Derek Blasberg Quotes

I believe business has to do well and that the surrounding communities do well.

What is good for society is also good for business.

What helps people, helps business.

Progressives make money and spend money on businesses that meet needs instead of kill people! The future is in meeting needs - unto the bourgeois business of cleaning the drapes! - not spewing death and destruction with kickbacks.

I dismiss personal profit and focus exclusively on people and planet. That's what I call social business: a nondividend company dedicated to solving human problems. You can go all the way, forgetting about personal profit, being single-minded about solving problems. The company makes profit, but profit stays with the company.

By simply capitalizing on core strengths and knowledge, companies and entrepreneurs can engage in an emerging business model that will enable them to create - and demonstrate - real, sustainable social impact in society.

The companies that are the most influential and most successful are the ones that care about impact and the influence they have on the world.

I consider myself lucky that Sheila Johnson, the cofounder of Black Entertainment Television, didn't choose to rest on her very impressive business laurels. Her luscious 100 percent modal scarves, printed with photos she takes all over the world, are gorgeous. Wearing one is like being wrapped in a hug.

I wear two hats. The one is business and increasing my shareholders' value; the other is social responsibility.

Businesses can lead with their values and make money, too. You don't have to simply be purely profit-driven. You can integrate social and environmental concerns into a business, be a caring business, be a generous business and still do very well financially.

We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, on whose account he or she has become so rich.

Goodwill and reputation are intangibles, but they are the keys to business success. Since they are also inexorably linked to social values, it follows that a change in social norms will have a significant impact on profits.

The thing we should all be looking for are people who want to make a difference. I'm a big believer in the Silicon Valley religion of the power of markets. But I also believe in our obligation to give back, and to give back in the way we do business, to create more value than we capture for ourselves.

Finding creative and effective ways to simultaneously give back and economically empower people is something that is increasingly important. Not everyone can open a business and directly create jobs in the way that we have at Red Rooster Harlem.

My company in the U.S., Pratt Industries U.S.A., has grown from scratch to become a billion-dollar business based on recycling, as well as the largest Australian-owned employer of U.S. citizens.

I've been very inspired by Virgin's model of business as a force for good.

Companies should not have a singular view of profitability. There needs to be a balance between commerce and social responsibility... The companies that are authentic about it will wind up as the companies that make more money.

So much business is based on the belief that we should do whatever we can within legal limits to make as much money as we can. Ben & Jerry's was based on values, and we try to operate a business that not just sells ice cream but partners with all our stakeholders - whether that's suppliers or customers - to bring about a more sustainable world.

At a lot of companies founded on principles, the notion of making money is almost antithetical to the ethos of the place. From the very beginning, our business has existed to meet the needs and desires of multiple constituencies: customers, team members, vendors, shareholders, the community.

It is a sort of great Victorian truth that actually, trying to do the right thing is pretty good for you and pretty good for business as well, by and large.

At The Body Shop we had always been measured by how many jobs we had created, and I got a major award from the Queen on that.

Business can be a source of progressive change.

Business has a way of talking about how to create value, which is in some way isn't bad... We just need to start thinking about if the value we want to create is consistent with all social and environmental well being.

We now see numerous examples of brands working together to address issues such as environmental degradations, climate control, pollution, poverty and disease.

I have set up several businesses as social businesses, and I am a great believer that the power of business should be used for good.