6. Environment
Managing Our Impacts
Since 1992 when Ben & Jerry’s signed the CERES principles, we have honored a commitment to support safe and sustainable 
food production and minimize our negative impact on the environment. It’s important for us to continually integrate programs and practices that assure our product and operations stay consistent with our stated agricultural and environmental values.
In 2001, we initiated a project that developed indicators of Sustainable Agriculture for dairy farmers. In Europe, we established Caring Dairy, a collaborative initiative to reflect our U.S. efforts in a way that would be relevant to Ben & Jerry’s production in the Netherlands.
As to the impact of our business on the environment, we’re active in a number of areas. We have continued to evaluate and develop the most environmentally progressive packaging available. In 2006 we continued our commitment to reduce our global warming impacts, and embarked on a new project to evaluate whether we’re doing enough in this area, called our Global Warming Social Footprint. And our active participation in the development of thermoacoustic refrigeration generated the kind of publicity that will hopefully
keep environmental innovation front-of-mind in the refrigeration industry.
Internally, we continue to offset all of the carbon dioxide emissions from our manufacturing plants as well as employee air travel. Our Environmental Management System commits our manufacturing plants to establishing goals for measuring and reducing their environmental impacts. These areas include energy use and emissions, water use and wastewater management, solid waste and recycling, hazardous waste and high strength dairy waste. The plants establish annual reduction targets, maintain strict adherence to environmental regulations and complete environmental projects sponsored by our company Green Teams for both internal and community-based awareness and education.
Over the years, Ben & Jerry’s has developed and implemented various environmental initiatives. See our timeline to get the complete history of our program.
Each year, Ben & Jerry’s manufacturing plants develop annual environmental goals. The supporting data is tracked using our Environmental Tracking system, while in-plant programs listed below address key environmental aspects.
