Socially Conscious or Oxymoronic?

Interesting excerpt from an upcoming book that I put on my Christmas list. The author is Douglas Rushkoff and the book is "Get Back In The Box: Innovation From The Inside Out."

This particular excerpt talks about the companies that paint themselves as socially concious, but often with contradictory results. He cites Ben & Jerry's ice cream here and how they use natural ingredients grown on family farms and go out of their way to promote the community involvment of the company and their employees. On the flipside of all this "good," Rushkoff points to the epidemic of obesity in America, and how can B&J say they are a socially responsible company when they promote obesity (or at least aren't doing anything to stop it).

There's also some interesting dialog that follows the blog entry.

But when push comes to shove, we have to acknowledge that Ben and Jerry's makes ice cream in a nation where 64.5 percent of the population 20 or older is overweight, 30.5 percent are obese, and type II diabetes is at an all-time high. According to the World Health Organization, obesity-related illnesses claim more than 500,000 lives each year. Ben and Jerry's chocolate-dipped waffle cones each pack 320 calories and 10 grams of fat before any ice cream is added. Its homespun ads showing cows on clean pastures make ice cream look positively healthy. Does encouraging charitable giving, environmental responsibility, and fair labor standards compensate for the obesity encouraged by its products and marketing campaigns?

There was an article in Fast Company last issue talking about the focus on doing good at Timberland footwear. The title says it all: "Is it possible to run a billion-dollar public company and save the world at the same time? Timberland's CEO Jeffrey Swartz is trying to find out." Schwartz is trying to strike a delicate balance between seemingly disparate labels - capitalist and idealist... and doing a seemingly good job thus far.