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What Matters Most: How A Small Group of Pioneers Is Teaching Social Responsibility To Big Business, and Why Big Business Is Listening

by Jeffrey Hollender,Stephen Fenichell*

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CEO Jeffrey Hollender, whose Vermont-based company Seventh Generation is a poster child for corporate conscience, has written a brave and detailed blueprint for a new paradigm of "responsible business." Written in the dog days of Enron/Inclone/Martha Stewart scandals, Hollender's vision is passionate and panoramic. "Corporate responsibility is a broad social movement centered in the corporation as much as the anti-war movement of the 1960s was centered in college campuses." He builds a persuasive case for global citizenship, with in-depth analysis of case histories (For example, the "peace pops" controversy after Ben and Jerry's ice cream was acquired by Unilever, the commitment to healthcare coverage during Starbuck's global coup d'etat).

Hollender borrows from best sellers such as Built to Last but he is willing to ask the tough questions: When do core values conflict with goals and commitments? Does being a responsible business really cost shareholders more money? How do corporate charters inhibit social responsibility? How can reputation become a corporate pressure point? His answers are provided in seven approaches to social responsibility. Each defines new metrics to define prosperity, environmental stewardship and corporate citizenship. For example, he unpacks the strategy of "transparency" in descriptions of Challenger explosion, the embedded journalists of The Gulf War and the SARs epidemic. Sometimes these powerful strategies are swamped in an overabundance of examples, sources, or acronyms of activists groups. But Hollender's comprehension shows us the forest and the trees. --Barbara Mackoff