B Corporation - Building the Movement
B Corporation, also commonly known as B Corp, is the new word for recognizing a sustainable company and an effort towards building collective action to address economic challenges. Did you ever wonder what it denotes? Until recently, the only known and most believed conventional wisdom for any business is that you can make profits by only creating more social and environmental problems or that making money by doing good business activities is simply not a dichotomous act. The B Corp Certification changes this belief proving the possibility otherwise.
Why should one understand the importance of B Corp?
As conscientious consumers, we need to learn which companies engage in healthy and sustainable activities and how our awareness and purchase behaviors affect their progress. B Corp certified companies include and value the consideration of all their stakeholders. By committing to this change, B Corp companies are actively taking responsibility for their actions and their effects on their stakeholders which simultaneously makes profits.
I believe the B Corp movement is essential in creating shared value through its various levels and assessments. We as consumers hold significant responsibility in understanding and educating ourselves about such movements to prevent being green-washed by companies and their claims. B Corp certification is a creative way of engaging in solving social and environmental problems, for us as consumers and businesses, without creating any trade-offs between economic efficiency and social problems.
Moreover, committing to such movements allows businesses to continuously improve their activities and build the congruency between their claims and goals. We most definitely will be astonished to discover the growth potential in constantly asking ourselves what's next?
The B Corp movement is a movement of leaders and trailblazers creating meaningful impact! I remember our class discussion on the challenges for organizations to attain and maintain their B Corp certification. Considering such challenges, it’s inspiring learning about leaders like Patagonia improving their overall B impact score by 44 points within five years (from 107 to 151 out of 200 from 2011 to 2016)! Additionally, as an HR student, I can tell B Corps are attracting more talent because of their reputation for prioritizing employee wellness and protecting their company mission for the long term.
ReplyDeleteHi Sriya,
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed reading this! I thought it was interesting how you emphasized the link between B-Corp certification and greenwashing, because we learned in class that getting this certification is extremely rigorous and requires alot of a company's resources, but this comes at the benefit of shutting down claims of greenwashing. Thus, I think that all large corporations should try to attain this B-Corp certification, because they have the resources to do so, and would make the biggest impact from attaining this certification. Furthermore, this would encourage them to take steps towards more sustainable actions. Great post!
Elizabeth