Is the climate certificate in trouble?
It's been a year since the three founders behind BCorp appointed a new boss. She has a fight on her hands to protect the non-profit's credibility.
You could easily miss the sans serif ‘B’ with a circle around it. And yet the pursuit of this simple stamp has become the default shorthand for companies to tell the world: “we’re one of the good ones”.
But the BCorp badge is not as shiny as it once was.
Last year, Nespresso became the most high profile company with a less-than-starched profile to win BCorp status. It triggered the airing of a few grumbles: that the criteria is becoming looser and companies are treating BCorp as a marketing trick. Some are now even wondering whether it’s still worth applying.
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An overview 🚁
2007: BLab founded. (BLab is the organisation behind BCorp)
2011: Patagonia awarded a BCorp, prompting a surge of applications
3 years: Duration of a BCorp certificate before a company has to reapply
6400: Total number of BCorp companies around the world
Food companies 💚
Food and drink companies have been the most eager to apply. In part due to the climate impact from food but building on the already established Fair Trade movement.
Notable food and drink companies with a BCorp certificate include: Alpro, Allplants, Abel&Cole, Ben&Jerry’s, Divine Chocolate, Gousto, Innocent, Oddbox, Pip&Nut, Propercorn, Tony’s Chocolate.
Three factors are behind the rationale to apply:
Focus staff, investors, board members and customers around a clear direction.
Burnish the values of the brand.
Use the application process as a means to make structural changes at speed.
What it takes 📝
BLabs want the application process to be rigorous. Around 150 questions cover diversity, treatment of workers, doing good in the community as well as environmental impact. A minimum score of 90 out of a possible 200 is required.
Companies I spoke to said the time period between application to certification can take between three months to a year. Larger businesses often get fast tracked.
Everyone said a company must allocate a senior person in the organisation to make the application his/her personal priority. The biggest step is changing the articles of association, mandated in the UK. Many bring in a consultant to help navigate the application which can speed it up. A recent article in the FT estimated the application process costs companies between $500 to $50,000. These numbers were echoed by the people I spoke to.
Why the stink? 😷
Like a fancy handbag, BCorp has become less alluring to those who went in early and now they’re seeing it flaunted everywhere. But scarcity has never been the idea. The three BCorp founders’ goal was to create a global movement around “a better way to do business”. They want as many companies to be better citizens as soon as possible.
Some companies still respect the process but are no longer shouting about it on their packaging. Two of the early poster companies for BCorps, detergent brands Method and Ecover, declined to recertify last year.
A big part of the cooling derives from the controversy around Brewdog, Danone and Nespresso winning BCorp status.
Brewdog lost its certificate after evidence emerged of ‘bullying and a culture of fear’ among its workers. It was already notorious for using adverts which were accused of being sexist and transphobic. But the original awarding of a certificate still rankles.
Danone’s UK and US subsidiaries have BCorp certificates despite producing enormous amounts of single use plastic.
Nespresso’s award in April last year drew criticism too. Its places responsibility for recycling of its (Aluminium) pods on consumers. And its parent company Nestlé has one of the most dubious corporate histories on human rights. (It’s worth recalling the estimated 66,000 babies killed through Nestlé’s infant milk which it sold in developing countries in the 1970s. The allegation in what was a truly heinous scandal is that the company knew the risks when encouraging mothers to switch from breast milk to its powdered milk mixed with impure water).
An existential dilemma 🧐
Just as Patagonia once enhanced the appeal of a BCorp certificate, the inclusion of Danone, Brewdog and Nespresso has caused some damage.
This perception has opened up a fissure into how the certification is awarded and what a BCorp now conveys.
Should it continue to represent the very best companies that do good, or be accessible to large corporations with greater potential to impact society and the environment. A challenge articulated by one of the cofounders of BLabs, Bart Houlahan in that recent FT profile:
“How do we scale with integrity while keeping the rigour and credibility of the certification?”
New boss at the wheel 👩✈️
It’s a challenge faced by Eleanor Allen. She’s the lead director of BLabs, installed in March last year, taking over from the three founders.
Her appointment statement revealed that a key responsibility would be “evolving the BCorp standards… to meet unprecedented interest in the BCorp movement”.
What needs fixing 👩🏼🔧
Allen is said to be plotting a major overhaul, which could include a set of minimum requirements for any company wishing to be considered for certification.
It would be a marked contrast from how companies are certified today. The concern is terrible environmental impact could be obfuscated by a company scoring highly on BLab’s other criteria.
It’s possible, for example, for a company with a strong representation of women and minorities on its management team and a progressive employee share scheme to easily reach the 80 or so points to be certified.
A minimum requirement could be for all BCorps to carry out a carbon footprint assessment.
The other question looming for Allen is whether a non-profit like BLabs can sustain being both an advocate for change AND a certification body. There’s pressure to split the organisation.
A force for good 😇
Despite the attempts to use the certificate for marketing, BLabs has undeniably been a powerful and effective catalyst for corporate change. It is still almost universally respected as a non-profit getting into the cogs of the commercial world. It is understandable that the quixotic vision laid out by the three founders 17 years ago needs a refresh.
With businesses operating in different sectors, in different parts of the world, at different stages and at different sizes, how feasible is a universal yardstick?
A basic question at the heart of what BLabs is whether it’s really possible to measure good? “It’s definitely more art than science,” said one person close to BLabs.
Do you think BCorp needs updating? If so, how would you improve it?
Thanks for a really informative/enlightening analysis of BCorp.