CENTER FOR BUSINESS
AS AN AGENT OF WORLD BENEFIT

A company driven by the desire to improve global sustainability, Monsanto India is not only helping the farmers in the country increase their yield but simultaneously educating them about practices that help improve their lives. Recognizing the immense business potential in India with 25 percent of world’s cotton fields and combining this with its breakthrough research in Bt gene (bacillus thuringiensis), Monsanto has helped millions of farmers live a more prosperous and healthier life.

Curiosity, it is said, can lead to ground-breaking innovations. Considering that children are exemplars of continual curiosity, it is surprising that they have not played a bigger role in conceptualizing products for organizations. ‘By Kids For Kids Co.’ recognized this anomaly and created a business model that not only ensures sustainability by innovation but also maximizes the creative potential in children and helps them develop in multiple ways. Through involving an under-engaged population in the process of economic development the organization aims at ensuring creative thinking and self-reliance in the youth.

By building upon a non-invasive, non-drug therapy for correcting ADD, ADHD, dyslexia and other learning disorders Open Pathways To Learning has found true benefits of innovation; developing people in the course of developing a sound business model. The therapy is based on ‘Brain Integration Technique’ that utilizes principles of applied kinesiology and acupressure to help children and adults overcome their learning difficulties.

Enacting a fair trade model that values the farmers, consumers, and the environment, Equal Exchange is an inspiring example of success based on collaboration and honest intentions to do good. Equal Exchange is a co-operative that accurately calls itself a social change organization. It has been built as a company that is controlled by the employees. By collaborating with worker co-operatives around the globe, the organization is successfully providing high quality food to the customer. Additionally, it is also proactively educating consumers about trade issues affecting the farmers bringing positive social change in the community.

Nature’s Bin is a thriving example of a business model that has sustainability as the backbone at both ends of the value chain; what is offered to the customer and how it is made. The inspiration for adopting this focus is manifested through integrating education/training and retail sales. With the capabilities of the parent company, Cornucopia, which is a non-profit providing vocational and skill-based training to people with disabilities, and the business acumen of Nature’s Bin as a fresh foods store, the match between societal need and business benefit is beautifully achieved.

Elaine’s American Maid is more than a cleaning referral service. It’s an enterprise that is built on the passion for helping single mothers who are forced into the workforce to support their children. Equipping women with entrepreneurial skills by helping them open their own cleaning services and providing them the flexibility to be with their children is what makes this organization truly unique in creating a positive impact through business.

The proverbial ‘war for talent’ is an omnipresent phenomenon in business, irrespective of the industry. It’s the organization that finds a creative answer to the problem that finally is able to prosper by leveraging the potential of the best in the work force. SSM Healthcare is an inspiring example of a solution that nurtures a pool of talented manpower. The fact that this solution stems from a belief in making a positive change in the lives of people ensures that this model is sustainable.

In consonance with its name of Triodos or ‘three way’, Triodos Bank has built its business model on the three pillars of people, planet and profits. The belief of the bank is simple and its mission is lucid - it finances companies, institutions and projects that add cultural value and benefit people and environment with the support of depositors and investors who wish to encourage social responsibility and a sustainable society.

Food, Fun and Social Activism - the blinking words flashing across the website of White Dog cafe more than sum up its philosophy- they define the life spirit flowing through the café’s business model. The café does not simply offer its award-winning cuisine but does this with social consciousness through various activities and events organized throughout the year. Through its initiatives to serve the customer, community, earth and each other, the café is a model for small community businesses as levers for social change.

TOMS shoes are the harbinger of what has been christened as the ‘one to one movement’- for every shoe a customer buys, TOMS donates a pair to a child in need. Going beyond corporate philanthropy, TOMS has integrated the spirit of positive world impact in the very heart of its business, making it a truly sustainable model.

Realizing the urgency of action and leveraging the strength of business for making a difference, Global Ethics Ltd launched a bottled drinking water called ONE. The idea was simple: the profit generated from every bottle of water sold would be channelized toward installation of water pumps in parts of Africa where clean drinking water is almost a luxury. One billion without access to drinking water resulting in 2 million deaths (source: onewater.uk.org; UNICEF and WHO report, 2006) sounds almost ludicrous in today’s world. The magnitude of the problem escapes most of us who take a basic necessity like clean drinking water completely for granted. Unfortunately it is not so in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern and Southern Asia. For many of the millions affected, the time that should be devoted to school and agriculture is spent walking miles to collect water.

Building self esteem, securing sustainable future, and creating abundance through the force of business is what defines Economic Development Imports (EDImports). The organization has been instrumental in leveraging the skills of women in the developing world to produce native products that could be sold in the developing world, thereby reducing poverty, insecurity and threat. What makes this different is the scale of the initiative that reaches out to multitude of artisans in the most remote parts of East and West Africa. By being a conduit to the beautiful products made by these women and their huge demand in the markets in the developed world, EDImports has provided the required impetus to pull the artisans and their families out of marginal socioeconomic conditions.

Enhancing the physical health, body image and self-esteem of teenage girls is the spirit behind Shift Inc., a club created solely for teenage girls who strive to achieve a healthier life. The objective of helping the members of Shift take action and actuate a behavioral change is manifested through building strong, surrounding community that provides support and encouragement, valuable information that helps teenage girls make wiser decisions toward their health and tools that bring planning and focus in achievement of these goals.

KaBOOM! is committed to a world where each child is within walking distance of a great place to play. To assure such places are available, KaBOOM! created an innovative business model which includes partnering with corporations and fosters team building and community development in addition to building playgrounds.

Women's World Banking's vision is to expand low-income women's economic participation by giving them greater access to financial information and markets. In doing so they are enabling women to not only keep their families fed but also engage in the community and develop a political voice that could bring about great change worldwide.

Founded in 1979 Yamamoto-Moss is a prominent marketing, communications, and graphic design firm based in Minneapolis, MN. Unlike other marketing and research firms, however, Yamamoto-Moss supports the important work of local nonprofit organizations through their Community Building Program. The eight year old program is an exceptional example of how business can generate sustainable impact beyond merely funding worthy organizations. By investing their time, talent and expertise, Yamamoto-Moss fosters sustainable efforts by non-profit organizations and develops community relationships that will have on-going positive impacts that provide substantial benefit to their business.

The international law firm of Sidley Austin LLP (hereafter “Sidley”) has gone beyond the typical pro bono requirement in the legal profession. By partnering with inMotion, a non-profit dedicated to representing underserved women in family matters, Sidley has taken their community service work to the next level. The collaboration between the two organizations benefits women who might not have adequate legal representation as well as giving practical and personally rewarding experiences to relatively young attorneys.

Bank ABN AMRO has made sustainability a cornerstone of its business. The bank strives to include a concern for social and environmental issues in the decision-making of every strategic business unit. These activities have gained such prominence that a special unit, the Sustainable Development Group was organized to coordinate sustainability work across the organization. The innovativeness of this sustainability mindset has led to numerous activities that are creating a shift in the impact of ABN AMRO on environment and society.

Nearly 1.6 billion people living in the developing world need reading glasses, but less than 5% have access to affordable options. VisionSpring is broadening global access to reading glasses, creating and training local entrepreneurs, and improving overall quality of life for many. VisionSpring develops markets for reading glasses at the base of the economic pyramid. They select, train, equip and fund local entrepreneurs to establish new businesses that sell reading glasses. They then provide high-quality affordable reading glasses for these distributors, bringing reading glasses and referral services directly to the customer at the village level. So many people in India, El Salvador, and Guatemala have told VisionSpring how much their lives have changed because of VisionSpring's reading glasses. Who would imagine that a simple pair of reading glasses could have such an effect? VisionSpring did because it researched, studied, and tested its programs inside and out. VisionSpring believes its responsibility is to provide a product and service that is truly superior. For too long, the global economy has failed to recognize the power and influence that people living on less than $1 a day can have. VisionSpring is working to change this perception through simple pairs of reading glasses and determined entrepreneurs.

OneWorld Health is the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the United States. It advances global health by developing effective and affordable new medicines for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect people in the developing world. At the core of the company’s operations is an innovative business model. OneWorld Health receives donations from for-profit pharmaceutical companies in a form of drug leads that have little commercialization potential in the West, develops leads into safe and effective medicines, and then partners with scientists and manufacturers of the developing world to bring the medicine to the consumers at the affordable price. A win-win for all involved and a cure for the neglected diseases that affect millions worldwide.

Ten Thousand Villages (TTV) provides vital, fair income to Third World artists and crafts people by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America. It is a nonprofit, self-supporting alternative trading organization (ATO) - a non-governmental organization designed to benefit artisans, not to maximize profits. They market products from handicraft and agricultural organizations based in low-income countries. They provide consumers around the world with products that have been fairly purchased from sustainable sources. ATOs put fair trade into practice and campaigns for more equitable terms of trade for artisans from low-income countries TTV is a nonprofit fair trade program of Mennonite Central Committee, a relief, service and peace agency of the North American Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches. To TTV, each village in the world represents a unique, distinctive people... offering extraordinary products born of their rich cultures and traditions.

For corporate law departments and the law firms that serve them, the DuPont Legal Model offers instructive principles and processes that can improve the practice of corporate law. Since 1992, the DuPont Legal Model has given the company a framework for meeting new challenges and guided them through a period of tremendous change. By applying “business discipline” to the practice of law, the Legal Model has focused Dupont’s resources and made strategic partnering, information technology, metrics, diversity and other initiatives the cornerstones of their approach. Through this Legal Model, Du Pont Legal has embraced a diversity agenda. This model makes it a requirement that DuPont’s various law firms meet specified diversity requirements. This strategy has prompted a shift in the legal community to embrace greater diversity.

PeaceWorks is a not-only-for-profit specialty food company that manages to combine production of condiments with peace building. Fostering coexistence through business, they unite people traditionally on the opposite sides of conflict via a shared goal. Together with people who are striving to co-exist, Peaceworks creates and delivers unique and exciting specialty foods. PeaceWorks currently does business with Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, South Africans, Turks, Indonesians and Sri Lankans.

Freeplay Energy Group of London has found a way to address global needs while making a profit for itself. Combining collaborative research and development with the desire to bring good to those at the bottom of the pyramid, the company grows its revenues while bringing tangible results to people in most remote locations. Freeplay has helped pioneer the windup radio. In 1996, Freeplay designed its first radio charged by cranking a handle so that Africans could listen to public-service broadcasts of health and agriculture information and school lessons. Freeplay has sold 3 million radios. In the West, where they sell for up to $100, they are popular among campers. But they're sold at a discount to aid agencies and governments in poor nations.

GrameenPhone has a dual purpose: to receive an economic return on its investments and to contribute to the economic development of Bangladesh where telecommunications can play a vital role. This is why GrameenPhone, in collaboration with Grameen Bank, is aiming to place one phone in each village to contribute significantly to the economic uplift of those villages. Grameen Phone’s basic strategy is coverage of both urban and rural areas. In contrast to the “island” strategy followed by some companies, which involves connecting isolated islands of urban coverage through transmission links, GrameenPhone builds continuous coverage, cell after cell. While the intensity of coverage may vary from area to area depending on market conditions, the basic strategy of cell-to-cell coverage is applied throughout GrameenPhone’s network.

The Benetech Initiative is a non-profit venture that provides social benefits by harnessing the power of technology. It delivers these benefits using a new model of social entrepreneurship which combines market forces with philanthropic capital and entrepreneurial drive. Benetech focuses the efforts of technology and technologists to solve important problems facing society. A quick sampling of projects currently underway illustrates the power and promise of Benetech. Bookshare.org is a legal book-sharing community of people with disabilities, meeting the stringent copyright law exemption for providing accessible books. The Martus Project provides critical tools for the reporting and dissemination of human rights information, improving the effectiveness of the human rights sector worldwide. The Landmine Detector Project will transfer exciting new technologies developed by U.S. Department of Defense to applications to meet the needs of humanitarian landmine removal efforts around the world.

The Social Enterprise El Pan de Cada Día (Our Daily Bread) was born in 2003 as the first of its kind in Peru and the only enterprise of its kind to exclusively employ disabled persons (Personas con Discapacidad a/k/a PCD). The company rescues, recuperates and reinserts into society disabled persons of low economic resources that are totally abandoned and that live in extreme poverty in places like the province of Trujillo in La Libertad. The PCD are given dignified living conditions and the opportunity to work regularly for the first time in their lives. The bread and pastry Our Daily Bread produces is sold to approximately 15,000 persons every day in what Peruvians term the "D and E social strata". This segment of the population benefit from the cost and quality of the products created by Our Daily Bread. Working within that poor population the company is fighting against poverty by combining the employment of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid with producing an affordable product for the same.

The third largest cement manufacturer in the world, CEMEX, decided it needed to move from selling materials to selling solutions. Using low fixed prices, materials on credit, pre-costed housing designs, and supervised construction services for Mexicans, CEMEX developed its "Patrimonio Hoy" program to make housing affordable and possible for 70,000 of the poor in Mexico.

Grameen Bank (GB) has reversed conventional banking practice by removing the need for collateral and creating a banking system based on mutual trust, accountability, participation and creativity. GB provides credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. At GB, credit is a cost effective weapon to fight poverty and it serves as a catalyst in the overall development of socio-economic conditions of the poor who have been kept outside the banking orbit on the grounds that they are poor and hence not bankable. Since the bank does not wish to take any borrower to the court of law in case of non-repayment, it does not require the borrowers to sign any legal instrument. Although each borrower must belong to a five-member group, the group is not required to give any guarantee for a loan to its member. Repayment responsibility solely rests on the individual borrower, while the group and the Grameen Bank center oversee that everyone behaves in a responsible way and none gets into a repayment problem. There is no form of joint liability, i.e. group members are not responsible to pay on behalf of a defaulting member.

Among the many rural businesses of post-communist Russia, ALVI Inc. offers a new model of self-reliance and sustainable development. By aligning community interest and business interest, the company has successfully grown into a multi-product organization with high productivity levels and a flourishing community.

Westpac, an Australia-based financial services and banking company, has been working with the Cape York indigenous people who face a life expectancy of less than 50 years, have an average annual income of $8,600 per annum, and fewer than 10% of their working age population are in unsubsidized employment. The 10,000 people living in 17 Cape York communities face an epidemic of substance abuse, a breakdown of law and order, and dysfunctional governance structures. Westpac’s involvement represents an innovative way to contribute to capacity building while expanding the company’s customer base. Westpac’s approach includes Family Income Management (FIM), Business Hubs and an assist in the development and implementation of the Computer Culture educational project. In addition, three twelve-month Westpac Fellowships have been established in strategic positions in the regional organizations to help build their capacity to roll out their strategies. Westpac has been named and ranked among the most socially responsible companies in Australia.

Housing Works, a non-profit which provides vital services to homeless New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS, has transformed from crisis and near extinction to profitability and independence. Housing Works was founded in June 1990 as an outgrowth of the Housing Committee of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), to address the burgeoning crises of homelessness and AIDS, and to restore the fundamental human rights of homeless people with AIDS and HIV through innovative advocacy and direct service programs. A switch from cost-reimbursement Medicaid contracts to fee for service contracts and the development of four highly profitable businesss took Housing Works from being totally dependent upon external funding and financial aid to being almost totally self-sustaining today.

Edun is a socially conscious clothing company created by Ali Hewson and her rock star husband, U2's Bono, with New York clothing designer Rogan Gregory. Launched in spring 2005, the company aims to bring the issue of sustainable employment to the world of high fashion. EDUN was born as an alternative approach to creating beautiful clothes in a respectful, sustainable manner and to shift the focus away from aid to trade in the developing world, particularly Africa.

Daimler Chrysler is putting its sustainable development into practice in many ways, placing its highest priority on the battle against HIV/AIDS faced by many of the workers at its South African plant. Since the early 1990's, Daimler Chrysler South Africa's Workplace Initiative on HIV/AIDS has been working to combat acquired immune deficiency syndrome and for the social integration of HIV-positive persons at its headquarters just outside Pretoria.

An oil giant, Yukos, is one of the largest Russian-based multi-national corporations and one of the largest CSR actors from the former USSR. Yukos represents one of the most innovative companies in the region when it comes to questions of merging business interests with world benefit. Among the Yukos' particular innovative strategies is its approach to distributing funds for local community development. When most Russian companies provide financial assistance to various organizations in a sporadic, if at all, manner, Yukos organizes an open competition for projects directed towards sustainable community development.

Project Shakti is an alternative distribution system and a bottom-of-the-pyramid initiative created by Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), a subsidiary of Unilever. Shakti allows HLL access to the previously untapped market of rural villages in India, which do not fit the traditional distribution infrastructure. Shakti is oriented to both income generation and community development. By targeting low-income populations, particularly women, this project addresses deep social problems - like iodine deficiency or diarrhea disease - by training Shakti women to provide education about products that address these health issues, and also making the products available in remote areas of the country.

Cummins is a global power leader and family of four inter-related, yet diversified businesses that create or enhance value as a result of doing business with each other or having those relationships. It averages more than $6 billion in annual sales and is a technology leader in the diesel engine market, providing cutting-edge solutions to the increasingly difficult challenge of producing cleaner-running engines. Currently, Cummins clean diesel engines are powering transit buses in Southern China.

As the oldest and largest for-profit Fair Trade company in the U.S., Equal Exchange trades directly with 28 democratically run farmer co-ops located in 14 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Its mission is to build long-term partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relations between farmers and consumers and to demonstrate the viability of worker cooperatives and Fair Trade. They strive to build social and economic justice through the marketplace.

Offshore Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East - Exxon Mobil subsidiary Exxon Neftegas Liimited (ENL) - while developing the Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi oil and gas fields for the Sakhalin-1 consortium, discovered a lack of skilled local labor. To help the local residents obtain employment with Exxon, extensive training programs were set up, including English-language training. Other aspects of the training and community development support the growth of local suppliers and contractors.

One specialty group of medical providers has largely shielded itself from the rising cost of medical-malpractice insurance. Over the past two decades, anesthesiologists have advocated the use of devices that alert doctors to potentially fatal problems in the operating room. Their innovative practices have resulted in lower fatalities and low malpractice premiums.

Russia, long known as a culture whose people - rich and poor - revere the arts in all its many forms, has also developed a reputation as an emergent economy that is solely driven by immediate profit, if not greed. Since the government provides no tax relief or other incentives for philanthropy, the story of Interros is more noteworthy. Interros has stepped beyond simply giving to providing sustainable development in the area of art, culture and education by supporting long-term social programs in education and culture.

The Co-operative Bank, whose roots go back to 1872, is a full-service retail player in the United Kingdom commercial banking industry. It offers a full range of banking services, including on-line banking, and is an innovator in the field of sustainability reporting. Using sophisticated financial value analysis methods, the bank reports not only shareholder and stakeholder value created but also an analysis of the direct contributions that ethical and ecological positioning has made to the company's profitability.

A Home for the Holidays, which airs annually on the U.S. network CBS, is the product of Wendy's, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, and The Children’s Action Network. In 1992, Dave Thomas created the Foundation to promote adoption awareness in the United States. This organization has allowed Wendy's employees to be engaged in the cause of adoption at the local and national levels. The results have touched tens of thousands of families and children.

The Greyston Bakery, a for-profit business, incorporates the positive societal agenda into its core business practice via hiring individuals “chronically unemployed” due to lack of skills and education, as well as histories of homelessness, drug addiction and incarceration. Furthermore, the bakery sustains the work of its non-profit affiliate, Greyston Mandela. With an overriding mission to reduce human suffering, both organizations are focused on sustainability, community development and empowerment.

Hair Innovations’ owner designs, makes, and fits wigs for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The service is provided free of charge, and patients are often served at their location (home, hospital). The business also offers support to local Boys and Girls Clubs, and has become a model for community engagement.

Deep Water Ventures’ president, Brad Ives, has turned his interests in wood, sailing and ecology into a thriving business. The company is committed to forest stewardship and the method of selective cutting, which preserves a forest’s biodiversity, provides long-term benefits to the local population, and generates profit without adversely affecting the region’s ecosystem. By association with an independent agency that carefully monitors logging operations, the company can assure its customers that the product they are purchasing comes from sustainable forests.

A community bakery in an underprivileged area of Curitiba (Brazil) is the result of a partnership between business, community, and a city agency. The bakery benefits the lives of local residents by providing better nutrition, creating employment and educational/skill development opportunities. It is anticipated that the bakery will open a small shop, and eventually supply goods nationally and internationally. Income generated by this activity will be returned to the community.

KeyBank has opened a Financial Education Center in an LMI (low- to moderate income) neighborhood in Cleveland. The center offers classes in topics of interest and importance to a population that is often unable and/or unwilling to engage in traditional banking services. This endeavor has been created to educate and empower individuals and, over time, increase business.

A number of major financial institutions have come together to adopt a framework for determining, assessing and managing environmental and social issues in project financing. These global voluntary regulatory guidelines, the “Equator Principles” (EPs), are revolutionizing the way large projects are financed. Banks that adopt the EPs apply them globally to project financing in all industry sectors including mining, oil and gas, and forestry, and they make loans only to those projects whose sponsors aim to be socially responsible and environmentally sound.

Blast Internet Services (Blast), a web development company, supports environmental issues, sustainable growth, family-friendly policies, and personal empowerment. Its community involvement activities range from sponsorship of an after school program to free web services to area non-profit agencies. Its headquarters has been built in an environmentally friendly building, and its employees embrace and practice the company philosophy of ecological responsibility.

Luther Tyson and Jack Corbett developed the first investment fund that enables people to invest in companies that uphold high ethical standards of social responsibility. By giving investors such a choice, the two essentially reevaluated and transformed the role of investors in society.

Furniture manufacturing is a messy business that produces lots of waste. Yet Herman Miller Inc has made it a goal, not just to reduce waste, but to entirely eliminate it. This commitment is more impressive because it originated as a grass-roots effort. The company consistently develops technological and organizational innovations that should lead to "total footprint elimination."

Chase Home Finance hasn't just paid lip service to diversity; they have invested billions to make it a business necessity. How? Executives realized that reaching into underserved, lower income communities would not only open up a new market. It would also require employees who represented the minority members within those communities. The result: An initial $500 billion investment that is both reshaping community redevelopment efforts across North America, and also changing the company's diversity profile.

Miles and Associates/Success by Choice International combines traditional for-profit training and consulting services with the agenda of youth development and HIV/AIDS prevention. The guiding principles of skills transfer, sustainability and community empowerment make this a story of a successful business serving the needs of society.

As president of Reebok’s Apparel and Retail Products Group, Marilyn Tam realized the soccer ball manufacturing operations in Pakistan were harmful to the children being forced to make the products and detrimental to the local community. By taking a long-term approach, she oversaw a process to correct the situation so that adults would take over the jobs and children would return to their schools.

Recognizing the sizable challenge of having an aging workforce with an average of mid-fifties at one of its plants in South Africa, Nissan took steps to replenish its workforce. Young relatives of the retirees were recruited to assure continuity of family incomes, older relatives served as their mentors before retiring, and financial planning and small- to medium-size business consultants were provided to all retirees. As a result company rejuvenation stimulated community development.

Because strict religious practices prohibit Muslims from participating or investing in certain types of businesses or financial products that are incompatible with Islamic law, Saturna Capital Corporation created a fund designed to meet the needs of Muslim investors.

Shorebank uses for-profit commercial banking to focus on inner-city urban development. It now has over $1.5 billion in assets with broad impact on inner-city communities, with $1.7 billion invested cumulatively in priority communities, which are selected communities with less incomes and housing values than the regional or state average.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is one of the top producers of double certified – organic and fair trade - coffee. As such, the company is uniquely positioned to promote ecological restoration while at the same time participating in poverty alleviation. To assure the overall successes of the double certified product like, every year Green Mountain Coffee Roasters takes its employees, customers, and partners for a "trip to the origin". To date, about 20% of the company has taken the trip to learn about the intricate interdependencies of all coffee production processes, "from tree to cup," and to engage with partners at the origins in order to create new mutually beneficial policies, methods, and approaches to coffee production.