On my pet topic of how business is creating grassroots good in the world, here’s a great interview [mp3] from Corporate Watchdog Radio with the founder of Dean’s Beans, a fair trade coffee company. Dean Cycon travels to the coffee-lands and meets directly with the communities he buys from. He’s building (global) community and raising standards of living via long distance trade, and the company has been profitable from day one, so that’s a real success story. His stories in this segment about how other retailers manage their fair trade programs, though, can be sobering. This is a solid listen from a reliably interesting radio show and podcast.
