Attaining Certified B Corp status has become the next big thing for many companies. It opens the door to a fresh perspective on what the "bottom line" can really mean.
What is a Certified B Corp?
Businesses that are B Corp certified have met some pretty strict yet important standards of accountability, transparency, and verified performance in many areas.
Set by the non-profit B Lab, these areas range from charitable giving and supply chain practices to employee benefits and input materials.
Certified B Corps must pass B Lab's social and environmental assessment and risk review, allow their performance against B Lab's standards to be publicly available, and change their corporate governance structure to show accountability to all stakeholders (beyond shareholders alone).
How Certified B Corps help consumers like you
When a company is B Corp certified, consumers can trust and be reassured that it's been vetted against various criteria from a holistic perspective.
You don't have to research or verify things like how a product was made or what its environmental impact has been, for example.
And the more companies aligned with the things consumers seek — whether it's the use of fair-trade inputs, green practices, or something else — the more of a demand there will be from other businesses. Basically, the bar gets raised.
"The certification allows you to spot the brands that have an incredible ethos and are continually striving to do things better – for its team, the planet and the people within it," wrote Eva Waite-Taylor for the Independent.
Why are Certified B Corps important?
With every new Certified B Corp in the world, more corporations can understand and fix their environmental and social impact.
This leads to change in our economic system, which ultimately gives more and more support for an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative economy and resilient future.
This is shown by the fact that compared to their non-certified counterparts, B Corps are 4.5 times more likely to use 100% renewable energy and over seven times more likely to be carbon-neutral, which means they remove as much carbon pollution from the air as they put in.
And in 2021 alone, B Corps offset 2.1 million tons of carbon pollution. Not too shabby at all.
"Businesses have recognized that there can be a sense of purpose and meaning beyond simply making money, and that comes from people realizing they have multiple roles in society – as members of their community, as consumers, as workers, as investors," said Andrew Kassoy, co-founder and CEO of B Lab Global. "Businesses can be financially successful while working to create a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economic system for all."
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