Business Reimagined: Should Firms Have a Purpose Beyond Profit? (Ben & Jerry’s Ben Cohen)

About this episode

Ben Cohen discusses the importance of corporate values alongside profit in the business world.

Amol is back from his stint in the Celebrity Traitors castle. This week, while in town for the South by Southwest festival, Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's drops by the Radical studio to talk about what took his ice cream company from a single store in rural America into a billion-dollar business. Ben Cohen argues that most corporations have trained people to believe profit and purpose are from separate worlds – while he says that a company’s values should be as important to its mission as making money. Cohen makes the case that consumers are not just shoppers – they are citizens with wallets. He criticises companies that pay lip-service to that through short-term social media campaigns backing the trendy topic of the day, without embedding those values into their business model. But in an age when many companies are dropping their principles when the politics changes, can business really be a force for good – or does purpose melt away when profits are at stake? GET IN TOUCH * WhatsApp: 0330 123 9480 * Email: radical@bbc.co.uk Episodes of Radical with Amol Rajan are released every Thursday. Amol Rajan presents the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 and hosts University Challenge on BBC…

People in this episode

Host: Amol Rajan

Guest: Ben Cohen

Topics covered

• business purpose
• corporate values
• profit vs purpose
• consumer citizenship
• social responsibility

Keywords

• Ben Cohen
• Ben & Jerry's
• corporate purpose
• profit
• social media campaigns
• business ethics
• consumer rights

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ben & Jerry's, BBC Radio 4

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