Business West makes itself clear on social values

A private business? Not-for-profit? Social enterprise? the UK’s largest Chamber of Commerce? Business West is all these and because of that it has sometimes struggled over the past 200 years to describe itself, externally and to its own employees.

Phil Smith, Managing Director at Business West, explains why the organisation decided to go for B Corp accreditation.

“What’s easy to explain is why we exist, which is to make our region the best place in the UK to start, run and grow a business and a great place to live, work and learn.

“So, in part, we wanted to become a B Corp for optical reasons, but B Corp also helps us prioritise our efforts between supporting our community, the planet and our own profits.

“Part of Business West’s repertoire includes delivering business support on behalf of government. To win this work it’s no longer good enough to show you can deliver the contracted outputs on time and at the right quality, you must also demonstrate social value. B Corp offers us a neat and powerful way of capturing our social value contribution.

“The B Corp accreditation process is not for the faint-hearted. We already get heavily audited (iso 14001, 9001, health and safety, insurance, food hygiene, to name a few). We also had some concerns as it is a US-based scheme, because some of the language and questions had a slight inflection. But rather than being a stick to beat us with, B Corp shines a light on the good things we are already doing and shows us where we can do things better.

“As UK industry and commerce begins to think about better ways of doing things, Business West, using B Corp as our guide and our banner, is trying to show our members and customers that while businesses can (and need) to make profit we can also be good citizens.”