Hello everyone. This blog is for all those companies who are thinking of embarking on the B Corp journey. It covers why we think all business should go through the B Corp process and our top tips for embarking on it yourself.
A couple of weeks ago we announced we had been certified as a B Corporation, putting our planet, and all of us who call it home, on equal terms with profit. If you’ve not heard of it, the B Corp certification is awarded to companies who have met extremely high social and environmental standards, representing their commitment to goals outside of simply trying to make money. It is awarded by the not-for-profit organisation B Lab who believe all businesses can be a force for good. The B stands for 'benefit' and B Lab certifies in the way FLOCERT certifies Fair Trade products or the Soil Association certifies organic.
After coming out the other side of their rigorous process, we firmly believe that every business should go through the B Corp certification. Why? Well….
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To become part of an increasingly recognised group of the most ethical and sustainable businesses in the world
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To obtain a logo which clearly communicates to consumers that they are choosing a better brand
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But most importantly, to put your business through an intense assessment to eke out ways you can improve both environmentally, ethically, and socially.
Our distillery was built with a promise to the environment, that we would always do our utmost to protect the planet. This meant that from the outset that B Corp was something we really wanted to achieve. But what we learned going through the process was not only ways to improve our sustainability processes, but the impetus to improve many other aspects of the business as well.
That is because the process requires you to demonstrate not just what you do, but how you do it. Yes, we operate in an environmentally friendly way, but do we have clear targets to improve our performance over time? Do we communicate environmental performance to our board of directors? Do we ask our suppliers about their social and environmental policies and performance? For us, the answer to all these questions at the outset was no, so we had to put processes in place so we could get the points.
Below are some examples of what we introduced or formalised as a result of going through the B Corp process:
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Blind screening process for in-house recruitment, meaning that whoever reviews CVs for a role do not see any details of gender or race
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Measuring and reporting HR KPIs like gender pay gap (the difference between the average pay across genders) and gender diversity on our board
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Formalising our Environmental Management System, including a process for getting the whole team engaged in it
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Defining and regularly reviewing our environmental key performance indicators with the board
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Asking all our suppliers and potential suppliers about their environmental and social credentials. Getting them to think about things like carbon footprinting, sustainability reports, zero waste policies and much more. Essentially, passing on the sustainability baton!
The B Corp process really makes you think about your business holistically, and through its directed questioning gets you to consider introducing things to your business which are really great – some might be new ideas, others might be ideas you already had but didn’t know how to formalise or realise you hadn’t communicated to your team.
Finally, if you are looking to put your business through what we think is an epic certification, here’s our top tips from our Head of Sustainability Amy:
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Give yourself plenty of time. The process is thorough to put it lightly, and if you think it’s going to be a quick win, think again.
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Be patient. When you get into the nitty gritty of the process, there are lot of things that need to be detailed and explained, when you talk about how your business operates. There may also be somethings that get lost in translation because some of the questions are based around American business culture.
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Be persistent. This process will require a lot of organising, documenting, evidence gathering and pulling together data to demonstrate that your company does what it says it does. Depending on whether you are looking to attract IBM* points in the process, this ‘evidencing’ phase can be very arduous.
*IBM stands for “Impact Business Model” and are areas where you can score higher points for specific and unique impacts that your business has. We found it was best to get our operational points (i.e. non-IBM points) as high as possible, and certainly over the 80 mark, before focusing too much on these areas.
We’ve also had lots of questions about how we did it. The answer is that Amy did almost all of the work, but we were also advised by John Featherby from Shoremount, who gave us invaluable advice about how the certification works, clarified things for us when we were confused and generally provided a steadying hand through what can be a long and winding road.