4 companies leading the next wave of profit with purpose

There is an exciting next generation of business leaders emerging that embrace profit and purpose as the new way to do business, writes Phillip Haid of Fast Company.

To demonstrate, he points to the four companies receiving Cause Innovation Awards at the Cause Marketing Forum in Chicago. Here’s his breakdown of these social innovators:

• Uncharted Play. An energy-harnessing soccer ball? Yep, that’s what’s happening here with the company’s veteran Soccket product, now providing off-grid power to families in remote areas and refugee camps.

• Teeki. Clothes from recycled plastic bottles. Enough said. Teeki gets people moving.

• Rareform. By getting to expired advertising billboards before they get to landfills, Rareform manufactures surf bags, backpacks and totes with the material destined for the trash. It’s called upcycling. National distributors include Patagonia and Whole Foods.

• LSTN. Similar to the Toms shoe model, LSTN sells headphones and for every pair, helps restore hearing to a person in need through Starkey Hearing Foundation. The hearing assist tally is above 20,000 people in the U.S., Peru, Kenya and Uganda.

Read more from Fast Company.