B CORPS ARE SETTING THE EXAMPLE FOR SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

Sustainable businesses take many forms, and this magazine often covers the amazing companies investing in battery tech or green energy because their products easily illustrate the UK’s progress towards being carbon neutral.

But many thousands of companies don’t do that stuff. Traditional businesses such as law firms, accountants or small businesses in every sector are run by those wanting to do the right thing by the planet but not sure how to make a traditional business truly sustainable.

One organisation which is helping them do just that is B Lab, which helps companies achieve B Corp certification.

Certified B Corporations (B Corps for short), are businesses which meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.

The B Corp movement began in the USA in 2006 when businessmen Jay Coen Gilbert, Bart Houlahan and Andrew Kassoy established B Lab. Their new organisation made it easier for companies to improve their positive impact. The first 82 B Corps were certified in 2007.

The UK is now home to the second largest B Corp community in the world, with more than 500 companies certified as B Corp. In total they represent 48 industries and more than 22,000 employees.

They want to benefit society, but B Corps have also arguably fared better when compared to the wider UK economy, with a higher growth turnover between 20172019, and annual employee headcount growth of eight per cent between 2017 and March 2020 – compared to zero per cent for all SMEs.

Chris Turner is Executive Director of B Lab UK. With a background in international development – he spent time working in East Africa – a brief diversion into politics (as a field organiser on Obama’s first USA presidential campaign), he returned to the UK to lead a couple of small businesses looking at consumer trends and how emerging technologies tackling consumer behaviours could be business opportunities.

“I became increasingly interested in the potential of all businesses working for the good of everyone,” he said.

The first step to becoming a B Corp is completing a B Impact Assessment, explained Chris. “This is a free tool on our website. All you need to do is to create an account and fill out the assessment.”

It’s not as quick as it sounds, but it’s the starting point for qualification.

“The threshold we ask for is 80 points. Filling out the assessment will reveal how you can improve your score. A business might score 79 and need just a bit of work to nudge over. Once you have achieved 80 points, you can submit your assessment and our team will ask for supporting evidence, conduct interviews and in the case of larger companies, undertake site visits.”

It sounds like a lot of box-ticking and it is, said Chris. “But our standards act as tools which businesses can use for planning and measuring impact,” he explained. “I’ve spoken with business accelerators and incubators working with start-ups and they see it as a useful exercise for planning and growing a business.”

How do you stop a company using their B Corp status as simply a PR exercise? “We don’t. Lots of companies will use it to promote themselves and are really proud about it,” said Chris.

“We know that if they have the certification, they’ve gone through our rigorous assessment. They’ve made the changes to their articles and governance which we require, where they are legally committing themselves to people, planet and profit. They are walking the talk.”

There are five million businesses in the UK and Chris knows that his organisation can’t certify every business, so he plans to make this happen through B Corps becoming leaders.

“We want to do more research, and to use our B Corps as a body of hard evidence to make the change for sustainable growth.”

B Lab UK is currently launching the Better Business Act campaign which wants the changes that B Corps commit to enshrined into the UK’s Companies Act.

“We want every business in the UK to be legally required to benefit all their stakeholders – people, planet and profit.”

Leaving the EU has created an amazing opportunity for the UK said Chris: “This country is looking to redefine itself on the global stage and this is an amazing opportunity to show leadership on corporate governance and responsible capitalism.”

B Corps across the region

ADLIB

Carbon Gold

Greenhouse PR

Neighbourly

Omnifarious

Paradigm Norton

Financial Planning

Pukka Herbs

Resource Futures

Bristol

Rubber Republic

Sawdays

Semantrica

Recruitment agency

Peat free compost

PR agency

Connecting company funds, surplus and volunteer time with local causes

Marketing agency

Financial planners

Herbal teas

Sustainability advisers

Film Studio

Travel publishers

Database of modern slavery and human trafficking statements

Yala Jewellery Ethical African jewellery

Ecosurety

Double Retail

Thrive Renewables

Packaging compliance scheme

Retail designers

Sustainable energy

Stride Treglown Architects

Business West

Cirencester Wildwood Ecology

Nailsworth Beeswax Wrap Company

Oxford

Business support organisation

Ecologists

Making beeswax wraps

Hobbs House Bakery Bakery

3Keel Ltd

The Myers Briggs Company

ClimateCare

Seacourt

Anthesis

Reading Swiftpak

Stratford upon Avon

Stroud

Tricordant

Warwick Events

Invivo clinical

Kung Fu Accounting

Stroud Brewery

Tetbury The Trust Partnership

Worcester The Little Soap Company