SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP = DOING WELL AND DOING GOOD

Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, once said, "the business of business is business." This famous quote gets to the heart of his argument that businesses exist to maximize the wealth of their owners and for no other reason.

Today, there is a growing group of entrepreneurs who disagree with Friedman's ideas regarding the role and purpose of a business. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has entered the lexicon, as has social entrepreneurship. Both focus on a business doing well for owners, but also doing good for society.

If you are interested in social entrepreneurship, starting and running a business for personal gain and profit while also having the business play a role in the betterment of society, you should spend a few minutes reading this article:

A Capitalist Jolt for Charity by Steve Lohr in The New York Times

Mr. Lohr takes a closer look at ePals, a for-profit business that seeks not only profit, but to also play a role in improving education around the globe.

IRISH SPURN PLASTIC BAGS

After a tax on plastic bags that is now the equivalent of 33 cents per bag was imposed in 2002, Irish consumers spurned plastic bags in favor of more environmentally friendly choices.

From The New York Times:

In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts.

Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within a year, nearly everyone had bought reusable cloth bags, keeping them in offices and in the backs of cars. Plastic bags were not outlawed, but carrying them became socially unacceptable — on a par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after one’s dog.

Drowning in a sea of plastic bags, countries from China to Australia, cities from San Francisco to New York have in the past year adopted a flurry of laws and regulations to address the problem, so far with mixed success. The New York City Council, for example, in the face of stiff resistance from business interests, passed a measure requiring only that stores that hand out plastic bags take them back for recycling.

But in the parking lot of a Superquinn Market, Ireland’s largest grocery chain, it is clear that the country is well into the post-plastic-bag era. “I used to get half a dozen with every shop. Now I’d never ever buy one,” said Cathal McKeown, 40, a civil servant carrying two large black cloth bags bearing the bright green Superquinn motto. “If I forgot these, I’d just take the cart of groceries and put them loose in the boot of the car, rather than buy a bag.”

MINNESOTA HOSPITAL OPERATOR BANS GIFTS FROM DRUG COMPANIES

Do gifts from drug companies, both large (trips to exotic destinations) and small (pens and notepads), influence doctors to prescribe medication from the gift-giving companies? A 2006 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association states that even small gifts can affect doctor's prescribing decisions.

What can be done to minimize or eliminate this seemingly unethical effect? A Minnesota-based hospital operator, SMDC Health System, instituted an aggressive policy that bans all gifts from drug companies to doctors and went even further by ordering that all gifts including pens, notepads, and coffee mugs be purged from the hospitals.

From AP via Yahoo:

When a Duluth-based operator of hospitals and clinics purged the pens, notepads, coffee mugs and other promotional trinkets drug companies had given its doctors over the years, it took 20 shopping carts to haul the loot away.

Trinkets, free samples, free food and drinks, free trips and other gifts have pervaded the medical profession, but observers say that's starting to change.

"We just decided for a lot of reasons we didn't want to do that any longer," Dr. Kenneth Irons, chief of community clinics for SMDC, said Friday.

So SMDC put together a comprehensive conflict-of-interest policy that, among other things, limits access to its clinics by drug company representatives. Employees suggested the "Clean Sweep" trinket roundup, Irons said.

Many of SMDC's items will be going to the health system of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon, which has three hospitals, and several rural health centers.

STARBUCKS DROPPING GROWTH HORMONE MILK

Responding to criticism from consumer groups concerned about the lack of testing and data regarding rBGH, a growth hormone given to some dairy cows to increase milk production, Starbucks has pulled growth hormone milk products from many of its stores and is expected to go companywide when new milk sources can be found. Earlier this month Starbucks announced it would quit selling food containing trans fats at half of the company's U.S. outlets. Starbucks has a long history of responding to consumer requests and is known as a leader in corporate social responsibility.

From USA Today:

Starbucks Coffee is ending its use of milk products that contain an artificial growth hormone, starting in much of the West and New England. Less than a month after announcing that the chain would stop selling items with trans fats in half its U.S. stores, Starbucks said Tuesday it had begun buying only milk products without bovine growth hormone in those areas. Starbucks has not raised prices and is working with suppliers on the cost of milk, half and half, whipping cream and eggnog, spokeswoman Sanja Gould told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Starbucks has 5,668 stores in the United States, but the number affected by the change was not immediately available. It covers company-owned Starbucks outlets in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, Northern California and New England. Earlier this month Starbucks announced plans to stop selling food containing trans fats at half the company's U.S. outlets. The move comes after Starbucks was targeted in a campaign by consumer groups critical of the use of an artificial hormone known as rBGH, which is given as a supplement to dairy cows to increase milk production. For more than a decade, some advocacy groups have asserted that there has not been enough research on the effects in humans of milk products from cows that were given the hormone, which is administered to dairy cattle during the middle phase of lactation to boost milk production. "We are actively engaged with all our dairy suppliers to explore converting our core dairy products to be rBGH-free in our U.S. company-owned stores," Starbucks spokesman Brandon Borrman told Reuters. "It is something we're aiming for."