Back in the 1990s, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream coined the term “caring capitalism” to illustrate their corporate stance of maintaining a social conscience in company decisions. Flash forward 20 years to other corporations finally catching onto this concept. The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports that Neville Isdell, former chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company, is calling for companies to follow a standard of “connected capitalism.” This is when companies connect the bottom line of their businesses with a social conscience. And Isdell has attracted several high-profile executives to his cause.
Neville Isdell is the son of social activists and a trained social worker who once worked against apartheid in South Africa. This year, he will travel to South Africa to a conference organized by CNN and Fortune magazine to meet with other corporate leaders. Isdell says that while capitalism can be a force for good in society, people have grown weary of the corporate greed and mismanagement that plunged the world into a recession. Instead, he proposes a “modernist view” of what makes capitalism work in the first place. After all, as he told the Atlanta Business Chronicle, “[Capitalism] is the best way to take people out of poverty and to grow the world economy.”
Katherine Butler is a regular contributor to the Mother Nature Network.
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