You may have seen that earlier this month, at the beginning of #bcorpmonth, we announced we'd successfully been awarded pending B-Corp status, ahead of finalising our 'first year of trading in the coming summer and becoming fully certified. Our mission is to make the working world work for everyone. We cannot profess to care about social mobility and economic participation without addressing the significant oversight of portions of the population that are still excluded from meaningful employment because of the arbitrary barriers to entry traditional recruitment practices uphold. What is a B Corp certification - and why does it matter to us? The Better Business Act is in Westminster on 20th April with the hope that it will be in the Queen's speech in May. If the Act makes it through to the statute books, it will be a potential game-changer for how business is conducted and focuses on planet, purpose and people will become part of everyday decision-making.
B Corp already cements these focus areas in organisations. It is a growing global community of businesses prioritising taking collective action and building a better world. The B Corp badge is a designation that we are using our business as a force for good.
Our B Corp journey started during years of working in organisations where reported values just didn't align with being a truly inclusive business. So building an organisation with purpose and impact DNA-deep in its core has always been a non-negotiable for Cayelan and me.
Gaining pending B Corp accreditation and what it stands for really resonated with us because this is what we've always believed in. Crucially, it holds us accountable for our commitment to continue to grow in the right way.
Five areas the application process considers
Getting certified is not an easy process, with a rigorous application process spanning months of assessments, accelerating improvements across the business and providing evidence of our practices throughout the audit process. Split across 5 key areas, the assessment covers:
Governance: evaluating our overall mission, engagement around our social and environmental contribution, ethics, and transparency.
Workers: evaluating our contributions to employees' financial security, health & safety, wellness, career development, engagement and satisfaction.
Community: engagement with and impact on the communities we operate, hire, and source from. Focus areas include diversity and equitable inclusion, economic impact, civic engagement, charitable giving, and supply chain management.
Environment: our overall environmental management practices, as well as our impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity. This includes the direct impact of our operations.
Customers: assessment of how our customers are considered through the quality of our products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels.
When we received our score, we knew it was worth it. Having social impact hardcoded into our business commits us to maintain the highest environmental and social standards for the long term. With a median score for non-B Corp businesses being 50.9, our overall score of over 100 is a testament to our desire for positive change to be reflected in our everyday operations. Where do we go next? In the summer, when we complete our first year of trading, we will be able to complete our assessment to become fully certified B-Corp. Whilst getting pending status is a big step forward for us, we view this as an ongoing project, and we're already thinking about how we improve ahead of recertification in 3 years' time. Our focus is to become a leading light amongst B Corps for positive social impact; we want to contribute more to the community, not just through our talent partnerships but with other B Corp members who share our passion for positive change.
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