What does it take for a business to create true social impact? In 1988 Ben and Jerry's went further than most companies would dare to go twenty-five years later. This is their story.

Courage is a theme that runs through my book,Ice Cream Social: The Struggle for the Soul of Ben & Jerry’s. It is the word that the company’s former president, Chuck Lacy, used to describe their management during a decade of rapid growth. Ben & Jerry’s courage to speak out on controversial issues helped create passionately loyal customers, because it made buying their ice cream into a political act. And in 2009, the company’s independent board of directors needed to summon courage to challenge their multinational owner, Unilever, and keep the social mission from being lost.

How much are we willing to risk? Why can’t we do better? And as board member Anuradha Mittal is fond of saying, how can we be more unreasonable? For four decades, the leaders of Ben & jerry’s have created true social impact because they were ready to bet the company on their beliefs.

Ben & Jerry’s started speaking out on controversial issues in 1988

Ben & Jerry’s started speaking out on controversial issues in 1988. Co-founder Ben Cohen and another board member, Jeff Furman, were launching a foundation called One Percent For Peace. The group’s purpose was to divert one percent of America’s military spending toward programs aimed at building cultural understanding between the United States and the Soviet Union – or, as President Ronald Reagan had recently called them the “evil empire.”

After a marathon argument, the board voted to promote One Percent in the company’s marketing and to call its ice cream bars Peace Pops. “I was against it at first. I thought that we’d lose business,” said Chuck Lacy. “We argued on and on. Then, at one point, someone asked me, ‘Why can’t a company take a stand? Why not?’ And I realized that I didn’t have a good answer, so I changed my mind.”

Today, it isn’t unusual for a company to put its marketing muscle behind a noncontroversial cause. Corporate social marketing takes many forms: Allstate encourages teenagers to sign a pledge not to send text messages while driving, and Home Depot pushes water conservation. But Ben & Jerry’s was one of the first companies to do this, and in 1988 they went further than most companies would dare to go twenty-five years later. They started and funded their own not-for-profit organization, and they allied with a controversial cause (the peace movement) that would alienate potential customers—how many, no one could say.

The risks were substantial, but Ben, Jeff, and co-founder Jerry Greenfield didn’t care. “From our point of view, the risk of continuing the arms race outweighed any risk to the company,” said Jeff. “We might have been scared of failing, but we were much more frightened of tactical nuclear warheads.” The social mission was at least as important to them as profit and product quality.

Eight years later, Ben & Jerry’s bet again. They sued four state attorneys general for the right to put stickers on their pints that expressed the company’s opposition to recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a synthetic version of a hormone that enhances milk production by artificially extending a cow’s lactation cycle. The company joined consumer and farm advocacy groups opposed to rBGH because of its destructive effects on the health of cows; because it might also cause health problems in people; and because it would drive small farmers, many of whom could not afford the treatment, out of business.

The social mission was at least as important to them as profit and product quality

Monsanto Corporation, the producer of rBGH, was threatening to sue anyone who mentioned that milk and dairy products were produced using rBGH, and Ben & Jerry’s decided to call their bluff. They designed an anti-rBGH sticker for pints, and they released it on the same day Monsanto’s salesmen started taking orders. They also paid their dairy suppliers a premium to promise not to inject their cows with rBGH.

Ben & Jerry’s became a go-to source for the media’s coverage of the anti-rBGH campaign, effectively raining on Monsanto’s parade. And the movement effectively limited the hormone’s use. Only 17 percent of cows in the United States were being treated with rBGH in 2007, and every country in the European Union has banned it.

The rBGH campaign “went way, way out on a limb,” said Liz Bankowski, the company’s director of social mission in the 1990s. “It wasn’t going to increase our sales, and we took a huge risk by doing it. The only reason we did it was that it was the right thing to do. That is what made Ben & Jerry’s different from other companies.”

When Unilever purchased Ben & Jerry’s in 2000, they signed detailed sale agreements that promised to continue the company’s unique three-part mission and its commitment to social activism. But the executive Unilever assigned to run their ice cream division did not respect the sale agreements, and for eight years, the independent Vermont-based board of directors charged with enforcing the agreements didn’t do much about it except grumble. When Unilever’s management changed, however, the board insisted that Unilever take the sale agreements seriously, even if that meant reducing profits. While they negotiated, the board also prepared a lawsuit and a public relations campaign that would draw public attention to their position. They almost went through with it, too. They were getting ready to attack their own company.

Fortunately, Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s settled on a new working relationship, the three-part-mission roared back to live, and the company has become a global leader in the movement for corporate social responsibility. But the independent board of directors remains unsatisfied, and Jeff Furman, their current chair, says that they never will be satisfied. The board’s role is to give Ben & Jerry’s the courage to take risks for non-financial reasons. They want Ben & Jerry’s to attack the root causes of poverty, injustice, and homophobia. That’s always risky, but it is also what gives the company its soul.

Brad Edmondson regularly posts new material about Ben & Jerry’s at the site http://www.icecreamsocialbook.com.