Welcome!
to Ben & Jerry’s 2005 Social and Environmental Assessment Report.
Within this site, you’ll find our thoughts on how well we delivered on our Company’s Social Mission and our environmental commitments last year. While there is plenty that makes us proud in these pages, you’ll also find a candid evaluation of our shortcomings, trade-offs, and opportunities missed in the social and environmental arena in 2005.
We’ve taken time each year since 1989 to compile this report because we continue to believe that it keeps us in touch with our Company’s stated Social Mission. By raising the profile of social and environmental matters inside the Company and recording the impact of our work on the community, this report aids us in our search for business decisions that support all three parts of our Company Mission Statement: Economic, Product, and Social. In addition, the report is an important source of information about the Company for students, journalists, prospective employees, and other interested observers. In this way, it helps us in our quest to keep our values, our actions, and public perceptions in alignment.
This is the first year that we’ve issued the report in a fully-linked, easily navigated online format. We hope this change will not only minimize the environmental impacts of the report, but also broaden our audience in a cost-effective way while bringing the report to life through relevant links and images. Previous Ben & Jerry’s Social and Environmental reports are available in PDF format here.
We suggest everyone begin reading the report with a look at the letter from Ben & Jerry’s Chief Euphoria Officer Walt Freese. For readers interested in a quick summary, the Highlights section is a logical next step. Readers interested in more detail can find every section of the report using the navigation menu in the left hand column.
Given the many changes and challenges inherent in this new format, we have not submitted this report to an outside auditor, and, therefore, there is no social auditor’s review in these pages, as has been our practice in years past. Our longtime social auditor, James E. Heard, Vice Chairman of Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc., has served as a consultant in the process of writing this report, offering candid insights and feedback, in an advisory capacity only.
Enjoy!