the B Corp movement. As Greenfield explained it, the reason they sold to Unilever was because as a public company, Ben & Jerry’s had a fiduciary responsibility to generate the greatest return for its shareholders. The wheels started turning. What if there were companies with the triple bottom line of people, planet and profits that were beholden to all three in equal measure rather than just profits. The B Corp movement was formed a few years later. Teak Media was first certified as a B Corp in 2013.
I had the incredible fortune of learning from Greenfield as we drove during morning rush hour between radio station interviews with a station wagon filled with ice cream, which we delivered to eager radio DJs who had agreed to promote the Scooper Bowl all-you-can-eat ice cream festival that raised money for the Jimmy Fund. For two consecutive days in June 1997, 1998, and 1999 – at red lights and in bumper-to-bumper morning traffic – I learned the fundamentals of socially responsible business from the man who all but created the concept.
It was at the Scooper Bowl where I found my passion for promoting nonprofits. With pictures of Jimmy Fund kids lining City Hall Plaza, the festival vibe of compassion and caring was set, and I found my calling. From that day on, Teak Media has represented only nonprofits and socially responsible companies.
More than a generation later, Greenfield continues to inspire by walking away from the company he founded rather than continue to be the frontman for a parent company whose policies he does not condone, while Cohen remains committed to ensuring the company they founded gets back into values-aligned hands.
At the Globe Summit, Boston Globe business reporter Shirley Leung asked Cohen why he doesn’t also leave and simply use the money he’s earned through Ben & Jerry’s to support the causes he believes in. His answer (maybe not exactly word for word) pretty much says it all.
“Business has become the most powerful force in society. Business determines what laws get passed due to lobbying. Business determines what news we see by owning media. Business is a compilation of organized human energy and power and so business needs to take responsibility. Ben & Jerry’s proved that it is possible for business to improve the quality of life for people and the planet.”
Thanks, Jerry, for being my unknowing mentor many moons ago and for keeping the lessons coming. And thank you, Ben, for continuing to keep the fight alive. Capitalism needs you both now more than ever.
