Big changes ahead for B Corp Certification
Earlier this year, B Lab released the new standards for B Corp Certification, which is the most significant change to the standards since the certification framework began in 2006. B Corps are companies that are certified as meeting the highest standards of social and environmental impact. They are driving forward the movement to redefine the role of businesses to become a force for good, continuously improving their impact for all stakeholders, and transforming the economy to become more inclusive and equitable.
The current standards assess companies across 5 impact areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers. In order to become B Corp certified, companies need to achieve a total of 80 points in the assessment. These points can be distributed across each of the 5 areas in any way i.e. companies could have lower scores in one area but much higher scores in another area, and still achieve the 80 points.
The new standards have evolved away from the point-scoring assessment to provide companies with a framework of minimum requirements they must meet across seven impact topics: Purpose & Stakeholder Governance, Climate Action, Human Rights, Fair Work, Environmental Stewardship & Circularity, Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, and Government Affairs & Collective Action. In addition, companies must first meet a set of foundation requirements, which ensure that companies are meeting the fundamental eligibility requirements before they progress to the impact topic requirements. The specific requirements companies have to meet depend on company size, sector, and industry.
This is a welcome transition, ensuring that companies are meeting the minimum standards expected to be a leading business across key environmental and social issues, tailored specifically to that company’s context. Not only have the requirements become more rigorous, but the new standards introduce mandatory improvement actions for businesses to ensure that B Corps are striving to continuously improve their impact and evolve alongside global challenges. Companies will have initial requirements to meet in the first year of certification, and the requirements will then increase in the 3rd and 5th years of certification.
Although the new set of standards have been released, there are still elements of the B Corp assessment that are being consulted on. The key one being the Impact Business Models (IBMs), which companies can gain points for in the current assessment, as a recognition of how a business is intentionally designed to create a specific positive outcome for a stakeholder group. IBMs are not accounted for in the first publication of the new standards, but B Lab are continuing to engage stakeholders to explore what they might look like under the new version.
Companies can still certify under the current B Corp standards up until the end of 2025. For businesses certifying from 2026 onwards, they will do so under the new standards. Beyondly are offering support to companies certifying on the current standards via our training and consultancy services. As the new standards continue to develop and evolve, we aren’t currently able to offer support for companies looking to certify against these; however, we hope to offer these services in 2026, when any unknowns will hopefully have been confirmed.
