Community Feedback Drives B Lab’s New Standards for Businesses Forward
24 SEPTEMBER 2024 – At a time when businesses are increasingly seen as agents of change, B Lab shares the findings from its latest public consultation revealing how community feedback is shaping the new standards for B Corps and businesses looking to be a force for good.
The report, which outlines feedback from a consultation conducted by B Lab in early 2024, reveals that of a sample of over 1,000 businesses, public and academic stakeholders:
Alignment with values: 86% of respondents agree that the draft standards align with what they believe it means for a business to meet high standards of social, environmental, and governance performance.
Clarity on certification: 84% of respondents indicated that the draft standards would clarify what it means to be a Certified B Corp (an increase of 11% compared to a preliminary consultation in 2022).
Attainability for businesses: 71% of B Corp respondents indicated that they either already meet the new standards, or that they are possible to achieve as they align with the company’s aspirations.
Overall, the second consultation period saw participation from over 1,000 individuals globally, representing a cross-section of geographies, company profiles, and stakeholder groups. The consultation amassed 16,637 pieces of qualitative feedback from B Corps, aspiring B Corps, subject matter experts, and business leaders across 55 countries.
B Lab is currently undertaking a multi-year project to evolve its standards for businesses. Using an iterative development process, B Lab responds to public consultation phases to create global standards that are universally impactful, clear, and responsive to the diverse challenges and opportunities faced by companies across different industries and regions. The outcome of this work to date is set to move B Corp Certification away from a flexible verified scoring mechanism to mandatory specific requirements across core topics.
The results of the consultation indicate widespread support to move forward while acknowledging areas of improvement, including how the standards must further balance company context and capabilities with ambition (particularly for small companies), be more action and output-oriented, and improve language to be accessible and accurately interpreted.
Other insights from this report include:
Combining Fair Wages and Workplace Culture into a new Impact Topic called Fair Work, including additional labor themes such as contracts, overtime, shift, or zero-hour work.
Complementary Impact Topics will no longer be a standalone topic; B Lab is integrating some requirements under the Purpose & Stakeholder Governance Impact Topic.
How B Lab will move forward with overarching standards themes including Impact Business Models, performance recognition, and the Equity Mechanism.
B Lab is committed to acting on these insights as it enters the final phase of implementation of the new standards. B Lab is now working towards final approval on standards content by the end of the year and intends to publish the full standards in early 2025. All existing B Corps will be given time and support to transition to the standards once finalized.
Judy Rodrigues, Director of Standards at B Lab Global commented, “To achieve our shared vision of economic systems change that positively impacts people and the planet, we need a strong and engaged B Corp community leading the way. With the world facing multiple social and environmental crises, supporting and growing B Corps’ impact is needed more than ever.
“Collaboration with the community and stakeholders to shape the standards is integral to ensuring B Corp standards are ambitious yet achievable and focus on galvanizing impactful business action on the most pressing social and environmental issues of our time.”
For more information: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/standards/performance-requirements/
About B Lab: B Lab is transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet. A leader in economic systems change, the global network creates standards, policies, tools, and programs for business, and we certify companies — known as B Corps — who are leading the way. To date, the B Corp community includes over 850,000 workers in over 9,000 B Corps across 103 countries and 162 industries, and more than 300,000 companies manage their impact with the B Impact Assessment and the SDG Action Manager. B Lab has created and led efforts to pass over 50 corporate statutes globally that enable stakeholder governance. To learn more and join the movement, visit www.bcorporation.net.
Media Contact: press@bcorporation.net