Ben and Jerry's Double Dip

Ben and Jerry's Double Dip, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Simon and Schuster, 1997

Ben and Jerry, the ice cream guys, explainin this book how they, and anyone, can run a business led by personal values (presumably meaning more than just profit, profit, profit). From the time they opened their first ice cream shop in 1978, one of Cohen and Greenfield's major principles has been to buy from, and give back to, the community as much as possible. This has ranged from buying milk from local dairy farmers to staffing a New York City scoopshop with homeless and ex-homeless people to limiting their first stock offering to Vermont residents as a way of saying thanks. They're also not afraid to talk about those areas of internal operations where they haven't known what they're doing.

What's even better about this book is that Ben and Jerry explain how anyone can bring their values to the forefront in the workplace. It doesn't have to involve a major restructuring to create another Ben and Jerry's, but there are things that anyone can do (start a recycling program at work, buy chlorine-free paper, or buy from an organic coop instead of a corporate food distributor).

I really enjoyed this book. It's easy to read, and has lots of good points that can apply to nearly any business. Well worth reading for progressive activists and hard-nosed business owners.