Be Bold. Take A Stand. Change The World.

Explore how companies like Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's drive systemic change through activism beyond individual action.

Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.

Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.

Key Takeaways

Systemic change requires moving beyond individual lifestyle choices to corporate and policy action.
Corporate activism can be both ethically right and commercially successful.
Supporting grassroots activists is crucial for building durable social movements.
Authenticity in advocacy strengthens company credibility and impact.
Integrating social justice into business strategy ensures long-term commitment and effectiveness.

What the video covers

The session focuses on shifting from individual actions to systemic change in social and climate justice.
BP's PR campaign popularized the individual carbon footprint concept to divert attention from fossil fuel companies.
Sustainable living is important but insufficient without addressing systemic issues and corporate responsibility.
Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's exemplify brands using their platforms for activism and advocacy.
Speakers include Avi Garbo, Jay Curley, and Chris Miller, leaders in environmental advocacy and marketing.
Discussion covers the role of policy, corporate activism, and supporting grassroots movements.
The panel emphasizes integrating social missions with business goals for lasting impact.
Marketing and communications are used strategically to grow movements and influence policy.
Companies are encouraged to root activism in genuine beliefs rather than marketing trends.
The goal is to normalize activism within business operations for durable social change.

Chapters

What is the main focus of the 'Be Bold. Take A Stand. Change The World.' session?

The session focuses on encouraging companies and individuals to move beyond individual actions and focus on systemic change to address social and climate justice issues.

How do Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's contribute to systemic change?

Both brands use their platforms for activism and advocacy, integrating social missions with their business goals to support climate justice, criminal justice reform, and voting rights.

Why is focusing solely on individual sustainable actions considered insufficient?

Because individual actions alone cannot address the structural and systemic problems caused by fossil fuel companies and other large entities; broader policy and corporate responsibility are necessary for real change.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

[Music] All right, we can get started. Thank you all so much for being here today for the session "Be Bold, Take a Stand, Change the World." Today, we are really looking forward to speaking with you about how to move beyond focusing purely on systemic—uh, sorry, on individual action to focusing on systemic change. We have some great speakers here to talk with you about that. So, I'm going to start with telling you a story, and a lot of people don't know it.

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beyond focusing purely on systemic uh sorry on individual action to focusing on systemic change we have some great speakers here to talk with you about that so i'm going to start with telling you a story and a lot of people don't know it

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In the year 2000, BP, British Petroleum, hired a prominent PR campaign firm called Ogilvy and Mather, and in a 250 million dollar effort, they created a campaign. The objective: to popularize the idea of the individual carbon footprint.

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under a green veil this was a strategy deliberately intended as a manipulative campaign to move the focus away from fossil fuel companies and on to us bp's pr campaign to blame the crisis on everyday people and instead of focusing on fossil fuel

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Under a green veil, this was a strategy deliberately intended as a manipulative campaign to move the focus away from fossil fuel companies and onto us. BP's PR campaign to blame the crisis on everyday people, instead of focusing on fossil fuel companies, had some success in changing the narrative. We started to focus on our own lives in the fight for social and climate justice. Now, is doing your part to live sustainably bad? Of course not. We always love it when folks are focusing on this

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and doing this but making those changes aren't available to everyone those who don't have the time resources and energy to make those changes in their own lives to create real change we know we need to go further much further

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and doing this, but making those changes aren't available to everyone—those who don't have the time, resources, and energy to make those changes in their own lives. To create real change, we know we need to go further, much further.

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impacting society at large today we're here to talk about how companies can use their platforms in new ways activism and advocacy patagonia and ben and jerry's are landmark brands that have proven that social advocacy isn't just the right thing to do it can be a

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This is just one example of how looking inward in the fight for social justice cannot be the only solution. Today's panel is about moving beyond ourselves, our companies, our operations, and using our platforms to focus on systemic change impacting society at large. Today, we're here to talk about how companies can use their platforms in new ways: activism and advocacy. Patagonia and Ben and Jerry's are landmark brands that have proven that social advocacy isn't just the right thing to do; it can be a

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so i'm excited to introduce you to some of our speakers um the first is avi garbo abby if you want to come on avi is a nationally recognized environmental leader lawyer and advocate who currently serves as patagonia's environmental

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recipe for building a successful company and changing the world. And one thing is, like I mentioned, we'd love to hear your questions, so feel free to submit those in the panel on the right side, and we'll try to get to some.

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several landmark federal efforts to address climate change and beyond jay curley is the global head of integrated marketing for ben and jerry's where he leads the development and execution of consumer marketing activities in the us and global advertising and communications

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So, I'm excited to introduce you to some of our speakers. The first is Avi Garbo. Abby, if you want to come on. Avi is a nationally recognized environmental leader, lawyer, and advocate who currently serves as Patagonia's environmental

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and jerry's on campaign's focus on crim climate justice criminal justice reform and voting rights and last but not least chris miller chris is the head of global activism strategy for ben and jerry's where he spearheads consumer-facing activism campaigns that support the company's

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advocate. Avi has a storied tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency, serving as senior counselor during the Biden administration and as the Senate-confirmed general counsel during the Obama administration—two administrations. He has been a key player in advancing

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and i am your moderator molly kawahata with a passion for climate justice and social justice and i'm really looking forward to talking with these folks so thank you all so much for being here all right so we're gonna start the panel

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several landmark federal efforts to address climate change and beyond. Jay Curley is the global head of integrated marketing for Ben and Jerry's, where he leads the development and execution of consumer marketing activities in the U.S. and global advertising and communications.

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social justice issues are structural problems that need to be addressed and demand solutions at scale and you have a long history of working in the climate mitigation and policy space as patagonia's environmental advocate today can you talk about the role policy

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These integrated programs bring Ben and Jerry's progressive mission to life in traditional advertising, innovative social media and digital engagement, retail shops, social activism, and live consumer experiences—a lot of things. Jay has been the marketing lead for Ben

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today i thought it'd be helpful just to give a sense of kind of where we have come in our own patagon patagonia journey just to kind of put in context where we are today when it comes to our

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and Jerry's on campaigns focused on climate justice, criminal justice reform, and voting rights. And last but not least, Chris Miller. Chris is the head of global activism strategy for Ben and Jerry's, where he spearheads consumer-facing activism campaigns that support the company's

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climbing equipment in the u.s he started in a tin shed actually in burbank california and i love the fact that one of his earliest catalogs was i think all of a page long and had the disclaimer not to expect fast delivery

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progressive mission and values. He previously worked on corporate consciousness and sustainability for Seventh Generation and as the climate campaign director for Greenpeace. Today, he serves as the vice chair of the board for the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.

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climbing hardware in the u.s but at the time one of the main components of of climbing gear was the piton which you would of course hammer into the face of the rock and and soon thereafter and i think this reflects

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And I am your moderator, Molly Kawahata, with a passion for climate justice and social justice, and I'm really looking forward to talking with these folks. So, thank you all so much for being here. All right, so we're going to start the panel

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his the schwinnard equipment company in 72 he ended actually with a statement that i love it just says remember the rock climb clean and again this this shows you kind of infused already with his sense of business was a responsive

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by just focusing on one question for each panelist each, and then we'll jump into a live discussion. So, Avi, I'd love to kick off the conversation by talking to you about what systemic change means. We know that climate change and

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answer the question as we said what's a rad seller like us doing on the environmental soap box um and patagonia gets a lot of fan mail i'm sure that ben and jerry's and others do as well but one of our pieces of fan mail we put

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social justice issues are structural problems that need to be addressed and demand solutions at scale. You have a long history of working in the climate mitigation and policy space as Patagonia's environmental advocate today. Can you talk about the role policy

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pamphlet was stay out and stay home and mind your own business and and we printed that i think in part to remind ourselves and to remind the readers that what he didn't realize was that environmental activism was our business

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and advocacy have in solving environmental and social crises and how Patagonia has succeeded in focusing in this space? Sure, Molly. First of all, thank you, and Chris and Jay, it's great to be with you all and others on the call

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do in all areas of our our enterprise some of the ways that that kind of takes form uh perhaps most prominently is our support of grassroots activists around the country in the world we helped co-found the one percent for

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today. I thought it'd be helpful just to give a sense of kind of where we have come in our own Patagonia journey, just to kind of put in context where we are today when it comes to our

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that that the most passionate people are those grassroots activists on the ground and and being able to support them uh and lift up their voices is really a key way for advocating for our own environmental priorities um but we also uh kind of have a new uh

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policy and our advocacy. You know, you go back about 50 years. Our founder, Yvon Chouinard, was a surfer, a climber, even a falconer. Back then, and I always like kind of reminding folks, he was an early maker of

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think to use their own voices in support of environmental causes um but a couple ways i think that patagonia in the advocacy space has done a little bit more than than other companies is we have not kind of been fearful of

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climbing equipment in the U.S. He started in a tin shed, actually, in Burbank, California, and I love the fact that one of his earliest catalogs was, I think, all of a page long and had the disclaimer not to expect fast delivery

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or at least shrinking uh their size we have filed uh kind of cases in the clean water act sphere we have weighed in on the courts and the litigation over the um the uh affordable clean energy rule which was

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between May and November. So, he clearly had his priorities right at the time. But early on, around 1970, the Chouinard Equipment Company moved to Ventura in part because of the surf break up there, but it became the largest supplier of

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endorsements not because again we're a democrat or republican partisan but because i think we're a planetary partisan right we express ourselves as to what's good for the planet and we look for our elected representatives to support things that are good for the

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climbing hardware in the U.S. But at the time, one of the main components of climbing gear was the piton, which you would, of course, hammer into the face of the rock. And soon thereafter, and I think this reflects

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pass on the environmental crises that affect us all you know you're you've made molly that interesting comment about bp trying to kind of foist uh the climate crisis onto the shoulders of individuals and similarly i think there can be a tendency of some companies i

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kind of Yvon's environmental ethic, he became a proponent of a new movement called kind of clean climbing and replaced the piton with a chalk, which you would instead wedge by hand into the crevices of the rock. And in an early catalog of

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the very beginning that we have a responsibility as a business to act for uh positive change in the environmental sphere and i guess the last point that i'll that i'll make on this topic is in the scheme of

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his, the Chouinard Equipment Company in '72, he ended actually with a statement that I love. It just says, "Remember the rock, climb clean." And again, this shows you kind of infused already with his sense of business was a responsive

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out how we can multiply our voice whether it's through our business community our customer base or others but again the more we can kind of put an x and a multiplication factor to our policy work and our advocacy work the

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responsibility towards the natural environment that we all share. Now, a number of years later, fast forward to 1998, we put out a pamphlet, not a catalog, a pamphlet called Louder Than Words. It was about 15 pages, and all it was designed to do was really

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causes um whether or not that's like you said policy political legal there are so many tools available and i do want to just re you know give emphasis to this idea of supporting community organizers on the ground organizing their own communities that is

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answer the question, as we said, what's a rad seller like us doing on the environmental soapbox? Patagonia gets a lot of fan mail, I'm sure that Ben and Jerry's and others do as well, but one of our pieces of fan mail we put

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companies that are thinking how does this effect affect me it is going to affect and increasingly affect your consumers um so chris uh i wanted to jump over to you now um ben jerry's has a unique three-part mission focused equally on

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printed on the back of that pamphlet. It was actually a scathing letter from an individual in Grants Pass, Oregon, who was angered by Patagonia's support of some forest protection groups in Oregon. And basically, his message, again printed on the back of our own

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entity or company and have broader societal impact so how can companies harness their unique platforms to create structural change well molly thank you for the question and uh it's great to be with you today and and also avi it goes without saying

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pamphlet, was "Stay out and stay home and mind your own business." And we printed that, I think, in part to remind ourselves and to remind the readers that what he didn't realize was that environmental activism was our business

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think what we've come to realize at uh ben and jerry's is that in many ways corporations are the most powerful entities within society that corporations hold great sway over the public over policy makers and that far too often that power is used to

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at Patagonia and has been really for nearly 50 years. So, for us today, we've got a mission of being in business to save our home planet. The environmental policy and the environmental advocacy is really central to everything that we

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the time stay out of politics just sell us ice cream you know stop preaching about social justice and environmental justice just give me chunky monkey the truth is corporations are deeply involved in politics and policies every single day most of the time it's behind

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do in all areas of our enterprise. Some of the ways that that kind of takes form, perhaps most prominently, is our support of grassroots activists around the country and in the world. We helped co-found the One Percent for

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privilege that we have to advance the interest of the common good and not just the sort of corporate narrow self-interest and we can do that in a way that is transparent uh uh to all of our stakeholders right you may disagree

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the Planet. We've got a whole cadre of folks at Patagonia whose sole mission is to financially and otherwise support hundreds, if not thousands, of grassroots groups around the country and around the world, in part because we know

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feel you don't have to dig through lobbying disclosure reports to figure out our point of view on an issue and so you know i i think what we do sort of at its root and i think this this issue of individual

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that the most passionate people are those grassroots activists on the ground, and being able to support them, and li—

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major crises uh that our society and our planet are facing and so using that power and influence uh to promote and support the kinds of policies that address the root causes that can really attempt to drive systemic change in a

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way that a series of kind of voluntary sort of individual corporate actions just can't achieve and i think the the big opportunity here is that corporations and brands are you know i and you'll hear from my my friend and colleague jake curley here

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in a minute i i that sit on the social mission and advocacy side partner with world-class marketers and sailing you know people that sell stuff like jay curly you mentioned in your introduction to me that i i spent some time working at

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greenpeace and i worked with a bunch of incredibly passionate uh campaigners and advocates what we weren't necessarily were trained communications people and it turns out that the same tools that we use to sell chocolate fudge brownie or fish food

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can be used to sell ideas to sell the idea that the climate crisis is an existential threat to our planet that the criminal justice system is systemically racist and needs to be reformed and and i think that's what we've come

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to understand the the role of brands and companies can be in advancing progressive social change using that platform platform that privilege to engage you know the wider general population on these issues and i think in doing and you'll hear more about this

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from jay in doing that we have the ability to both drive impact in the world when we do it well and when we partner as avi talked about partner with on the ground grassroots groups and activists that are

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on the front lines of these issues and in driving that impact it also creates a lot of love and warmth for our brand and so you know consumers of patagonia consumers of ben and jerry's i predict are sort of loyal more loyal

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and more passionate about our brands because of the stands and the work that we do versus companies who don't engage in this kind of um yeah and i think what chris is saying about how you always know where his company stands i think

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that's a really powerful thing is that it is not trendy or even acceptable to consumers anymore for companies that sit on the sidelines people do not like that and there are a lot of case studies and examples we could throw out even

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recently of how kind of sitting on the sidelines has ended in true disaster for companies um so anyway great points um jay as a marketer at ben jerry's a lot of your work centers around harnessing the power of your brand to execute uh

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activist campaigns that support the company's values how has that how has taking a stand impacted your brand and business uh thanks for the question molly and thanks for moderating this panel um i'll just echo what chris and avi said which

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is certainly an honor to be here and um you know i think thank you chris for teeing that up well for me what we what we aspire to do at ben and jerry's is really use our place in culture our power as a

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brand in service of the movements we look to support so quickly on our brand and our business i think it has three primary impacts the first is actually living up to that three-part mission right so we have a

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product mission to try to make the best ice cream in the world an economic mission to use um or to give a fair return to our our stakeholders and shareholders and a social mission which is actually to use the power of our business to

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progress our social values right so that's different than philanthropy that's different than charity and it really you know thanks to the the the strategic view of of chris and his team it really is about getting to root causes

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and really looking to work with the communities that are being marginalized um to to have a real impact so that's the primary thing that we're after in all of our activism and advocacy working campaigns um and in a good way you know we we will

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fall short and we do but we we also can have an impact and and be part of bringing movements over tipping points right in in the place that we have in culture when leverage right allows us to do that

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i think the other two things that it has more kind of on our brand in our business is and and this isn't what we're after but they are very you know helpful side effects is we're relevant we are part of

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an ongoing national and global discussion because we're really looking to service these movements that are growing that people care about and that really connect with people so we're we are a part of people's lives so and then the third bit

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is because of that we're actually able to build actual connections with people that may just be about their love for cherry garcia or chunky monkey but more often than not it's much deeper than that and your love for

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chunky monkey can sometimes be tested when haagen-dazs is two for six at the at the grocery store you know but um but when you have a deeper connection based on shared values with a company and and the company it's

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not we're not just a logo or a group of people that really care about this right and that's what people connect with uh and that helps us as a business maintain a more loyal uh connection with our fans

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thank you jay and i think you know that's such a good point is that consumers respond to it it's not just doing the right thing people like hearing this message and they act on that so it's great to see how patagonia

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and ben and jerry's have shown that um so i'm now going to turn it to the group for a group discussion um and just throw out some questions out there and again for folks feel free to use the q a

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if you have any questions we're not addressing any loose ads you'd like us to tie up at the end um so the first question one of the biggest challenges in corporate social action is that companies often see advocacy as politically risky and

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unrelated to their bottom line as public opinion has moved swiss swiftly in favor of social and climate action the calculus for risk has changed the bigger risk now seems to be not taking action what are some of the success stories you

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have in advocating for change and how do you measure that success well maybe i'll uh jump in really quickly if i may um you know we've got a couple of examples where we've been out there on our advocacy um i i think

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uh you know quite famously we put out an ad i don't know if it's around thanksgiving a couple years ago don't buy this jacket right and the whole message was um you know you don't need to keep on

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spending and and it was a bit of an anti-consumerism message and and and just repair actually you know the kind of the the most sustainable piece of clothing you can get is the one that you already own and and we sold a lot of jackets um

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again not not because we asked in fact we asked quite the contrary recently i think you know folks may have seen in the news um we had a tag that was sewn uh inside a bunch of shorts um

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that said both the out um and uh you know the baggies uh shorts that they were in kind of sold out quite quickly but in neither instance for example was the environmental message the environmental advocacy kind of our

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policy preference remotely linked if you will to either the bottom line or sales figures and and for us and i'm certain this is the same for ben and jerry's um nobody ever asked me as the environmental advocate um you

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know how does what you're proposing um or this you know this policy that you're seeking to advocate for uh impact the sale or the likely sale of pants or gear or anything else that we say so um you know it's quite the

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contrary for us it's how how does everything that we do as a business support the environmental advocacy that i and others at the company want to do so you know measuring success for us has nothing to do with what i would call the

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usual metrics of business success sales revenue uh and the like but i also think it's important for those of us that the three of us on the call and others here you know who are interested in advocating for positive change you know

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how do you measure success we're in the midst of a climate crisis we're in the midst of an extinction crisis um we we still have a lot of environmental injustice out there uh even worsened by the kind of covid

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pandemic so you know depending on how you look at it there's a lot of stuff not going very well at the moment yet we have constantly tried to innovate and be creative and be forceful in our advocacy so you know for me it's

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it's not like we can measure our success necessarily by the immediate uh reversal of these trends though i think that would be great to to do but for us i think success uh is in in part effort it's

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it's how creative we are it's how we're able to again get our message out and and as i said earlier uh multiply the voices it's how we're able to support others so it's it's you know it's a long way of

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saying it's very easy to measure success if you're looking inward at a lot of kind of business related metrics but when it comes to these systemic issues um you know whether it's a criminal justice racial uh justice environmental

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issues yeah this is a long game that we're all playing and i think um you know we need to be very careful about uh kind of keeping score unless we i think get dissuaded from you know the aggressive strategies that we need to

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pursue yeah and maybe i just briefly build and then you know jay you can follow up um you know i think this is a question that we probably get asked of us as much as any other question right how do you

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measure success and i think you know it is it it's not easy is the quick answer right like you know we all work in companies that are run day-to-day by a key set of business metrics that tell you if you're winning or losing right we

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we literally get daily emails at ben and jerry's that tells us how our financial performance is is doing versus you know our our budget for the month and the quarter and the year we're tracking the price of butter and we we can instantly

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look at a dashboard of metrics and see whether we're winning or losing as a business around the advocacy work that we do it it's it's not as easy right there there there isn't a a dashboard you can look

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at to see are we making progress in the right direction against the climate crisis or not and and so i think working in the context of an organization that wants to know whether we're winning or losing um it is

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is it consternates some of our colleagues who i think are so used to that what i would say what i think is important as it relates to this kind of work is we we measure our impact and our success

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through wins so i'll give you a quick couple of examples um recently we were working in the city of st louis as part of our national criminal justice reform work with a group of activists and campaigners who were looking to close a

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particularly horrible prison in the city of st louis city of st louis is about 50 percent black the workhouse uh prison in the city the jail was almost as 96 97 percent black inmates and almost everyone in that

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prison was being held pre-trial so strictly for lack of cash bail they were essentially locked up not because they had been convicted of a crime but because they were poor it's sort of a perfect example of everything that's wrong with our

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criminal justice system we spent about two and a half years working uh and sort of following the lead of the activists and campaigners on the ground in that campaign it was ultimately successful um but you know at the end of the the first

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year that we were working on this work again we we know how the company did but we had put a year's worth of work into into supporting the coalition and we hadn't the prison wasn't closed and so you know

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we had you know engagement numbers and reach numbers around the number of folks that we you know got to take action and the number of folks that you know saw posts that we put together but ultimately what matters is

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whether we're making progress on the policies that address the kind of root causes and so often you're sort of losing losing losing losing until you win and i think part of measuring the success on that path to winning the

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kinds of policies that drive systemic changes that that you're building power as you do the work and i think that's what you know patagonia does so incredibly well by providing capacity to grassroots groups who are on the ground waging this

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these fights and what we try and do by by acting as sort of an on-ramp or a conduit for our fans our consumers to become as jay talked about earlier part of these larger movements right we want to help our mainstream audience become

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supporters of the partners that we're working with and so so in the process of of what are hopefully incremental wins on policy we're also hopefully helping build power in the movements and with the groups that we're working with

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yeah i just put like a fine point on that chris you you well you obviously said it yell well because it's it's the theory of change that you lead us at ben and jerry's through it is we we lose until we win

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but in doing that we're building we're helping to build movements we're helping to grow movements and as as a marketer who does have lots of dashboards we can put proxy metrics together around are we actually growing this movement or

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not are we exposing more people to it are we bringing more people in are we able to engage those people that we're bringing in to go out and take action um and so that's that's really how we build

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um the execution side of the activism and advocacy campaigns and and the fun part about it is like chris was saying before we use all the tools and practices that we would to to to sell chunky monkey to close the work house you know

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put up billboards putting you know ads targeting the mayor in st louis wrapped an ice cream truck uh in graphics and drove around and met with communities and gave out ice cream it's a lot easier to um bring people together when you're giving

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them free ice cream in in all seriousness that can be a really powerful organizing tool um and so that's that's what we've done and and that is what happened we lost budget cycle after budget cycle after budget cycle until we won

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right and you know as we speak now the the workhouse jail in st louis is being closed so um you know it it works uh and it can be have a real impact not just on the community of saint louis but

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as an example of of how this work can can happen throughout the country yeah and if i can if i can just add molly i i i think one of the things embedded maybe in your question i don't

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know intentionally or not is um you know whether we we or anybody that does this advocacy work can really take credit for a win much loss much less a loss and so for example i think a year or so ago equinor the big

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norwegian oil and gas company decided to abandon plans to drill for oil in the great australian bite um you know beautiful marine park out there patagonia had long kind of supported the movement to preserve that area and get

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um get ecuador out great big success um you know was it us frankly it doesn't matter i think we were on the right side of that issue with a lot of people uh and so we can celebrate without kind of you know the

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issue was a success whether um you know we had a role in it or not i think probably important to figure out because we all want to invest our resources and make a difference um but i'm not so sure

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that kind of keeping score in the normal sense is the way to go about it currently for example um you know some of the patagonia views if you will like where we are going to advocate is to protect the tongass

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you know forest up in alaska to prevent drilling in the alaska national wildlife refuge issues like that big issues um you know if if we are successful if i should say um you know we all are successful in getting these protections

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getting the biden administration away and etc i'm less concerned you know whether we can kind of tally those of us that that do a lot of the environmental policy and advocacy work you know what was our role and more interested in

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knowing that we were again on the right side of an important issue and we we kind of continued with this was not a fleeting in and out uh kind of advocacy that we were there all along um and along the way and so

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for me you know less about again score keeping more about the durability of of our you know of our being in this fight if you will thank you yeah and i think that's getting at the heart of what we're

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talking about today it's like what jay is saying that this is a long game and you lose until you win the whole premise of systemic change right is that one individual combined with a lot of individuals companies everybody with a

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platform advocating for some larger social movement that impacts everybody the whole idea right is that it's all of us trying to impact everybody um so i think that's a really good point you have um it's all part of this broader

Speaker A

movement for social justice and climate justice is part of that criminal justice is a part of that um so i would love to get to the next question um a lot of companies and organizations may be interested in doing

Speaker A

what patagonia and ben and jerry's have successfully done activating their consumer base coming out in support of specific social issues taking a real stance but they often don't know where to start what next steps would you recommend for

Speaker A

other companies that are trying to develop an advocacy strategy i think one thing that i would say and i probably in a unique position on this panel to say it is um most companies have a me they have

Speaker A

someone who does marketing um and not a lot of companies have the expertise and experience of people like avi and people like chris right so um there is a tendency for organizations when they want to do this that

Speaker A

um they can figure it out or they can hire an agency to help them do this and you know sitting in a conference room figuring out what their you know campaign should look like and ben and jerry's that's the

Speaker A

not the approach we take at all it's really about listening to the organizations and the movements we're looking to support and building our strategies around that but even that it's not the marketer who does that it's the trained activists and organizers on our

Speaker A

team that really lead that work now does that mean you have to go hire a huge team to do that um you know depending on your the size of your company probably not but um the idea that you can kind of just sit

Speaker A

in a conference room and come up with a campaign um is not the right approach let's put it that way uh so whether it's bringing people in who are the activists the advocates the organizers or at the very least

Speaker A

really speaking to those people and seeing how your business uh and your operations can be of service to them uh is a much better starting point yeah i think jay what you just said uh is spot on which is to say

Speaker A

um you know patagonia's got a big a big mouthful of a mission right in business to save the home planet that's there's a lot of stuff that's wrapped up in there ben and jerry's does stuff uh even well beyond

Speaker A

you know what what we would kind of typically think is the environmental sphere and they go into you know an array of uh social and economic justice issues so a lot going on there but but in every community where every

Speaker A

business is there is an issue of local import uh and there are people organized on one side or the other of that issue you know whether again it's a living wage whether it's a local environmental issue whether it's lgbt you know q rights

Speaker A

issues in that community or or access to a good education for everybody there's something going on where your business is located where your employees are and where your customers are and you can start very small and again not even

Speaker A

as jay said with your own voice but lend your support to an already existent group um you know that that is doing that work with passion um and integrity in the community patagonia works with grantees you know all over the country and if you

Speaker A

look at our social media feed for example a lot of what we put out there is simply to amplify and hopefully be in support of the voice of these local groups who don't have the you know x number of followers that patagonia does

Speaker A

and many companies again can start by supporting the voice of others rather than coming up with their kind of you know own business voice but the other thing too just to keep in mind is uh and i i touched on this a little bit

Speaker A

earlier the the premise of of this is kind of what can businesses do and we need to realize that there are always going to be sadly to say businesses in any sector who are going to be opposed to um you know social change to

Speaker A

environmental progress etc because of their view i think quite wrongly uh and and in myopic that there's a cost associated with this and they don't want to pay for this patagonia ben and jerry's and other companies you know like us are actually

Speaker A

demonstrating in the larger sense of things that you know it's it that business can be for strong environmental standards business can be and should be for strong social justice you know kind of movements etc and simply saying anything as a business

Speaker A

already begins to separate you out from the pact and i think is really a step in a positive direction and just real quick molly the one thing i would add to to the smart things both jay and avi said is

Speaker A

i think it's important that whatever it is you do that you root it in something that's real so i think you heard abby talk about yvonne's love of climbing and the the sort of the piece of climbing hardware that he

Speaker A

realized was sort of trashing the trashing the rocks and you know you you could again you can agree or disagree with the positions that we take at ben and jerry's we have two very passionate progressive co-founders that set this business on a course

Speaker A

uh to be focused around a set of progressive values and so in order to do this in a way that's both credible and authentic you need not find an issue or a cause that people don't disagree with because

Speaker A

if you're going to take a stand on any issue they're going to be people that agree with you or disagree with you what you don't want to be accused of and what you don't want to have happen honestly is for people to suggest that

Speaker A

you're kind of surfing a fashionable issue to sell more jackets or ice cream right you can say a lot of things about ben and jerry's but you know coming out early in support of the black lives matter movement or you

Speaker A

know fighting for climate justice or our you know most recent decision to to reorient our operations in the occupied palestinian territories are are rooted in our own values things we believe in the world and so you can disagree with us but it's

Speaker A

hard to say that we're doing it strictly to surf a fashionable cause or to sell more ice cream i think that's the most important point every company or brand has a story has a founder has you know is is a group of people

Speaker A

and and the companies that do this best are the ones who root what they do and something they believe not in an attempt to appropriate a cause or a belief that they believe their consumers or others have yeah i think i think you chris has such

Speaker A

a good point it's like this idea of stay say what you stand for and people will follow as long as people know what you stand for and there is no question that folks know what ben and jerry stand for it

Speaker A

goes a long way and going back to what avi was saying earlier too about ultimately it doesn't matter who gets credit right this is about this greater cause it reminds me of this quote that uh by martin luther king jr the arc of

Speaker A

the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice that's this idea that we're on this path and and we are solidly moving in a more progressive way but it takes action from all of us collectively um and so i think

Speaker A

that's a really important part of this conversation um so i'd love to go to a q a question we have a great question from mary and again if you have questions feel free to drop them into the q a we'll try to get

Speaker A

to them mary asks what recommendations do you have for a small startup with a small voice that wants to make sure they are doing all they can to have an impact and i love i think this is a really

Speaker A

important question because we know we have large corporations here and also small startups and small businesses so i think thank you so much mary for asking this so i think the first question mary is to have an impact on what

Speaker A

and i say that because you know we've there's there are an array of issues out there um that are important to us on this panel that that may or may not be important to you or your business and

Speaker A

again i i think um you have to start from a position of authenticity um and and having that connection so really for me the the first thing is to identify that issue or those issues that um that resonate with you as an

Speaker A

individual that resonate with you as a small business that may be important you know in the communities in which you operate and then you know begin from there i i will add as well that that we've got a decent staff at

Speaker A

patagonia uh chris and jay and their teams are fantastic at ben and jerry's but i recognize that not every company of course has the wherewithal to to hire folks um you know to do this sort of work uh

Speaker A

to the extent it's it's kind of different from uh if you will the profit making portion of your business but don't be afraid to kind of partner with other uh companies to to find you know soul mates if you will uh

Speaker A

whether they're your competitors or others this journey is meant in my judgment to be a shared journey uh by like-minded businesses and groups and individuals patagonia for example we belong to a range of i'll kind of call them for lack of a

Speaker A

better term sustainable company organizations or coalitions we learn from them all the time we try to contribute uh there and and add our voice to theirs um there's the b the b corp movement if you will um you know

Speaker A

we're i think both of us are our benefit corporations that's a terrific community again uh to be part of a larger movement um you know kind of showing that stakeholders are not simply uh what you can return to a shareholder but how you

Speaker A

treat your employees and and the environment and others so i i think you know start small and and find friends along the way i'm just quickly you you mentioned in in my intro molly my role at vermont business is for social responsibility

Speaker A

and avi avi talked about this in states all around the country there are there are corporate social responsibility sort of business associations i'd encourage you know to obvious point they don't have the resources to do what we do at ben and

Speaker A

jerry's at patagonia but but you know these these state-based um sort of social responsibility business uh associations do have staff and and can help bring together smaller businesses to to um to work on kind of collective action the

Speaker A

the american sustainable business council another a national organization but another organization where uh smaller and medium-sized companies can plug in uh and and get more engaged on kind of policy and advocacy stuff so it's a great way to sort of take some

Speaker A

some um initial steps as a as a smaller company great thank you yeah i think that's spot on if you can't bring the experts in find them and figure out how to engage with them and a huge component of that

Speaker A

is joining organizations where they have experts working on this full-time and can provide you with those resources that can guarantee those organizations want your voice and want your help and want your membership another thing i would just note really

Speaker A

fast is that there are opportunities to work with your trade associations a lot of small businesses don't have the funds to hire a full-time lobbyist that can advocate for social action um or an environmental justice focused person or

Speaker A

a chief sustainability officer but i guarantee there are folks lobbying for things that are specific to your industry it's important that these organizations can take on climate action or social justice they should be out there lobbying for the federal clean

Speaker A

energy standard that's important for what you do so know that those resources are available as well um okay there's a so a lot of questions sorry okay um this one is from julian julian thank you so much for this question how can small

Speaker A

businesses incorporate the sustainable and social impact work they do into their marketing without sounding preachy or self-serving so jay this might be right up your alley yeah sure i'll take a stab at it uh i mean at least for me there's there's two ways

Speaker A

to think about that i think the first is something i said earlier and and obvi i think you you said it better than i did um if it if you're bragging about yourself you may be preachy and self-serving

Speaker A

right if you are raising up the organizations and the movements you're looking to support then you're using your power to shine a light on on the folks you're looking to support so i think practically that's that's an important bit um

Speaker A

the other thing and this is a little bit more i guess of my own philosophy on marketing communications but i'm a believer that powerful brands are dynamic they're multi-layered they're evolving just like humans and other organizations are um

Speaker A

and so this kind of old school idea of like a single-minded proposition i think is really antiquated and i i don't think works at all so the idea that a company can um you know talk about chunks and swirls in their

Speaker A

ice cream one day and closing the workhouse the next and putting a price on the carbon the next and a chunky monkey milkshake the next day i think that's real and i think that's the way we connect with people in the

Speaker A

long term what we don't do though and i certainly don't recommend is a campaign about chunks and swirls and milkshakes that helps to close the workhouse and put a price on carbon right so each one of our pieces of communications

Speaker A

and campaigns do want to be singular and we want to be able to be clear about what we're looking to do but almost all organizations can walk and chew gum at the same time you know like june doesn't have to be milkshake month

Speaker A

and then july can be criminal justice reform month you can do multiple things at multiple times um and so yeah that that's how i would look at it or how we do try to look at it great thank you so much

Speaker A

helps talk about you know about using your platform to advocate for something larger um okay william has a really good question also for startups which i think is really good that these smaller companies are are talking about what

Speaker A

they can do because it is coming from a different place for a startup how do you balance financial success with time and money dedicated to a cause maybe i'll just take a quick whack at this and then let

Speaker A

the others jump in i think the trick here is to not see those two things as a contradiction right it's not i i need to spend time over here doing my business and growing the business and i need to spend time over here doing

Speaker A

philanthropy or social good the trick is i think even for a startup how do you you know what is the product or service that that your your company offers the world and how do you use that in the

Speaker A

day-to-day operations of your company to make the world a little bit better place right and i think so when you do that your your values and the work that you're doing you know to support groups in your community or

Speaker A

whatever become a strategic lever of growth for your business not a not a distraction and i think again the companies that do this best are the companies that understand that and don't see it as well if i spend a dollar over

Speaker A

here doing x i it's one less dollar i have to be selling ice cream right and i think that that's the trick here is to figure out how to make it a part of your company and it's its place in the

Speaker A

world great thank you okay so we have a couple more minutes so i apologize to everybody we won't be able to get to all of these questions but we have a really good question that i do want to throw out

Speaker A

there because i think it's it's really important kind of hands-on next steps um anonymous uh how how campaign consent how is campaign consensus decided on activist teams are there team members are the team members diverse politically and is there pressure to match trending

Speaker A

views i mean i think from a ben and jerry's perspective there is from a partisan perspective that's not the discussion the discussion is what are our company values that are clear what is the strategic direction of the activism work

Speaker A

uh and then how can all the team members work in service of that um you know we we are political not because we are uh and we aren't partisan we're not choosing candidates or picking one party over another

Speaker A

but as we've talked about if you're going to engage in uh the fight for climate justice that happens in the political arena so you need to engage there um and so we are political but we're we're not partisan and that's not part of like a

Speaker A

screen or or how we think about building teams those teams are are built and work in service of a strategy yeah i'll i'll just add i guess from from patagonia's side as well you know i i i don't ask uh nor do i

Speaker A

know for that matter kind of um you know who my colleagues voted for what their political party is um what i what is important to me and what is important to the company um is you know what are our

Speaker A

positions again as jay and chris have said on climate justice issues what is our position as a company going to be on clean water issues and a lot of these issues as we've just heard you know they matriculate if you will

Speaker A

through a political process so we're going to have a really keen eye for example on this administration's work on uh the clean water uh jurisdictional rule makings right because we've got a sense of where things ought to be in terms of

Speaker A

uh protecting our waters and ensuring clean water for all americans and and whether you call it a political uh process or not that's where we're investing our energies not again on a republican or a democratic uh plan the at the end of the question though is

Speaker A

there pressure to match kind of trending views i don't feel it at least within patagonia whatsoever i i don't um you know i i suppose we're all you know we all read up in the papers we kind of

Speaker A

know where um you know where one group says we ought to go or another but those are not conversations that that we have again for us it starts with the mission to save the home planet um we look at uh you know

Speaker A

who we can support what the array of tools we have and resources we have um uh available to us to i think make a positive difference uh in that and you know trends uh trends will wax and wane

Speaker A

uh sometimes you know over the course of weeks sometimes over the course of months but for me i think um you know kind of being steady grounded again in the mission and a long-term strategy is what we're all about

Speaker A

yeah and i think that's a really good point is that you know it is political and policy-based because policy and politics is one of the ways you can affect social change and we're talking about social change and in

Speaker A

systemic change policy is that but ultimately i think everybody on this panel we can all agree that we don't care if you're a democrat or a republican if you're in support of social justice that is that transcends politics it becomes something much

Speaker A

bigger about human rights and broader society so i think that's a really good question about kind of discerning those both and how to message that um so we are out of time i just want to give the panelists an opportunity to add

Speaker A

anything else that we've been missing um make any final points about what you're doing or what you'd encourage other companies to do the last thing i would want to add first of all thank you all um it is this chris

Speaker A

start out with it really it's always a pleasure to chat with my friends and colleagues at ben and jerry's and and learn from them and kind of watch what they're doing and molly thank you for bringing us together on this

Speaker A

um i i remember when i was hired as the environmental advocate at patagonia you know two and a half years ago it was a new position there and you know my thought was well this sounds a bit one of a kind or somewhat

Speaker A

unique um but my goal and i think you know we all share this goal is is to make our work um not stand out but really run in the mill right this this is the kind of thing we think all

Speaker A

businesses in our society ought to be invested in um and and as we've said in bits and uh you know parts of this conversation you don't need to jump in and match what i'm doing or what you know chris and jay and their company are

Speaker A

doing find your space find your voice uh start you know at the scale that's comfortable to you but i hope that folks uh at varying stages of their business careers are encouraged to again uh lend their voices to the causes that are

Speaker A

important to them yeah thanks avi i i would just you know echo that first molly thank you uh fantastic job here uh and you know we as ben and jerry's as panagonia can disappear from the earth tomorrow and you know there'll be

Speaker A

minimal impact on on a lot except you know some people might be a little wetter out on a hike um because they don't have the right jacket and people will miss miss their ice cream a little bit um

Speaker A

i think if there's anything that we've done right collectively over the years it's been trying to show the role the business can play not in a self-serving way but hopefully as as a way to to show show others that

Speaker A

they can do this too and you know i think the the growth and the impact the two companies have uh have had shows that this is very doable uh and in a good way you know or a bad

Speaker A

way you know we've made mistakes too and folks can learn from that as we try to through the years but we need people to join us um and in a good way more and more people are and more more people are

Speaker A

waking up to the need for businesses to play a big role in these you know big systemic change that we need and and to be blunt otherwise we are and i will just say thank you molly great to be on the panel and look i mean

Speaker A

i you know we often hear all the time well you guys can do that because you're ben and jerry's right and and ultimately at the end of the day if an ice cream company based in burlington vermont can be

Speaker A

you know advocates for criminal justice reform and be working in communities like the city of st louis to close a horrendous prison frankly any company can do anything and really we're able to do these things not because we're ben jerry's but because we

Speaker A

decided that we were gonna do it and i think that's something any company and brand can and should do and i love that chris just said that anybody any company can do this i think the space is wide open and companies

Speaker A

like patagonia and ben and jerry's and all of this business organizations will welcome you in um to being an advocate it's about using that platform and i know a lot of folks in this in this panel and may be able to relate to the

Speaker A

fact that like we've all tried to talk to founders and ceos and kind of make the case for advocacy and you can get a lot of pushback and what i have found is that kind of the common denominator when

Speaker A

you get that pushback is just an emotion of fear and i believe that fear and i think everybody on this call can agree fear has no place in the social justice movement because we know what we can achieve we've seen it and we are

Speaker A

continuing to push forward so it's a matter of just refocusing on what's possible because we can do so much together so i am so grateful to all of our panelists jay avi chris and ben and jerry's and patagonia and all of you for

Speaker A

joining this panel to talk about this if you have questions feel free to follow up with us um but we really thank you for being here and for taking a passion and interest in what we're trying to do

Speaker A

all right thank you everybody have a great day [Music]

Topics:systemic changeclimate justicecorporate activismPatagoniaBen & Jerry'ssocial justiceenvironmental advocacypolicy changesustainabilitygrassroots movements

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