Canongate Books
Scotland, United Kingdom
May 2024
Book publishing
Service with Significant Environmental Footprint
United Kingdom
Canongate is an independent publisher based in Edinburgh and London, publishing an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction. Some of their most successful and fnotable books have included Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (the best-selling Booker winner of all time), Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father and The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki (winner of the Women’s Prize). For more than fifty years they’ve been committed to fiercely independent, high quality and innovative publishing. They’ve won both Independent Publisher of the Year and (twice) Publisher of the Year at the British Book Awards. They’ve published Nobel laureates and celebrities, political prisoners and activists. And in recent years they’ve grown, with the acquisition of genre imprint Severn House. They believe books can create joy, excite curiosity, foster empathy and change lives, so they amplify voices that need to be heard, share stories that deserve to last and, in everything they do, strive to be fair, brave and socially responsible.
Overall B Impact Score
Governance 17.1
Governance evaluates a company's overall mission, engagement around its social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency. This section also evaluates the ability of a company to protect their mission and formally consider stakeholders in decision making through their corporate structure (e.g. benefit corporation) or corporate governing documents.
What is this? A company with an Impact Business Model is intentionally designed to create a specific positive outcome for one of its stakeholders - such as workers, community, environment, or customers.
Governance 17.1
Governance evaluates a company's overall mission, engagement around its social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency. This section also evaluates the ability of a company to protect their mission and formally consider stakeholders in decision making through their corporate structure (e.g. benefit corporation) or corporate governing documents.
What is this? A company with an Impact Business Model is intentionally designed to create a specific positive outcome for one of its stakeholders - such as workers, community, environment, or customers.
Workers 32.5
Workers evaluates a company’s contributions to its employees’ financial security, health & safety, wellness, career development, and engagement & satisfaction. In addition, this section recognizes business models designed to benefit workers, such as companies that are at least 40% owned by non-executive employees and those that have workforce development programs to support individuals with barriers to employment.
Community 18.1
Community evaluates a company’s engagement with and impact on the communities in which it operates, hires from, and sources from. Topics include diversity, equity & inclusion, economic impact, civic engagement, charitable giving, and supply chain management. In addition, this section recognizes business models that are designed to address specific community-oriented problems, such as poverty alleviation through fair trade sourcing or distribution via microenterprises, producer cooperative models, locally focused economic development, and formal charitable giving commitments.
Environment 16.8
Environment evaluates a company’s overall environmental management practices as well as its impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity. This includes the direct impact of a company’s operations and, when applicable its supply chain and distribution channels. This section also recognizes companies with environmentally innovative production processes and those that sell products or services that have a positive environmental impact. Some examples might include products and services that create renewable energy, reduce consumption or waste, conserve land or wildlife, provide less toxic alternatives to the market, or educate people about environmental problems.
Customers 3.6
Customers evaluates a company’s stewardship of its customers through the quality of its products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels. In addition, this section recognizes products or services that are designed to address a particular social problem for or through its customers, such as health or educational products, arts & media products, serving underserved customers/clients, and services that improve the social impact of other businesses or organizations.