What is a B Corp
Certified B Corporations, or B Corps, are companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.
The B Impact Assessment evaluates a company’s practices and outputs across five categories: governance, workers, community, the environment, and customers.
-
Governance
A company’s overall mission, ethics, accountability, transparency and how they build their vision and values into their bylaws. Best practices are focused on how they engage employees, board members, and the community to achieve their mission, as well as employee access to financial information, customers’ opportunities to provide feedback, and the diversity of their governing bodies.
-
Workers
A businesses’ efforts to create positive impacts for their workforce. Best practices in the work environment look at aspects like employee compensation, benefits, training and ownership opportunities, as well as assessing working communication, job flexibility and worker health, safety practices and overall work conditions.
-
Customers
How a company serves their customers, offering products or services that support the greater good. Best practices explore whether a company adds value to customers’ lives by providing critical services like education, healthcare, and finance management, as well as engaging in ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels.
-
Environment
How a company works towards a more sustainable and regenerative planet by reducing their footprint and putting their impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity first in their business practices. This section explores the impact of a company’s facilities, materials, emissions, and resource and energy use, as well as transportation/distribution channels and the environmental impact of their supply chain.
-
Community
How a business contributes to the economic and social well-being of the communities in which they operate. Best practices explore initiatives and policies directed at community impact, including embracing supplier relations, social engagement, charitable giving, and strong, diverse communities.
B Corp Certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency.
-
Holistic evaluation
B Corp Certification is holistic, not exclusively focused on a single social or environmental issue.
-
Different pathways to Certification
The certification process varies and increases in rigour depending on a company’s size and complexity.
-
Risk Assessment
At the beginning of the B Corp Certification process, companies must undergo an assessment of risk factors based on their industry and other practices.
-
Documentation Provided
B Impact Assessment answers are validated through documentation of your company’s business model and information about your operations, structure, and various work processes
-
Reviews and Site Visits
Taking company size and profile into account, verification may also involve a review of potential public complaints and possible site visits.
-
Recertification every three years
B Corps are required to undergo the verification process every three years in order to recertify, ensuring standards continue to be met and promoting long-term resiliency.
This free course provides an introduction to the B Corp movement. You’ll learn from the B Lab Europe team and B Corps about starting your B Corp journey using the B Impact Assessment as well as the process and the benefits of becoming certified.
Business needs comprehensive, credible, comparable impact standards to support economic systems change.B Lab was founded in 2006 with the idea that a different kind of economy was not only possible, it was necessary – and that business could lead the way towards a new, stakeholder-driven model.
- See our journey
High-quality social and environmental business standards demand continuous improvement in order to meet principles of inclusion, independence, and credibility.
Developed according to standards best practices and informed by stakeholder input and research, our standards have continuously evolved since our founding in 2006.
The B Impact Assessment and our standards are independently governed by our Standards Advisory Council and Board of Directors with input from external stakeholders and various working and advisory groups.
- Learn more about our standards
The growing visibility of the B Corp movement invites added scrutiny, and rightfully so. There have been increased conversations about B Lab’s standards and certification among B Corps, sustainability advocates, consumers, and other stakeholders. In listening to this commentary about our work, we have identified some common questions about B Corp Certification, which we walk through.
- Read More
We envision a global economy that uses business as a force for good. This economy is comprised of a new type of corporation – the B Corporation – which is purpose-driven and creates benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
As Certified B Corporations and leaders of this emerging economy, we believe:
- That we must be the change we seek in the world.
- That all business ought to be conducted as if people and place mattered.
- That, through their products, practices, and profits, businesses should aspire to do no harm and benefit all.
- To do so requires that we act with the understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations.
Niki Kauffman-Schilling
Director Innovation & Sustainability at Rituals
Overall the B Corp journey helped us tremendously to get going: we measured everything, made material choices, changed governance, adapted policies, set ambitious sustainability targets — in every part of our business. The process of certification was rigorous and made us fine-tune and dig deeper over and over again.
Rita Marques
Founder & CEO at ImpacTrip
The B Corp certification for us is a solid form of credibility for our non-profit partners and employees. It is the validation and expression of our impact mission and the sense of belonging to a like-minded community.
María del Sel
Consultant at Roots For Sustainability
In the B Corp Community there is enormous potential to find synergies, share knowledge, good practices and much more. The feeling of collaboration is enormous.
Nathalie Ballan
Founding Partner & CEO at Sair da Casca
Becoming a B Corp took us to reflect on all aspects of our business and identify improvement priorities to always maximize our positive impact. We've moved from a declarative position to building evidence - a much more demanding process than a set of intentions. It was the principle of ‘walk the talk’.
Femme van Gils
Sustainability Manager at Ace & Tate
The B Corp Certification for us is an external validation that we walk the talk. But most importantly, the B Impact Assessment (BIA) provides us with useful impact management tools and a roadmap for continuous improvement.
Rosa Horri
Comms & Sustainability Director at Chiesi España
The fact of being B Corp, as a company and as people who work in a B Corp, has fostered our pride in belonging and has allowed us to attract talent to the company.
Marlies van Wijhe
CEO at Royal Van Wijhe Verf
We have the ambition to increase our B Corp score year on year. We believe we can do a lot by ourselves, but we know we will be more successful with partners who have the same purpose like B Corps.
Alina Swirski
Country Manager at Too Good to Go
B Corp is a powerful way to demonstrate that we care about the effect we have on the wider world. We fight food waste and have sustainability at our core. We are also growing fast and B Corp is a useful framework for ensuring that we retain this sustainability.
Meinrad Spenger
CEO at Grupo Más Móvil
The process to become a B Corp helped us understand our performance with the environment, customers, suppliers, employees and governance and allowed us to identity and implement improvements and future strategies to exceed the high standards required by B Lab
Dan & Galina Witting
Founders at Baabuk
At Baabuk we feel honored to be part of the B Corp movement. The community is a true guide and companion on the path to always improve on our People, Planet and Product efforts.
Patrick Odier
Managing Partner at Lombard Odier
Sustainability is deeply embedded in our DNA and our investment offering. Being a B Corp emphasizes the message that the financial industry can be a powerful catalyst towards economic sustainability.
Reto Ringger
Founder & CEO at Globalance Bank
Actions speak louder than words in terms of credibility, especially in our sector. We founded Globalance to drive a paradigm shift in asset management. With the B Corp certification, we let independent third parties speak for us.
The B Impact Assessment is a free digital tool that can help businesses measure, manage, and improve positive impact performance for environment, communities, customers, suppliers, employees, and shareholders, used by more than 150,000 organizations. Receiving a minimum verified score of 80 points on the assessment is also the first step towards B Corp Certification.
- Start your journey
B Lab recognizes that high-quality social and environmental business standards demand continuous improvement in order to meet principles of inclusion, independence, and credibility.
Our standards are therefore independently governed by B Lab’s Standards Advisory Council and Board of Directors. We also seek input from external stakeholders and various Working and Advisory Groups.
Our standards are updated and improved on a regular basis with all standards development projects informed by research and multi-stakeholder input. Learn more about our Standards here.
The B Impact Assessment examines a company’s impact on their workers, community, environment, and customers. The B Impact Assessment also asks questions about a company’s governance structure and accountability. Questions are split into two categories: Operations, which covers a company’s day-to-day activities, and Impact Business Models, which awards additional points for business models designed to create additional positive impact. The B Impact Assessment is updated every three years.
The B Corp community reflects the world’s business landscape, ranging from sole proprietors to publicly-traded companies. The majority of B Corps are small- to medium-sized businesses, however, more large enterprises and are engaging with our movement through B Corp Certification, B Movement Builders, the B Impact Assessment, the SDG Action Manager, and various other programs.
If you or your organization are interested in being part of the B Corp movement to transform our economic system, there are other ways to get involved besides B Corp certification:
– Measure and manage your business’ impact using the B Impact Assessment
– Track your company’s progress on contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals using the SDG Action Manager
– If you’re a multinational, public company, join B Movement Builders to scale and accelerate global systems change to support long-term value creation for all stakeholders.
– Commit your company to stakeholder governance by revisiting your business’s articles of incorporation or equivalent governing documents.
– Explore job opportunities at B Lab Global, B Corps around the world at different B Lab or Sistema B organizations in the B Global Network.
Search the B Corp Directory to discover companies to support, collaborate with, purchase from, follow on social media, and more.
Certified B Corporations and benefit corporations are often confused.
Our non-profit, B Lab, administers B Corp Certification to companies who meet verified standards of social and environmental impact through the B Impact Assessment, commit to transparency requirements related to their business’ impact and operations, and commit to being legally accountable to all of their stakeholders. One way for B Corps to fulfill the legal accountability requirement of the certification is to become a benefit corporation.
A benefit corporation is a legal structure that embeds stakeholder governance into a business’ DNA, ensuring the business considers its impact on all of its stakeholders. Importantly, the benefit corporation structure is not a certification and benefit corporations are not required to meet B Lab’s standards.
B Corp Certification is administered by Standards Analysts at the non-profit B Lab. Standards Analysts are located at B Lab’s Pennsylvania, New York, and Amsterdam offices. The standards for B Corp Certification are overseen by B Lab’s independent Standards Advisory Council.
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
