Spilling the B on what it means to be a certified B Corp
This article is a guest entry by Tim Jones from Grow Good. Image credits: B Corp ANZ
Certified B Corp. You might have spotted their signature B logo on one of your favourite ethical brands.
But what does it mean to be a certified B Corporation? And what makes them stand out from other sustainable certifications?
We asked The Grow Good Guy, Tim Jones to spill the B!
Where did the idea of B Corp come from?
The concept of B Corp came about in 2006 after one of the co-founders of the movement, Jay Coen Gilbert realised the power of business to make an impact on the world.
Having seen the wide stakeholder benefits of running a company that aimed to balance purpose and profit he was keen to see how a movement of businesses with this aim could be created.
This idea would mature into the notion of B Corporations, where the B stands for “benefit.”
Certified B Corps are a new form of business that seeks to balance purpose and profit. This means that rather than solely focusing on profit maximisation, they consider the impact of their operations on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.
B Corps are leaders of a global movement of business as a force for good. They meet the highest verified and independent levels of transparency and accountability on their social and environmental performance.
The B Corp movement has met its moment.
There are now over 4000 B Corps around the world, with 53+ in Aotearoa. Australia/New Zealand is one of the world’s fastest-growing regions for B Corp Certification. In 2020 the movement saw an increase of 25%.
This has been driven by two levels of factors. At the higher systemic level, we are seeing more companies taking an active stance in matters relating to environmental and social challenges. Covid-19 has also added a layer of existential questioning:
If your business wasn’t able to operate during a lockdown then how essential is it to humanity?
More compaines are taking an active stance on environmental and social justice.
At the lower level, businesses need 4 main groups of humans and they are all demanding that business steps up to do more. Customers, employees, suppliers and investors all want businesses to prove that they are doing their fair share to make the world a better place.
How does a business become B Corp certified?
To get B Corp Certified you need to take an initial self-assessment, called the B Impact Assessment or BIA (www.bimpactassessment.net). This measures your business performance across the five pillars or sections shown below, as well as answering the disclosure questions.
Once you have met the threshold score of 80/200 you are eligible to submit your work and get it verified by one of the teams at B Lab (the global non-profit body that runs the certification tool).
The BIA is a positive screening tool that measures your operational goodness, or in other words how much benefit are you creating for your stakeholders beyond just the owners and shareholders.
The BIA is completely free to take – you only pay a Certification fee if you want to have your assessment verified by B Lab.
The typical journey to Certification looks something like this:
To B or not to B?
Well is it worth it? From an impact perspective B Corps are definitely doing the mahi:
Beyond it being the right thing to do there are solid economic arguments for Certification.
The Grocer, a UK journal for consumer brands, reported in 2018 that average year-on-year growth across the 150 UK B Corps was 14% compared with 0.5% growth in GDP.
35% said they had attracted new customers since Certifying, while almost half (48%) found that prospective staff had been attracted to the business specifically because it was a B Corp.
And in the most recent B Lab impact report we have seen that B Corp’s are a resilient bunch:
What’s the state of the Kiwi B?
The Australia/New Zealand region is one of the fasting growing regions globally. In Aotearoa, we currently have 53 B Corps, but we are on the cusp of a major expansion in the movement.
In the last couple of months, I have been working with around 20 companies to help them navigate the Certification journey, and in 2021 I co-facilitated a series of workshops with NZTE that saw 43 Kiwi exporters take a deep dive into how B Corp could benefit them.
B Corps on fair&good
When we buy from, work for, and work with B Corps, we vote for the world we want to live in. At fair&good, we’re proud to showcase some amazing Kiwi-owned brands like Duffle&Co, Kathmandu, LilyBee Wrap, Orba and more. These brands prove that it’s possible to do business that balances purpose, people, planet and profit!
Keen to learn more?
If you are interested in learning more about B Corp then you can check out our free e-book “To B Or Not To B – The What, Why and How Of B Corp Certification” here.
To get started on the B Impact Assessment just go to www.bimpactassessment.net and away you go!
If you’d like to learn more about how Grow Good and how we might be able to work together on something epic, you can learn more about us here:
About Tim Jones
Tim Jones – Ceo And Founder And B Consultant
Tim Jones is The Grow Good Guy. He delivers inspirational, motivational, memorable and impactful consulting, training and coaching to individuals and organisations. He helps them achieve meaningful goals in life, and work, by tapping into the potential of their purpose fuelled performance.
Tim is New Zealand’s 1st qualified B Consultant having successfully completed the training programme run by B Lab ANZ. He has helped more than 60 companies from around the world navigate the B Corp Impact Assessment.
He also holds a Certificate in Impact Measurement and Management for the SDGs from Duke University and is Industry Expert and co-teacher of the University of Canterbury MBA Programme “Creating Impact Led Enterprises”.
