What does "having an impact" mean?

Feb 9, 2021

'’Enhance your impact’’.  '’Pay attention to your company's impact’’.  '’Bet on your impact’’.  '’Put your impact at the heart of your business model’’.  '’Millennials and Gen Z place a lot of importance on impact.’’


OKAY, but what exactly does ‘having impact’ mean? 


We concede that the term has become overused lately, almost burned out even.  Perhaps even before we fully understood its meaning.  Nonetheless, it remains important.  


First and foremost, we could define a company's impact by its contribution or diminishment towards its stakeholders.  By stakeholders, we mean all the spheres that revolve around the company: its employees, its suppliers, its clients, its community, its partners, and the environment in which it operates.


Impact is broad, and there are several ways to tackle it.  The idea is not to fall into the trap of trying to do everything at once.  Take a chill pill, assess your priorities, and create an action plan.  If you've never swum, run, or cycled, the idea of jumping into a triathlon is truly exciting, but the first steps should look like buying a swimsuit, learning to swim, and creating a training plan.  It's the starting point!  Well, it's the same for a company's impact.  Almost!


We hear you; it can be easy to get lost; to not know where to start, to find yourself at a point where it’s hard to evaluate the results of your work or to feel like success measures are arbitrary.  As with any good project, you need to equip yourself with the right tools, ideally before starting.  In the case of a company wanting to empower its business practices, one of the best tools to measure the effectiveness of its business model, under a responsible lens, is the B Corp certification.  This not only assesses the company's impact based on 5 pillars (governance, employees, community, environment, and clients) but also proposes ways to bridge the company's gaps by guiding it with an action plan.


In short, the B Corp questionnaire that serves as an assessment tool (BIA, for B Impact Assessment) will evaluate what the company’s activities look like and their impacts.  Internally, the evaluation will focus on aspects such as the training process for new employees, ongoing training, and the level of diversity and inclusion.  Externally, it will assess whether the organization has a positive impact on its community, on the planet, etc.


Once the 360 evaluation is completed, the BIA will guide the company on measures to take for effective and sustainable accountability of its practices.


It may seem laborious to balance profits and responsibility for a company, but there is something refreshing, inspiring, and even sexy about making it all a reality!


We’re telling you, in 2021, you need to take the responsible turn and become a vector for positive change.  Don’t miss the boat and come chat with us!

Article written by Thomas, B Corp Consultant (he/him)

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