Activists honored the Raise the Bar Hershey Campaign with the Activists Choice BENNY Award, celebrating the work of Green America’s coalitional efforts with allies to push Hershey into addressing child labor in its supply chain. The BENNY Award recognizes Green America's efforts with Global Exchange and the International Labor Rights Forum. This powerful work brought together thousands of concerned individuals, students, teachers, faith groups, investors, and socially responsible businesses to pressure Hershey to trace its supply chain and verify its cocoa would not be grown with child labor. In response, Hershey adopted a 2020 deadline and is on schedule to meet this goal. Green America, Global Exchange and the International Labor Rights Forum led efforts to take on Hershey, which at the time was the only big chocolate company left with zero commitments to a child labor-free supply chain. Support groups for the Raise the Bar Hershey campaign included U. Roberto Romano’s groundbreaking film The Dark Side of Chocolate, along with dozens of student and religious groups. Businesses were critical too: companies like Whole Foods and dozens of food co-ops— including many Green Business Network (GBN) members — dropped Hershey products from their stores. The Business Ethics Network (BENNY) Awards are sponsored by Corporate Ethics International. Celebrating ten years, the BENNY Awards recognize outstanding individual and organizational achievement for campaigns to make corporations more socially and environmentally responsible. Raise the Bar Hershey won by popular vote. GBN Member Green Century also won a BENNY for outstanding achievement in advocating for better corporate behavior. Filmmaker and tireless activist Romano tragically passed away in 2013 from complications related to Lyme disease. He documented child labor globally in countries including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, Mexico, the Ivory Coast and the United States. The coalition accepted the award in his honor, calling Romano, “one of our most important allies—and one of the most fierce advocates for children the world has ever seen.” Fellow activist Len Morris wrote that Romano’s, “courage was tested in dozens of the world’s poorest places, where government officials, even NGOs, rarely venture. He’d wear a hidden camera to film girls being trafficked, with the full knowledge that discovery meant death.” Romano’s work remains online, leaving a legacy of advocacy for the world’s most vulnerable.
