Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream
The Vision & Innovation Award is presented to Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, for their social and environmental leadership and vision to improve the quality of life for people around the world through their business practices.
The Vision & Innovation Award recognizes an individual, organization or company that has demonstrated ongoing leadership and vision in a style/design industry. This award is selected by the SSF boards and advisors following nominations from the SSF membership. Aveda was the 2005 Vision & Innovation Award recipient. |
Since their inception in 1978, Ben & Jerry’s has married their passion for making great ice cream with changing the world for the better; their numerous social and environmental efforts and programs include supplying a pig farm in Stowe, Vermont with ice cream waste in 1987, using recycled and recyclable plastic and cardboard packaging, coming out against recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), based on concern about its adverse economic impact on family farming in 1989 and Ben & Jerry’s Circus Bus, which hit the road for a national tour in 1991 complete with solar panels atop the bus to power the on-board electronics. Ben & Jerry’s 2001 CERES Report also won the award for Outstanding Sustainability Reporting – the first-ever such award given by the CERES organization.
2002 saw Ben & Jerry’s partner with the Dave Matthews Band and SaveOurEnvironment.org to form Lick Global Warming, a campaign to fight global warming, as well as begin an ongoing partnership with NativeEnergy to offset carbon emissions by investing in new wind farms. In 2003, they launched a sustainable agriculture program in Hellendorn, Holland, that’s developing criteria for sustainable dairy farming practices. Through it all, they've proven that it takes more than great ice cream to be a great ice cream company, and that sustainability can be more than just a smart business practice; it can be fun, and it can be a way of life.