Chobani

The companies on this list are mobilizing the creative tools of capitalism to help solve social problems.

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When Chobani’s founding CEO, Hamdi Ulukaya, learned that refugees had been resettling near the company’s yogurt factory in upstate New York, he brought in translators, set up shuttle buses, and introduced training programs—paving the way for hundreds of refugees to get hired by Chobani over the following years. In 2016, when global displacement reached an all-time high, Ulukaya created the Tent Partnership for Refugees, a coalition of businesses supporting refugees’ economic integration. To date, the Tent Partnership’s 300-plus member companies—which include Amazon, Hilton, and Pfizer—have provided tens of thousands of refugees with hiring, training, and mentorship. In September 2022, 45 of those companies committed to hiring over 22,000 refugees in the next three years in the U.S., providing jobs that will generate approximately $913 million in income for refugees annually. And in June 2023, 41 companies pledged to employ and train over 250,000 refugees across Europe in the next three years.

Change the World

Here’s our look at 50 companies that do well by doing good.

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Electric vehicles, food waste prevention, and helping displaced people find jobs are some of the priorities on this year’s Change the World list, Fortune’s yearly roundup of companies enacting positive impact on people and the planet.

59 companies that are changing the world: From Tesla to Chobani

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Electric vehicles, food waste prevention, and helping displaced people find jobs are some of the priorities on this year’s Change the World list.

To change the world. This recognizes companies that are using the profit motive and using their business models to have a positive impact on people and on the planet. It's also important to us that you are making money. We do want to make sure that this is not charity but business. The list isn't ranked. I like to use the metaphor of a hall of fame, for example, in football or baseball. Each year, a new class of great performers gets elected to the hall of Fame, but nobody really tries to rank them by how good they are relative to each other. This year, especially with climate change awareness. Becoming more and more urgent. We zeroed in a little more tightly on efforts to sharply lower carbon dioxide emissions. We gave quite a bit of space to companies in the United States that are working to accelerate the rate at which Americans convert from internal combustion engines to electric drivers are worried that they might not have access to electric chargers if they buy an ev one of the companies that's doing the most to fight against that is a company called Charge point. They operate a huge network of charging stations across North America and all these evs are going to need batteries as well. So we are recognizing a South Korean company called SK on. They have been partnering with Ford and Hyundai and Volkswagen and other companies to essentially build battery factories here in the United States. So that the United States has a safe supply chain, food waste actually generates quite a bit of greenhouse gas when it rots in landfills. So we look at companies that are trying to make sure that less of the food that we produce winds up getting thrown away. This year. In particular, we saw more companies than usual that are working on figuring out how to reach displaced people. There's a record high number of displaced people in the world right now and a lot of companies are trying to figure out how can I give them the skills to have some economic security? How can I help them find the right place to settle, help them become my customers by making their lives more economically stable. For example, we're recognizing Chobani which launched a few years ago what's called tense Partnership for refugees. This is a coalition of about 300 companies worldwide that have all committed to providing job training and jobs for the displaced populations that does not immediately generate a profit, but it does create a workforce that can then work for those companies. So in the long run, they are benefiting by filling their own labor needs with a population that really needs the help. There's a lot of attention being given by companies to helping younger people and people who aren't sort of financially established in their lives get a little bit of traction in the broader economy. Isu they help younger people and people who have been having financial difficulties, build up their credit scores. So what is Susu will do is help these people essentially earn credit for things like on time rent payments is Suu reports. Those to credit bureaus, the credit bureaus register them and it bumps up the payers scores that's going to help them down the road when they need to borrow money for an auto loan or to get a mortgage. Abbi the big health care company, they have a very innovative a program designed to help younger employees use the company's 401k program to help them pay down their student loans whenever they make a payment on those loans. The company puts a matching contribution in their retirement savings. That's important because often younger people have to really choose between saving for the future and paying off their education. Thanks to some recent changes in federal tax law, a lot of other companies are going to be able to follow their lead. Starting next year, the population of companies that are trying to have a positive social impact is definitely growing younger workers, millennials, Gen Z very much want to work for companies that have a positive purpose. More and more companies are recognizing that to invest in protecting the planet, to invest in building up the skills of the people in their communities is going to essentially protect their revenue and their profits and allow them to continue to operate and continue to create wealth. Fortune publishes the change the world list partly because we're still quite bullish and quite optimistic about the ability of business to solve different social problems. In fact, in a lot of instances, we think that businesses can act and make a difference when governments are struggling to do so. At the same time, we are a really established business media brand. Our voice means something in the business community. And we believe that by recognizing companies that are making a difference, we're adding another incentive for people to do great things and boast about them.

Rachel Carlson, Co-founder and CEO, Guild Education
Adena Hefets, Co-founder and CEO, Divvy Homes
Dara Treseder, Senior Vice President, Head of Global Marketing and Communications, Peloton
Michelle Weese, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Bristol Myers Squibb
Grace Zuncic, Chief People and Culture Officer, Chobani

Most Powerful Women 2021 - Building Brands With Purpose

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Rachel Carlson, Guild Education
Adena Hefets, Divvy Homes
Dara Treseder, Peloton
Michelle Weese, Bristol Myers Squibb
Grace Zuncic, Chobani

 ELLEN McGIRT: I think that the human moral element of this is going to require a certain kind of courage that some executives who just simply aren't fluent in the language of justice or purpose or stakeholder capitalism need to generate in order to have the tough conversations, including learning out loud. What's your best advice for those executives who are earlier on the path and you and Hamdi? DANIEL SCHULMAN: Well, I try really hard not to give anybody advice because it's so hard not being in their shoes, but I can say what's worked for us. And what's worked for us is having a set of values that we live up to. And that is what takes real courage, I think. Because values that are just up on a wall and you don't act upon them are just propaganda. And it's worse to actually have values that you don't live up to than no values at all because you're-- HAMDI ULUKAYA: I'm going to steal [INAUDIBLE] from [INAUDIBLE]. DANIEL SCHULMAN: That's I mean it's so true. And by the way, living to those takes courage. Because we live in a culturally charged environment where when we stand up for something, people always think you're taking a political stance. And I always say we're not taking a political stance. We're standing up for our values. And even if that results in death threats, which frequently happens to me because what we-- the stance we take are sometimes controversial, but we're consistent on them. Like we will always take down Nazi sites or KKK sites or sites that promote hatred or violence. And sometimes people are upset about that, but I think that is consistent with our values of inclusion. And that courage to do that, your employees see it, your customers see it, and people want to be a part of a company that stands for something. ELLEN McGIRT: You broke some news on fortune.com today with my wonderful colleague Beth Kowitt. Thank you for that. Specifically I'm thinking about stakeholders and your employees. Can you tell us a little bit about your news and why it's important now? HAMDI ULUKAYA: I feel that we still have a long way to go. This is just the beginning. We announced before the stock options for every employees, including factory workers and tell them to lead help for the children. I always keep saying these are not gifts, these are our-- these are our responsibilities. And this should the normal. This should be the normal business that we shouldn't even be talking about these things. But I'm hoping that this pandemic made us all tick. And I see the signs. And, of course, this gathering that you put together and putting this kind of topics in the top of everybody's mind. And we need to be aligned. We need to be helping each other. We need to inspire each other. And we need to make massive convincing out there in the world of business and say, OK, we might not have to figure this out all at once right from the beginning, but let's start this way instead of this way that we've been on for a long, long time that hasn't been helping society and community and humanity all together. ELLEN McGIRT: Because I know that journey really resonated with you particularly around employee pay and your net disposable income efforts. Can you talk us through that journey, please? DANIEL SCHULMAN: Sure. Well, first of all, I want to, again, thank you for having me and Hamdi. It's so great to be on with you as well. You've inspired me for so long, and I've learned so much from watching you in action. To your point, Ellen, I couldn't agree more with Hamdi in terms of employees being the single most important asset that a company has. When I think about what creates competitive advantage, it's always the strength of your employees, their skills, their passion for the business. And I think any company that hopes to move from being a good company to maybe someday being a great company has as its foundation talented, financially secure, financially healthy employees. And one of the things that I was always proud of at PayPal is that we paid at or above market in every single location where we employed 30,000 people at PayPal. And I always thought because we did that that our employees would be financially healthy because I believe that if you rely on the market, then your employees will be OK. And I put out a survey to find out how our employees felt in terms of their financial health. And what I found is that 2/3 of our employees, 2/3 of our entry-level employees and all of our call center employees struggled to make ends meet at the end of the month, which was shocking to me because I came to realize that capitalism in its current form isn't working for a large segment of the population. And so then I really decided to measure just what it meant to be financially healthy. And we came up with this metric called net disposable income, which is after an employee pays their taxes and all of their essential living expenses, how much money do they have left over for the rest of life. And what I found out, to my surprise, is that our employees, entry-level employees, call center employees only had between 4% and 6% net disposable income. And the team and I decided that the minimum NDI that we could accept for somebody to be financially healthy was 20%. And so we lowered the cost of health benefits by 60%. We raised salaries. We gave every single person in the company just like Hamdi did, we gave them actual stock in the company, and we wrapped all that into a financial education program to show them how to save, how to think about their long term financial health. And today the minimum somebody has in the company is 16% NDI, and by the end of next year we'll be at 20%. And what I saw from that is employee passion, engagement, attrition go way down, absenteeism go way down. And I feel like this idea of profit and purpose working hand in hand together is exactly what makes companies successful. 

“People want to be a part of a company that stands for something,” says PayPal CEO Dan Schulman.

Chobani and PayPal are rethinking capitalism

Leadership

“People want to be a part of a company that stands for something,” says PayPal CEO Dan Schulman. 

Rosilyn Houston, Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Talent and Culture Executive, BBVA USA
Tracy Layney, SVP and Chief Human Resource Officer, Levi Strauss & Co.
Carin Taylor, Chief Diversity Officer, Workday
Grace Zuncic, Chief People and Culture Officer, Chobani
Moderator: Danielle Abril, Tech Writer, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2020: Building A Better Workplace - And A Lasting, Inclusive Culture

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From unconscious bias and microaggressions to overt discrimination and low diversity statistics, the office (and its virtual extensions) are at the center of many employees’ challenging experiences in corporate America.

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