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Becoming a B Corp is a significant undertaking that requires a solid commitment to social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. It’s not just about getting a certification but a way of doing business that aligns with your values and supports your community and the planet.
A B Corp, or Benefit Corporation, is a type of for-profit company that is legally required to consider the impact of its decisions on society and the environment and generate profits for its shareholders. This means that B Corps prioritise social and environmental goals alongside their financial goals.To become a certified B Corp, a company must meet rigorous social and environmental performance standards, transparency, and accountability. These standards are set by the nonprofit organisation B Lab, which also provides certification and ongoing support to B Corps.
Patagonia: an outdoor apparel company that prioritises environmental sustainability and ethical manufacturing practices.
Ben & Jerry’s: an ice cream company that emphasises social justice, environmental responsibility, and fair trade.
Warby Parker: an eyewear company that uses sustainable materials and donates a pair of glasses to someone in need for every pair sold.
The Honest Company: a consumer goods company that produces natural and eco-friendly products for babies, personal care, and home cleaning.Futureproof: yep, we’re one and proud to be - we help businesses with carbon reporting, supplier management, ESG policies, and impact reports to achieve certifications like B Corp and Net Zero.B Corps are a growing movement of companies committed to using business as a force for good. They provide consumers with a way to support companies prioritising social and environmental responsibility.
Before beginning the process, you need to assess where your business is currently at. The B Impact Assessment (BIA) is a free online tool that measures the impact of your business on governance and ethics, your employees, customers, the community, and the environment.
The BIA covers various topics, from employee benefits to supply chain practices, and provides a score based on your performance. This score will give you a baseline to work from and help you identify areas for improvement. When you go through the BIA for the first time, ensure you are being BRUTALLY honest with the review. It’s essential to clearly understand where you are at as a company. Throughout the BIA, you’ll see things you want to implement as a company, which is great. There will be policies and processes that no doubt will take little time to add to your company (quick wins, as we call it) but wait to score these. Otherwise, you’ll get a false sense of what you must accomplish.
Once you’ve completed the BIA for the first time, you’ll receive a report that breaks down your score by impact area and provides recommendations for improvement. This report will be a valuable resource as you begin to evolve your business.
Note: B Labs are evolving the BIA in 2024, to learn more about this check out our article here.
Becoming a B Corp is a significant undertaking, and it’s essential to understand why you want to do it. The benefits of becoming a B Corp are numerous and include:- A clear framework for measuring and improving your impact on the world.- Access to a network of like-minded businesses and resources.- Increased brand reputation and customer loyalty.- Improved employee engagement and retention.- A competitive advantage in the marketplace.- Potential access to impact investors and funding opportunities.It is an impressive list.However, becoming a B Corp also requires significant time and resources. You must dedicate staff time to complete the BIA, implement new policies and practices, and document your progress. It’s crucial to weigh the benefits against the costs and determine if becoming a B Corp fits your business.We recently saw a brilliant note from Dan Murray-Serter, founder of Heights, the Secret Leaders podcast, and a proud endorser of the B Corp movement:
“5 reasons not to become a B Corp UK (from the perspective of Co Founder of Heights, a B Corp)
1. Profit - If your goal is profit, becoming a B Corp isn’t going to help you (not in the short term anyway). The world is set up around fast, unsustainable, unethical sourcing, manufacturing and hiring. B Corps have to choose the harder, slower, more sustainable and as a result, this will always hit your margin.
2. People - I’m asked all the time if being a B Corp makes it easier to hire. Maybe, but hiring, upskilling, inspiring and retaining talent along with managing performance is your #1 job. Being a B Corp won’t help you with any of this. In fact, when it comes to making really hard choices like many businesses (including us) faced with letting people go to safeguard the business... It makes it even harder.
3. Purpose - You won’t find your purpose by being a B Corp. Whilst defining your purpose is a meaningful activity, it should come from within, not just so you can get a label to demonstrate you are ethical. Being ethical is not your purpose. Hopefully one day it will just be your default setting.
4. Getting customers - Your job as a business is to get customers, and keep them. There are tons of B Corps out there who spend far more time telling everyone they’re a B Corp than figuring out how their product adds value to the customer. There are also companies like Shell, Amazon who are heinous when it comes to ethics and don’t even get me started on the morals of the company that you probably use the laptop and phone from. Apple is about as bad as it gets, but do you really care enough to do anything about it? (yes I’m writing this from an android don’t worry) 😉 Point is: being a B Corp doesn’t get you customers. Good marketing does that.
5. Investors - Come on, let’s be adults. Do you really genuinely believe that investors are desperate to change their legal Ts & Cs to put purpose over profit? In fairness, ours were amazing about it, but I imagine most aren’t. If you want investment, build a profitable exciting business, being a B Corp isn’t going to solve this for you. So.. Why the f*ck should you become a B Corp and why did we do it? Because YOU want to. Simple as that. Because you, the leaders decided to build a purposeful business. Because your wildest dreams and proudest ambitions drive you to do it. Because you want to be the change you want to see in the world. If you do it with the wrong intention, you’re going to fail cos it’s hard work, tons of effort and constant hurdle. Build a better business because its what you want to do. Nothing else.”
Wise words Dan!
Documenting your impact is one of the most critical parts of the B Corp process. This involves measuring your environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and providing evidence of your impact. Documenting your impact is not only a requirement for certification, but it can also help you identify areas for improvement and track your progress over time.To document your impact, you’ll need to gather data on various ESG factors, such as carbon emissions, employee turnover, community engagement, and supplier diversity. This data can come from a variety of sources, such as internal company records, surveys, and third-party assessments.Once you have your data, you’ll need to analyse it and identify areas for improvement. This can involve setting targets and creating action plans to address specific ESG issues. It’s essential to involve all stakeholders in this process, including employees, customers, suppliers, and community members.
How long is a piece of string? Not a helpful answer I know, but it's really hard to give you a straight answer.Changing the work you do internally to meet B Corp criteria can take anywhere from several months to two years plus, depending on the size and complexity of the company. Not to mention how much of a priority you decide to make it as a company. Once you’re ready and submit your application, a certification workstream goes through B Labs, which takes time from their end. They evaluate and verify your work to ensure your company meets its criteria.
To learn more about this process, check out their website.As mentioned, the B Impact Assessment is a comprehensive evaluation tool that measures a company’s performance in governance, workers, community, environment, and customers. It is designed to help companies identify areas to improve their social and environmental impact. From that, you create a path to improve. At Futureproof, we call this companies company’s B Corp roadmap.
Two criteria all B Corps must meet are:1. Your company must meet the legal needs to become a B Corp, such as altering its Articles of Association for UK-based companies2. Once becoming a B Corp, you must then report on your impact from an ESG perspective - otherwise known as an Impact Report.
Once a company has been certified, it must maintain its certification by completing a re-certification process every three years. This process ensures that companies continue to meet the high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.
As you may have already gathered, becoming a B Corp is not a one-and-done process. The certification requires businesses to meet strict social and environmental performance standards, accountability, and transparency. To maintain certification, B Corps must recertify every three years and continuously improve their impact.As the B Corp movement grows, the certification is becoming more rigorous.
Businesses must continually improve to meet these standards - and we believe that to be a good thing, as B Corp symbolises companies pushing the boundaries of what a force for good can look like from a for-profit organisation. This means that becoming a B Corp is not just a milestone to achieve but an ongoing commitment to doing better.With the assessment evolving in 2024, more focus is being put on a company:
1. To do more across a broader range of areas of impact (rather than a pick-and-choose approach that is currently viable)
.2. Target setting and performance measurements are becoming front and centre. Companies are to state their targets and objectives and track performance openly and honestly.
3. Greater organisation. With all of the policies and processes in place to ensure you can maintain these, B Corp will require you to have an Impact Management System.
1) Brutal honesty: Before you start making changes, you need to understand where your company currently stands. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses, and identify the areas where you need to improve. This will help you focus your efforts and make the most impactful changes.
2) Lead from the front: This isn’t just about your senior leadership agreeing to the company’s stance. This is about senior leaders in the company playing an active role in all areas of the B Corp process. I.e the FD takes ultimate responsibility for all financial-related tasks, the Head of People owns all things employees.
3) Short v Long term: Be aware that this work is a long-term benefit, not a short-term cost for your company - individuals responsible for transforming your company must be given time to do this. This should be seen as ‘client-facing time’ or ‘billable hours’ and prioritised as such and actively communicated to the company’s necessary managers and directors. It is not feasible for individuals to take this on during lunch breaks, before/after work and on weekends.
4) Get the team involved: Becoming a B Corp requires a collective effort from everyone in the company. Involve your employees and encourage them to share their ideas and suggestions. This will help you make more informed decisions and build buy-in and ownership across the team. Share the workload - B Corp is too big for one individual to take on, from the outset, build a group of individuals who can action work and delegate work effectively from the outset.
5) Build a strong foundation first: there are no shortcuts when it comes to improving your company. The most effective way to tackle B Corp is to build out your core policies and processes. This ensures you build a strong foundation and can be truly authentic when working with charities and the environment down the line.
6) Set Objectives and Targets: Make it clear what your targets are in the near and short term and who is responsible for what. Set measurable goals: Identify specific goals that align with the B Corp framework. These goals will help you track progress and ensure that you’re making meaningful changes. Hold yourself and your team accountable for achieving these goals.
7) Embrace transparency: One core tenet of being a B Corp is transparency. Be open about your processes, operations, and impact, and share your progress with your stakeholders. This will help you build trust and credibility with your customers, employees, and partners.
8) Patience and Persistence: Transitioning to a B Corp is a long-term process. Don’t expect to make all the changes overnight. Be patient and persistent, and keep working towards your goals. Consistency and persistence breed success in the world of sustainability. We recommend to all of our companies to spend 1-2 hours a week working on this person (9am-11am Fridays for example) through our platform by completing tasks, and ensuring they hold each other accountable to these times.
9) Celebrate small wins: you’ll change a lot, and everything you do gives a reason to celebrate - don’t forget that! The process can be daunting, and it’s a long-term improvement, so moments of reflection on how far you have come are vital along the way.
10) Have fun: Enjoy the process as much as possible, it’s an exciting environment, and you’re making a real positive change in your business with everything you implement, no matter how small!
This is really important to remember.Becoming a B Corp can be a challenging process, but help is available. There are consultants and solutions out there for you if you want them. And that’s what we offer in the form of a platform.Whichever route and assistance your take, remember this work has to be embedded in your company - so although external help will simplify and potentially speed up the process - you have to own the piece. No one can do this for you.Wherever you are on your sustainability journey - from getting the ball rolling to showcasing your positive impact, we’re here to help. Reach out to us today.
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