ben jerry

Respond to the below post following the below guidelines:
Be sure to post an initial, substantive response by Thursday at 11:59 p.m. MT and respond to 2 or more peers with substantive responses by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. MT. A substantive initial post answers the question presented completely and/or asks a thoughtful question pertaining to the topic. Substantive peer responses ask a thoughtful question pertaining to the topic and/or answers a question (in detail) posted by another student or the instructor.

Ben & Jerry’s is a company that sells pre-packaged ice cream. They are a certified B corporation, which according to Harvard Business Review means they value “non-shareholding stakeholders, such as their employees, the local community, and the environment. Once a firm crosses a certain performance threshold on these dimensions, it makes amendments to its corporate charter to incorporate the interests of all stakeholders into the fiduciary duties of directors and officers. These steps demonstrate that a firm is following a fundamentally different governance philosophy than a traditional shareholder-centered corporation.” (Kim, 2017) According to their mission page, Ben & Jerry’s has four main points in their corporate social responsibility strategy:
advocating for sustainable economic justice,
reducing manufacturing waste and its impact on the environment,
using sustainable food production processes and chemicals, and
nonviolent ways of achieving peace and justice (Ben & Jerry’s, n.d.).
Unfortunately, their board members’ decisions has put Ben & Jerry’s in the middle of political conflict. Back in July of 2021, the company decided to stop sales in an area of Israel called the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Debates around the world about who owns this area date back to the 1960s. Ben & Jerry’s claims that removing their product from the OPT was done as part of their fight for social justice and was not a boycott of Israel (Ben & Jerry’s, 2021). On the other hand, many of Israel’s leaders (as well as individuals/groups who gain attention through political division) have claimed that Ben & Jerry’s is anti-Semite (Reuters, 2021).
This situation stood out to me because it is an interesting look at what counts as “corporate social responsibility”. Obviously an ice cream company is not going to sway global social policy. However, they have started a conversation and brought the issue to the front of people’s minds. Corporations, no matter what they produce, do have a larger voice than any one individual. On the other hand it is difficult to say if any of this benefits stakeholders. Is the situation actually going to benefit those in the OPT? Will Ben & Jerry’s pull their product from every country they have a disagreement of policy with? Does pulling their product, without any other financial or social assistance, count as social justice? How does this benefit stakeholders (employees, manufacturers, customers, etc.) within the OPT?
Seeing as their contracts with sellers in the occupied Palestinian territories ended at the beginning of 2022, it will be interesting to see what the result is in the coming months.
References
Ben & Jerry’s. (n.d.). Values. Ben & Jerry’s.
Ben & Jerry’s. (2021) Ben & Jerry’s Will End Sales of Our Ice Cream in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Ben & Jerry’s.
Kim, S. (2017, June 22). Why companies are becoming B corporations. Harvard Business Review.
Reuters. (2021, July 19). Ben & Jerry’s to end ice-cream sales in Occupied Palestinian Territories. Reuters.

Last Completed Projects