Welcome to Ben & Jerry’s 2010 Social and Environmental Assessment Report. Here’s a glance at some of our current efforts to make positive change in the world through our business.

2010 – 2011 Highlights

Ben & Jerry’s has a three-part mission that aims to create prosperity for everyone that’s connected to our business: suppliers, employees, farmers, franchisees, customers, and neighbors alike.

You can read the whole Ben & Jerry’s Mission Statement at www.benjerry.com/activism.

WE HAVE THREE MAJOR SOCIAL MISSION GOALS.

GOAL 1.
Use our Company to further the cause of Peace and Justice.

Fair Trade Ingredients. We believe the Fair Trade movement is one of the best things to happen to capitalism in a long time! (Or, if you prefer the European spelling, it’s the Fairtrade movement.) In a nutshell, Fair Trade is a promise to pay a fair price to farmers in developing countries for their harvest. On their end, Fair Trade farmers agree to use fair labor practices, to employ environmentally friendly farming practices, and to invest in their communities. Fair Trade is a way to use the global economy to serve people, not the other way around!

Ben & Jerry’s is going Fair Trade for all of the commodities that we buy from developing countries where we can have a significant, positive impact on farmer livelihoods. Our commitment to Fair Trade is global, though we are at different stages of the Fair Trade conversion in different parts of the world. For example, all Ben & Jerry’s flavors produced and sold in Europe are slated to include Fairtrade-certified ingredients by the end of 2011, such as Fairtrade cocoa, Fairtrade vanilla, Fairtrade sugar, and Fairtrade coffee. In the United States, we are transitioning to Fair Trade vanilla and cocoa over the course of 2011 . In the U.S., we already buy a growing percentage of Fair Trade coffee and we will begin to use Fair Trade sugar in the coming years. The truth is, we haven’t figured out every last detail of the transition, but we’re committed to going as far as we can to align our purchasing of key commodities with the Fair Trade movement.

Fair Trade Towns & Universities. Fair Trade will only succeed in its mission to create social, economic, and environmental benefits in developing countries if ice cream-lovers and coffee-drinkers and morning banana-eaters understand what Fair Trade is – and seek out products with the Fair Trade logo. That’s why Ben & Jerry’s is teaming up with local Fair Trade activists in the U.S. to get their towns and universities to go Fair Trade. For example, some of the proceeds of our new flavor, ”Late Night Snack“ are earmarked to support the Fair Trade Universities organization; and several of Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops have supported their local communities’ efforts to become Fair Trade towns. The last time we checked, there were 23 Fair Trade towns in the US, including Burlington, Vermont, our Company’s hometown. In Europe, where the Fairtrade movement has been around for even longer, there are hundreds of Fair Trade towns – with 500 in the United Kingdom alone!

Peace Partnerships. One of our favorite days of the year is September 21 – the International Day of Peace. In 2010, we celebrated in the U.S. by teaming up with the Student Peace Alliance to advocate for the Youth Promise Act, groundbreaking legislation to scale-up proven programs that reduce youth violence. We scooped ice cream at six peace events around the country and got more than 1,000 people to call Congress to voice their support. Best of all, one of our events was an ice cream social for the U.S. House of Representatives, where 900 Congressional staffers showed up to learn more about the Youth Promise Act. The bill came close to passage but fell victim to partisan squabbling in the lame duck session of Congress. (Sigh.) We continue to look for ways to support the goals of the Youth Promise Act and other policy ideas to make our country more peaceful.

In Europe, we are still partnered up with Warchild, a nonprofit that helps child soldiers in war-torn countries re-integrate into society and reclaim their childhood. We support Warchild financially and through awareness-building events.

Ben & Jerry’s Foundation. Part of Ben & Jerry’s commitment to social and economic justice is our support of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation, which makes grants to grassroots activists making positive change in their own communities. Through the Foundation, we’re helping immigrant workers, neighborhood groups, farm workers and dozens of other groups around the country to get organized and fight for a fair deal. In 2011, Ben & Jerry’s contributed $2,180,808 to the Foundation based on the 2010 sales of the Company.

Scoop Shop Community Action. Here’s a shout out to the men and women who own and operate franchised Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops for the positive impact they are having on their local communities. Every year, our franchisees contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars in time, ice cream, and sponsorships in support of community projects of all sizes and shapes, from Green-Up Days to Food Drives to Hunger Walks. On Free Cone Day, many of our franchisees team up with local charities to raise awareness and money from free ice cream seekers who flock to their shops by the thousands. Even better, several Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops are actually owned and operated by nonprofit organizations. These ‘PartnerShops’ use the scoop shop as a platform to achieve their mission of helping young people facing challenges to gain job and life skills. You can learn more about our current PartnerShops at www.benjerry.com/partnershops.

GOAL 2.
Make ice cream that’s aligned with our values.

Cage-free eggs. It’s old news that all Ben & Jerry’s ice cream made and sold in Europe uses certified ‘free range’ eggs in the ice cream base – we made that transition in 2005. What’s new is that after four years of hard work, we are 99% of the way to our goal to use only Certified Humane cage-free eggs in the ice cream base of our products sold in the U.S. and Asia. The remaining 1% represents the eggs we put into Ben & Jerry’s ice cream novelty bars sold in the U.S. – and one “no-sugar added” flavor sold in U.S. scoop shops. We are still working to solve the logistical challenges to get all the way to 100% Certified Humane cage-free egg sourcing, which we consider the Gold Standard of egg production standards. We are happy to see many more companies and brands following us on the journey towards cage-free eggs.

Sustainable Packaging. For years, we’ve been working to reduce the negative environmental impacts of our packaging materials. In 2009, we phased in Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paperboard for all of our U.S. pint containers. The FSC certification means that the paperboard comes from forests that are managed for the protection of wildlife habitat, maintenance of biodiversity, avoidance of genetically modified tree species, and protection of traditional and civil rights, among other Rainforest Alliance criteria for healthy forests. We are beginning a project to get FSC paperboard into the paperboard that we use in our Canadian and European packaging.

In addition, the boxes that we use for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream bars in the U.S. are made from 100% post-consumer recycled paperboard. We are still exploring to find even better materials for all of our products that can stand up to the demands of the freezer and that won't bust open when we dive into a pint with a little too much élan.

Climate Change. We continue to devise and pursue plans to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to respond to the challenge of climate change, which is real, which, in our opinion, humans are clearly creating, and which isn’t going away anytime soon. In our Vermont manufacturing plants, we have invested aggressively in energy-efficient technology from cooling systems to lighting to water and waste management systems. With an eye towards closing loops in our supply chain, we now send dairy waste from our Vermont plants back to two of the farms that supply us with fresh dairy ingredients. Our waste is put into methane digesters with other farm waste – where it generates energy to power the farm! In 2010, we evaluated the feasibility of putting solar panels on our Waterbury, Vermont factory but we decided to pursue other projects with a better environmental and economic return at this time. For the tenth year, we offset all of the emissions associated with our Vermont manufacturing facilities and employee air travel with the help of Vermont-based NativeEnergy, a nationally recognized provider of high quality carbon offsets. All of our U.S. offsets support the development of new sources of renewable energy.

Meanwhile, in Europe, we have achieved ‘Climate Neutral’ status according to the standards of HIER, a consortium of forty NGOs. This means we’ve committed to a demanding multi-year carbon emissions reduction plan and the purchase of Gold Standard carbon offsets for all of our annual emissions. Part of the plan includes the installation of a bio-digester at our manufacturing plant in Hellendoorn, the Netherlands, which will turn the factory’s dairy waste into energy.

All Natural. In 2010, we made a small change to some of our product labels on our U.S. packaging that got outsized attention: we removed the words “all natural”. Despite the label change, we haven’t changed anything about our approach to our ingredients. In the past, we have based our use of the term “all natural” on guidelines issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which reflect how reasonable consumers would understand that term. The issue is that there is no legal definition of “all natural” for ice cream so there are varying opinions on the subject. The bottom line: we’ll continue to use ingredients that align with our Company’s Mission and values; and we’ll continue to turn them into the most euphoric ice cream on the planet.

Cleaner, Greener Freezers. We’re still hoping to start a revolution in America, but ironically enough, we’re waiting on government permission. Our vision is that the entire country will switch over to hydrocarbon (HC) freezers that are significantly more energy-efficient and use gases with lower global warming potential than standard freezers, which use hydrofluorocarbons (HFC). We’ve already got 250 of these next-generation HC freezers in a successful pilot test around the U.S., and we’ve petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to allow their widespread use. We expect to hear back soon, clearing the way for cleaner, greener freezers in the USA. A side benefit: they're cheaper to run than the old HFC freezers. In Europe, HC freezers are already in widespread use, including many that contain Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

GOAL 3:
Take the Lead Promoting Global Sustainable
Dairy Practices

Caring Dairy™. We’ve been working with dairy farmers in Vermont and the Netherlands for many years to help them push towards the leading edge of sustainable dairy practices. Our Caring Dairy™ program – now up and running in both places – sponsors and supports farmers on their journey of continuous improvement in their social, environmental, and economic performance. In 2010, we had 71 farmers enrolled in Caring Dairy from the St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, our primary supplier of dairy ingredients in the United States. These 71 farmers produce a volume of milk equivalent to 63% of Ben & Jerry’s needs, and we’ll sign on more farmers in 2011 until we reach 100%. Our Dutch dairy supplier, CONO Cheesemakers, has more than 90% of its nearly 500 farmers participating in Caring Dairy, more than enough to cover Ben & Jerry’s dairy needs. Our long-term goal remains to engage all of our dairy suppliers around the world in sustainable dairy partnerships.

rBGH. Almost twenty years ago, Ben & Jerry’s came out in opposition to the use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a genetically engineered hormone given to cows to increase their milk production. We think rBGH is a step in the wrong direction towards a chemically-intensive, high-tech food system that has unacceptable social and environmental costs. In the U.S., we require our dairy farmers to pledge that they don’t treat their cows with rBGH, and our products carry a label that states our opposition to rBGH. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has stated that there is no significant difference between milk from rBGH-treated and untreated cows. But in Canada and most European countries, rBGH has never been able to win government approval, so in those countries, it's one less thing we have to worry about. We are still working with a coalition of nonprofit groups and companies in the U.S. to defend our right to label our products and, ultimately, to end the use of rBGH in the U.S. dairy industry.

Good Food Policy. In September of 2010, we whipped up a special batch of a flavor we called “Something’s Fishy” to express our opposition to the US Food and Drug Administration’s preliminary decision to allow genetically engineered (GE) salmon into the U.S. food supply. At a media event in front of the White House, we joined with several public interest groups to ask the Obama administration to block FDA’s approval of this first-ever GE animal intended for food production. While we don’t use any fish in our ice cream, we know that genetically engineered cows and other animals are in development. And at Ben & Jerry’s, we believe the ethical, environmental, and economic risks of tinkering with animal genes for food production are unacceptable – certainly until such time as we have a fuller understanding of what we’re getting ourselves into. Even worse, the U.S. doesn’t have any regulatory framework in place that’s designed to comprehensively evaluate the risks of these newfangled animals. The scene is different in many other countries, where GE animals have not come up for approval yet – or where ‘novel foods’ regulations are generally clearer and stronger. We’ll keep speaking out for good policy in this important arena of ‘novel food technologies,’ as we have with rBGH and cloned animals in earlier years.