If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ve probably heard us talk about being a Certified B Corporation. Our certification is not something we take lightly. We are proud to announce that we have passed B Lab's rigorous assessment (yet again!) making us a Certified B Corporation for 8 years in a row! We gained 5.7 points this last round increasing our B Impact Score by 7% from 82.4 to 88.1. This may seem like a small difference but this is a sign of HUGE progress.
What is a B Corp?
The B Corp movement is about doing better business. Companies that achieve the rigorous B Corp certification support a triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. They value making decisions that weigh people and the planet just as heavily as profit.Why is it important?
Because of the rigorous nature of the certification, Certified B Corps are aware of the impact their business is making. Certified B Corps are held accountable to the highest standards for business in areas such as suppliers, employees, environmental footprint, customers, and more. Buying brands that are Certified B Corps is helping make responsible business the norm. Make sure to look for the B Corp logo next time you are in a store!
So, what’s this about a score?
88.1 is our new B Impact Score! What does this mean? Businesses are required to earn 80 points to qualify as a Certified B Corp. The median score for ordinary businesses who complete the assessment is currently 50.9. These points are gained over five key areas. See below for a breakdown of how our score was calculated.
- Governance: How a company integrates ethics, transparency, and environmental impact into its mission and vision
- Workers: How a company values employee health and wellbeing
- Community: How a company impacts its stakeholders responsibly and equitably
- Environment: How a company’s operations affect land, air, climate, water, and biodiversity
- Customers*: How a company stewards customer information and feedback
*Wondering why this score seems so low? After our submission for recertification, we redesigned our website to be more user-friendly, set goals for customer satisfaction, and implemented a support bot. So while we weren’t able to claim these points this year (we can gain up to 5 total for the category), we will be able to in the next recertification round.
A growing business poses challenges for social and environmental impact.
As our company grows, there are inevitable environmental and social challenges that come with it. To support our business growth, we need to increase our operations and team, resulting in increased emissions from higher energy consumption, shipping quantities, and amounts of waste generated. This growth has also meant the opportunity to provide high-quality jobs to our community. Adding new team members requires further evaluation of our environmental impacts but also provides the opportunity to train more people on waste management, love for the outdoors, and doing others good. Improving our positive impact by 5.7 points while our operations and the team have expanded was not a small feat, but the support of our leadership and team made it possible.
Coming out of the assessment, we are looking into innovative ways to implement solar energy and rainwater harvesting into our operations. Additionally, the new faces of our team will require continuous training to ensure everyone is on the same page and working towards our shared vision of doing others good. Be on the lookout in 2022 for more ways we are working to improve our impact!
Special thanks to our team!
If it weren’t for the support of our entire team, from leadership, and management, to our team members, we wouldn’t be able to effectively implement initiatives that better our social and environmental impact. The improvement of our B Corp score is the result of the collective success of everyone working towards a shared vision of better business. We couldn’t have done it without the support, encouragement, and engagement of our entire team.
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