Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield and Vermont governor Peter Shumlin unveil the Food Fight Fudge Brownie flavor in June, developed to support the state’s legal defense over its law to require labeling of bioengineered ingredients. | Image credit: Food Business News
All businesses value consumer and employee loyalty and the opportunity to shape the playing field in which they operate. Mission-driven businesses such as B Corps Seventh Generation and Ben & Jerry’s are finding that having an authentic purpose that resonates with their customers opens the door to exciting approaches to activism that engage their base in powerful ways. The union of company and employee passions not only boosts loyalty but also can lead to successful advocacy for shared causes. Conventional companies seeking to emulate their successes should follow three key steps:
The past decades have thankfully provided increasing examples of organizations demonstrating that things can be done differently. Look at 
They lack neither influence, nor the ability to use it. But there is one asset that business leaders at the World Economic Forum this week could usefully exploit further: the power to advance the wider interests of people and planet. With UN climate change negotiations under way and as the UN designs its flagship Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, business needs to engage.
