All about the new B Corp standards
Dec 20, 2024
What’s happening at B Corp 🤔
The company is changing and evolving!
It’s a good thing, the B Corp assessment process is too 😎
For many years now, B Lab (the nonprofit that manages B Corp) has operated with a questionnaire where 80 out of 200 points are required to obtain certification.
A company can therefore choose the initiatives it wants to implement to achieve a score of 80 or higher.
To assess large companies and multinationals more effectively and to better reflect current issues, B Lab has decided to undertake a complete review of its assessment process.
“Talk to me about good news 😍”
It is now about 7 standards to be met rather than a score to reach.
What are these 7 standards 👀
Basic Requirements 🔍
The company must first meet B Corp’s basic criteria before embarking on the evaluation. It is therefore ready to modify its legal documents to add legal clauses in addition to meeting eligibility requirements.
Mission and Stakeholder Governance ⚖️
The company ensures that management monitors and takes necessary actions to improve social and environmental impact. It is also transparent about its social and environmental performance, its goals in addition to its ways of including its stakeholders (employees, suppliers, customers, shareholders).
Human Rights 🤝
The company takes care to include employees in decision-making in a concrete and formalized manner. It also ensures to measure team satisfaction and take measures to improve it. Additionally, the company ensures to eliminate any negative impact on human rights and ensures that its primary suppliers do the same.
Fair Work 💵
In addition to doing everything necessary to respect pay equity, the company ensures to pay at least the living wage to its team. It also makes an effort to raise awareness among its primary suppliers so that they do the same with their own team.
Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) 💙💛
The company takes care to improve its JEDI practices by implementing a clear action plan that is communicated to both internal and external stakeholders.
Climate Actions 🌎
The company measures its greenhouse gas emissions each year and sets goals based on scientific recommendations to keep global warming below 1.5 °C.
Environmental Management and Circularity ♻️
The company takes the necessary steps to understand its negative impact on the environment and creates a strategy aimed at reducing its carbon footprint. The company also collaborates with its suppliers to achieve its environmental goals.
Public Affairs and Collective Action 🤜🤛
The company collaborates with its stakeholders in order to increase collective impact on social and/or environmental issues at the policy, industry, and/or business community level.
Should I get certified with the current assessment method or wait?
Is it easier to get certified now? For companies with more than 250 employees or an annual revenue of over 75 million, the answer is yes. For other companies, not necessarily.
Although it is still difficult to know the shape of the assessment related to the new standards, we can assume that the current questionnaire allows for greater flexibility.
“So should I wait or not? 😅”
If you want a clear idea of the assessment process, start the process now to submit your questionnaire before the end of 2025, which is the deadline for getting certified with the current method.
“Yeah, but I wish I could get certified with the new standards. 😢”
That's good news, a company must recertify every 3 years to maintain its certification. The recertification process will definitely be done with the new standards.
Still have questions about these standards? That’s normal, schedule a time with me so we can chat 🙂
Guide written by Thomas, B Corp Consultant (he/him)
