One of the most common questions we get from potential clients that are planning their sustainability projects is: What is the difference between B Corp and other sustainability certifications?
Here’s the thing: They’re different in nature, yet if you connect the dots they are all part of the same process.
💡Most certifications validate your outcomes but can’t help you get there. B Corp certification is a management system that helps you achieve the type of impact that is important for your company.
Most sustainability certifications have very similar ESG data requirements, for instance Co2e measurements and intensity, workforce demographic and equality ratios, waste production, etc. Companies that manage certain reduction figures may achieve awards, but it doesn’t help companies figure out how they would get there. As a result, these metrics and data are often not integrated into how the business operates. Rather, companies just hope that with some efforts they figure out here and there they may achieve their ambitious reduction targets.
The Benefit Corporation focuses on the shift of how companies operate so that we can collective achieve a more equitable, inclusive, and regenerative economy. With that, the key difference between B Corp certification and other sustainability certificates, and particularly under the current standards, is that it aims to ask questions that drive changes to company culture, actions and strategy instead of data gathering and reporting. By driving changes in how we work and make decisions, it then asks us to measure the positive outcomes that are a result of those actions.
Measurements that drive change
For most of the sustainability standards that we have come across, there is a set of minimum requirements that companies will need to generate data and report on. Despite that, most sustainability data and reporting remains fairly siloed from the rest of the business. The updated B Corp standards have shifted away from that. Now it asks you to measure the outcomes of your planned ESG actions. By changing the way you are measuring business outcomes, it aims to move business operations away from just focusing on cost and profit related metrics.
Typical ESG standards require companies to report on the distribution between employee, management and pay gaps on gender, age and other demographic categories. Most companies then understand that they just need to increase the percentage to achieve diversity.
But true diversity means that the managers are capable in working with people that think differently. Therefore the B Corp standards would ask you to measure the outcomes, of whether there is proof that management capability has improved, and whether people feel safe, and included at work.
Requirements to go beyond compliance
When the new standards were released, one of the slogans was “raising the bar”. Doing well alone is not enough to change the system that we are in. Therefore, another key differentiator of the B Corp standards is that in order to certify, the company must already be engaged in putting their name out there to influence others and the wider ecosystem, and work together as a collective.
Whilst some other sustainability standards do ask if companies are taking part in collective action, the type of collective action remains very open for interpretation and are normally considered as a level up in the standards (For example, in Higg FEM a factory would achieve level 3 – the highest level – if they are working with others in the community or supply chain to collectively improve on their environmental impact).
Plan over perfection
Instead of achieving high scores in the assessment because of reaching high percentages in KPIs, the B Corp standards value long-term planning and implementing sustainable practices that will show improvement over time. With that, aside from asking for companies to show commitments and improvement plans, there are also checkpoints that are interim audits to review the organization’s progress. This puts pressure on the company to walk the talk of what they have committed to, and transparently show progress and needed adjustments to their plans along the way.
This humble approach of showing honest progress reduces the concerns in greenwashing.