Ice cream maker warms to climate challenge

Ben and Jerry's ice cream business is a keen supporter of socially sustainable practices and environmental projects, writes Claire Shoesmith.

Conventional thinking says that success and sustainability don't go hand in hand when it comes to business, but Jerry Greenfield, one half of the Ben & Jerry's ice cream duo, begs to differ.

"There is a general thinking that if you want to be a sustainable and caring company, it takes away from your bottom line," says Greenfield, who is in Ireland to promote the group's Climate Change College campaign. "Our experience has been exactly the opposite. That conventional thinking is wrong."

According to Greenfield, the more Ben & Jerry's has been involved in sustainable practices and the more it has given back to the community, the more successful the company has been.

While this may sound rather idealistic, there is no doubt that Greenfield's heart and mind are behind his mouth. The company, which was set up by Greenfield and his long-time school friend Ben Cohen in 1978 after completing a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making, has a healthy CV of actions and events that would be classified as both environmentally and socially sustainable. Not only does Ben & Jerry's feed its cows a special diet to ensure they produce less methane into the environment, it also operates its Netherlands-based European factory entirely on green energy.

In fact, since 2002 Ben & Jerry's has reduced its climate impact by 32 per cent in the US and is now working towards being climate neutral, with a series of projects to reduce greenhouse emissions across dairy farming, ingredients, factory production, transport and retail refrigeration.

It has also pledged to compensate for unavoidable emissions by investing in high quality Gold Standard verified emission reductions certificates for renewable energy projects such as wind farms, bio-gas or solar projects.

It's not all about climate change either. Last year Ben & Jerry's ran a US American Pie campaign aimed at increasing American awareness of the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on nuclear weapons compared with a shortfall of spending on basic unmet needs for education and healthcare. At the same time it also lunched the world's first vanilla ice cream with Fairtrade ingredients.

Despite this impressive list, Greenfield is eager not to preach to others. "For us the values are genuine and the actions come out of the values," he says. "I would only recommend this approach to other companies if it is something they believe in."

What he is really saying is that you don't need to be a caring business to be successful, but that he would like people to see Ben & Jerry's and realise that if you do want to be a business that has social and environmental concerns as the base, you can do it and still be successful.

Greenfield is quick to admit, though, that the company's environmental and social responsibility beliefs are not necessarily a sales driver.

After all, while economic and social responsibility account for two-thirds of the group's mission statement - and about 10 per cent of group profits are spent on such projects - there is a third string to Ben & Jerry's bow, and that is ice cream.

A well-known brand around the world, Ben & Jerry's, which had worldwide sales of about $300 million (€213 million) last year (it was bought by Unilever in 2000 and as a result precise sales and profit figures aren't available), has more than half of the super premium ice cream market in Ireland.

In fact, the brand has higher recognition here than anywhere else in Europe.

Greenfield hopes this prominence can be used to the company's advantage in promoting its Climate Change College campaign, an initiative in association with the World Wildlife Fund and polar explorer Marc Cornelissen.

The aim is to recruit ambassadors from six European countries, including Ireland, give them the appropriate training and then task them with educating their nation on how to prevent climate change.

Speaking at the launch of the 2008 campaign earlier this week in Dublin, Greenfield said: "To be in Ireland, making people sit up and actually do something to slow down or even stop the climate change that is happening around us is a dream.

"We all know what's happening around us, now it's time to make it stop. As an ice cream guy, I know that when it's melted, it's ruined."