Q. But things have come an incredibly long way and now Stonyfield is big time. And you're rolling with some of the bigwigs in the corporate world, and you go around telling people that “serving humanity pays.” This is obviously a heretical business ethic from the point of view of traditional business circles. Do people still look at you like you're a crazy person in the traditional business world?

A. Well, certainly in the early days everyone thought we were crazy. I always say that we had a wonderful business.

The only problem was that we had no supply and no demand. But organic, obviously, has come of age. Sustainability is now coming into vogue. And as I said at the outset, this isn't because we've suddenly had a tremendous burst of moral rectitude here. It's strictly because of economics. And really economics have obliterated all criticism of us. Stonyfield is now a $325 million company, outgrowing our category dramatically. We're the number three yogurt in the U.S., as well as the largest organic yogurt company in the world.

But also macroeconomics. We have demonstrated, and certainly many of the folks like Yvonne and others in business who you've interviewed have proven this as well, that anytime you can reduce your climate footprint, anytime you can decrease waste, anytime you can get yourself less dependent on fossil fuels, cut emissions, or alternatively, build loyalty by promoting causes that people care about—in our case, not using synthetic hormones, not using pesticides or herbicides or chemical fertilizers or antibiotics; in other words, being organic. These things work in two ways: both growing the top line and shrinking the bottom line.

And there isn't a businessperson on earth at any level who can afford to ignore these ideas. So my audiences have moved from the kind of more crunchy crowd to a lot of suits. But the happy news is that even at the highest levels of commerce, and I'm talking about CEOs of Fortune 100 companies who I've gotten to hang out with of late, nobody, not one single person, has ever shown a negative correlation with investing in green. In other words, nobody has ever demonstrated that investing in greening your operation or in sustainability has cost in economic terms. ... (Read the full interview.)