How Ben & Jerry's mingles conscience with profit motive. (Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.)

National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, June, 1991 by Katz, David

Why is Ben Cohen--the beaming, bearded cofounder of Ben & Jerry's with the '60s-ish values--so convincing? And why should risk manager care? Hearing him speak at the RIMS conference in New Orleans last month, I found myself searching for answers to these questions. I came prepared to be cynical about the ice cream company's social awareness, its "corporate stewardship" of the environment and other national resources.

No doubt it was all a ploy adroitly engineered by two lapsed hippies with an eye for markets share and a tax writeoff, I thought. Yet, somehow, the peeled away my cynicism. He made me believe that he's as sincere about housing the homeless, cleaning up pollution and bringing peace to the world as he is about elbowing Haagen-Dazs and...

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