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Everyone claims to be “sustainable” these days, but who is really speaking? Jihee Junn is speaking to some New Zealand companies that are taking action by joining the B Corp movement.

TTwo years ago, nearly 200 CEOs from some of the largest companies in the world agreed that it was time to redefine the “purpose of a company”. In a statement Signed by Apple, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Amazon, Pepsico and Target, America’s corporate heavyweights decided that companies no longer work primarily for the benefit of their shareholders, but “all stakeholders”. This includes their customers, employees, suppliers and local communities that have traditionally been neglected in favor of maximizing profits. A cultural change was underway and the big companies knew it – their commitment signaled a significant change.

Words alone would not be enough, however. At the time, many advocates of social and environmental change – like the team behind B Corp – emphasized the need to “act” in order to meaningfully achieve these goals. But since many of these companies keep failing to like their questionable work practices grueling conditions, discriminatory management, and excessive waste, their promises crumbled into little more than empty promises just two years later.

“It’s important to realize that the people who are calling for this change are calling for action,” said the co-founders of the B Corp trio wrote in a comment from 2019 “People are calling for a new social contract between business and society in which business and the capital market create long-term value for everyone involved. People are calling for it partly because they saw a credible alternative in the B corp movement. “

B-Corp certification considers far more than just environmental sustainability – it’s also about governance, community and workers (Image: Peter Parks / AFP / Getty Images)

S.Since its founding in 2006, companies around the world that want to make a positive social and environmental contribution have applied for B Corporation certification. But becoming a B Corp is not all about good intentions: certification depends on a company’s overall social and environmental performance, with evidence to back up those claims. Today, more than 4,000 companies have successfully certified themselves as B Corps, including well-known names such as Ben & Jerry’s, Danone, Allbirds and Patagonia.

In New Zealand, the demand for socially and environmentally responsible businesses has grown exponentially in recent years. In 2014 New Zealand only had one B Corp. Five years later it was 22. Since then this number has more than doubled to 45, most recently with the inclusion of Kiwibank – one of the largest companies certified in both Australia and New Zealand.

“I think becoming a B Corp is real proof that we are committed to being a purpose-built organization. This is one of the reasons we embarked on this journey – to make sure we had some kind of independent assessment or review of the fact that we were operating in a way that served our purpose, ”said Julia Jackson, director of the Kiwibank’s sustainability department.

“It’s also a good assessment of where we stand, because sustainability is always a journey. You’re never really finished, and the nice thing about B Corp is that it recognizes this through its scoring system. You always see how you can improve and what you can still do. “

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Because B Corp measures all of a company’s performance, from supply chains and carbon footprint to community service and employee benefits, it is widely recognized as the “gold standard” of environmental and social certification. The process is rigorous and can take years, starting with a questionnaire tailored to the industry, location and size of your company.

Then comes the hard part because B Lab – the nonprofit that certifies companies – goes through each company’s self-assessment and reviews the responses. At Kiwibank, which submitted its questionnaire late last year, Jackson said it took eight months “pretty much back and forth” to finally get that accreditation. And since companies are screened against new standards every three years, keeping B Corp status is not an easy task.

“It’s incredibly challenging – it took us about 14 months to get certified – and it’s not cheap either,” said Roman Jewell, CEO of the nut butter company Fix & fog which became a B Corp last July. “It’s not paying lip service, and it’s definitely not set and forgotten. The certification is only the beginning of the journey. “

Jewell, who founded the company in 2014 and has been a Kiwibank customer since day one, says that for him Fix & Fogg has always been a brand guided by sustainable values, but “it’s one thing to say it, it’s another to show”.

“What I like about B Corp is that it’s all encompassing. It looks at all facets of your company, how and where we get our ingredients, our jars, our lids and our carbon footprint as an importer and exporter, ”he says. “It’s a really good analysis of where your company is, but also a bit like a roadmap [for doing better in the future]. “

Julie Boucher from the management consultancy Just add lime agrees. As lead social sustainability and planning director, Boucher says the company’s main draw for B Corp – which it was certified for in March after a year-long process – also means its “holistic view” of what it means to do good business.

“You revolve around terms like ‘sustainable management’, but what does that mean for a professional service company like ours? Sure, it’s about the environment and the community, but it’s also about things like being transparent about our decisions, involving employees in our policy development, and having regular business discussions with them. “

After certification as a B Corp. Boucher says that the team is now doing everything it can to maintain and improve its credentials as a sustainable company. For example: keeping an eye on each employee’s carbon footprint, measuring the amount of waste they throw away each week, and even making efforts to switch to locally owned suppliers.

“Sustainability also means looking at who we get our services from, and we have recognized that we [previous] Bank didn’t fit our stand as a company, ”explains Boucher.

“So we switched to Kiwibank less than a year ago because they were New Zealand owned. It didn’t make a difference to our score, but as B Corp it’s important that we have a strong philosophy of helping local people. And now that Kiwibank is certified, that’s great because I think as B Corps we understand each other much better as organizations. “

B-Corp certification has many aspects (Image: file)

W.ith an overall B Impact value of 90.3 (at least 80 is required for certification), Julia Jackson from Kiwibank is pleased that customer orientation has become as great as the working conditions and the way employees deal with employees, especially in the long term the final evaluation of the company.

“One of the things that came out the most when we interviewed randomly selected members of our contact center and frontline team was this commitment to customer support,” said Jackson. “The other areas in which we did well were the benefits that we introduced for our employees over the past 12 months Full health and life insurance coverage, as well as our commitment to providing the Subsistence level, and supportive Diversity and recording all of which help people to be themselves at work. “

However, the most important hurdle the Kiwibank could overcome was theirs “Responsible” banking Requirement, says Jackson. “Without meeting the minimum criteria for the types of sectors to which we lend, we would not have received any certification,” she says. “So if we had learned too much about fossil fuels or high-risk industries like gambling, B Corp would not have answered the other questions at all.”

According to Jackson, Kiwibank plans to use B Corp’s framework as a guide for further improving its sustainability goals. She says one area that was highlighted as needing improvement was helping its suppliers be more sustainable, adding that work on the supplier code of conduct review was already underway.

One provider ahead of the curve is Springload, the Wellington-based digital agency, which has been responsible for designing the Kiwibank website and app since 2008. Certified for B Corp status two years ago, certification for Springload was a breeze, according to People, Experience Manager Clare Everett. Since there were already several measures required for B Corp accreditation, it was just a matter of writing them down “and providing evidence of what we were already doing,” such as carbon offsetting, flexible work and opportunities for professional development and growth.

“Certification meant that we could say, ‘Look, we do all these things, but now someone has confirmed that we are doing them’. It was confirmation that we weren’t just making this up, ”says Everett. “It also meant becoming part of this amazing network of companies that recognize that doing business is about more than just making money.

“If every company in the world did this, I think the world would just be a much better place to live and work.”

How companies operate is not always the same as in the background. This is where BCorp helps (Image: The Spinoff / Getty Images)

In / A Article from 2016 In researching the meteoric rise of B Corp certifications, it was suggested that smaller companies that “have long been committed to social and environmental causes” wanted to prove their striving to be recognized as good corporate citizens, while the apples and Amazons of the world step up their efforts to do more genuine, more authentic advocates of benefit to the stakeholders ”.

As a result, being a B corporation meant showing that you were serious (and proven) about your claims and rising above the “greenwashing” and “marketing hype” that prevails in so many companies today. Because the reality is that many companies would rather pay lip service than risk damaging their bottom line. But consumers are getting smarter – they know that actions say a lot more than words.

This content was created in a paid partnership with Kiwibank. Find out more about our partnerships here.

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