What's a Socially Responsible Business?
“Socially responsible” businesses operate with dual objectives: making profits like other business, but also contributing to a broader social good. The extent of a business’s commitment to social responsibility can range from mild – giving charity or not selling products like tobacco or alcohol with high costs to society – to “bottom line” – making social responsibility a built-in goal of their business model. The list is growing fast of enterprises that have made social responsibility part of their bottom line. Notable non-local examples are environmentally-conscious apparel-maker Patagonia or fair-trade product co-operative Equal Exchange. While socially conscious companies cannot solve all social ills, they are a step in the right direction.
In the growing list of socially responsible enterprises are SIBA members. Consider Nature’s Food Patch Natural Market & Café has a strong commitment to healthier people and a healthier planet. The market, the largest independently owned natural market in the Tampa Bay area, leads in many ways. Seeing clogged landfills and roadside litter, the Florida legislature has recently started to consider banning retail plastic bags. Florida consumers throw away over 
90 million bags a year. Nature’s Food Patch has already led the way here. Since Earth Day 2008 the natural market has donated 5 cents for every customer that uses their own grocery bag and not a plastic one. Nature’s Food Patch did not wait for government action to do the right thing!
Another great example of a local socially responsible business is Wilcox Nursery and Florist, a Founding Member of SIBA. The focus of their nursery is landscaping with Florida native plants and how to reduce the use of water and polluting fertilizers on our lawns. This year, the Florida legislature passed laws encouraging “Florida Friendly” lawns and reducing runoff of fertilizers into our waterways. Again, Wilcox Nursery has been promoting sustainable landscaping for many years.
Another amazing example is It’s Our Nature. Like the international corporate example of Patagonia, the owner of It’s Our Nature, Linda Taylor, screens every product for environmental, fair labor, and other social criteria before they are willing to sell it. It’s Our Nature recently demonstrated the depth of its commitment when, despite pressure from some consumers, they resisted selling “bamboo clothing and fabrics” as natural, environmentally-friendly and healthy. In 2009 the Federal Trade Commission showed that these claims about bamboo fabrics were basically false. Taylor’s principled stance on Bamboo, against the pressure some customers, was vindicated in the end.