#31 The Role Of B Corps - A Panel Discussion

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Welcome to the Be Better podcast. This podcast is aimed at helping you go B Corp and beyond. And in this podcast, we connect with other certified B corporations, aspiring B Corps and other aligned individuals to help you understand the what, why and how of B Corp certification.

Great.

Well, welcome. We are so pleased to have you here with us today for the Circle of Intrapreneurs panelists discussion on B Corpse. I'm Meg Trite and have the honor of serving as the Regional Director of North America. And my co host today to help facilitate this discussion is Sarah Redding. Sarah is the Regional Director of Asia Pacific residing in New Zealand. The Circle of Intrapreneurs believes that business can be both profitable and a force for good. The Circle empowers people to drive social impact through business by nurturing a community of purpose driven entrepreneurs and allies, providing a space in which they can grow and flourish. We are a global nonprofit movement of over 5,000 and we're passionate about social entrepreneurship. Sarah, do you want to share the background on why we wanted to have this discussion today?

Yes. Thanks, Meg. So, as Meg mentioned, one of our core values at the Circle is that business can and should be a force for good. And that profit and purpose aren't mutually exclusive. And that actually by taking a purposeful approach to profit, businesses can leave their teams, communities, and our planet better off for it. And so what we realized is that we share the same philosophy with B Corp certified businesses. And so we thought it would be an awesome idea to bring together a panel of expert B Corp consultants in that field together to discuss B Corp certification, its benefits, and why more businesses should get behind it. And that's why we're all here today. We have a panel of amazing experts joining us from New Zealand and the US Who I'm very excited to introduce to everyone now. So first off, we have Tim Jones with us today. And Tim is the founder of GrowGood, a B Corp certified consulting business which helps others start and achieve their B Corp certification journey. He's New Zealand's first qualified B Corp consultant and having successfully completed the B Corp Anz training program. And I'll just hand over to Tim to give us a brief intro.

Oh, got a Koto, as we say here in New Zealand. Yeah. So, B Corp. Here's my little certificate on my wall behind me. I think it's a pretty cool framework. Yeah, I think everything that you've said about balancing purpose and profit is the key thing. And that's really what Grow Good is all about, is helping people find what I call their purpose fueled Performance. If you can find an individual and an organizational level, your purpose, you can connect into it and you can measure and report all the good that you're doing. It's like nuclear fission for business and for individuals. So, yeah, looking forward to the chat and see what we can cover today.

Awesome. Thanks, Tim. And next, I'd like to introduce Barbara Neville. Barbara is the CEO of Thinkset Anz, which is also a certified Bangkok business. And they provide sustainability consulting and projects, including B Corp consulting and sustainability support to help their clients be business ready to achieve their B Corp certification. And Barbara, I'll hand it over to you.

Thank you, Sarah. So I'm Barbara, and at ThinkStep ANZ, we enable businesses to succeed sustainably. Again, it is about using sustainability to be a successful business. And B Corp for us is just that. It summarizes everything that a business could be doing to be sustainable and what we realize. It's very cool that a lot of businesses, also larger ones, are now starting to realize that sustainability is more than carbon and it needs to be that full, complete picture. And that is what B Corp does.

Awesome. Thanks, Barbara. And our third wonderful panelist is Serena Andrus. Serena is the founder of Creative Chi based in Miami, Florida, and she is all about empowering impact with sustainable branding. And she also leads a B Corp certified business. So, Serena, I'll hand over to you.

Hi.

Hello.

Nice to have you. Nice to be here with you. So what B Corp means for me, it means that in my job as a branding and marketing person, I don't have to lie anymore. I don't have to fake the story. I don't have to make it up. I don't have to work with brands that are doing evil things in the world. I get to empower those brands that want to create impact and work with them. So that's why I became a B Corp personally and I love it as a branding person because it's a brand that be in a circle is a brand. It's like in addition to whatever brand you already have, now you have a second club of fans because anybody that's in sustainability or wants to do good through their purchases or through working with other businesses now knows they have an icon. And you know that that business is doing as much as they possibly can to be in that positive ripple effect. So love B Corp. I love this conversation. Thanks for having us.

Wonderful. Thanks, Serena. And I think that actually leads nicely to our first question.

We'll dive into the dialogue now. And we thought it would be a great place to Start with discussing some of the benefits of becoming a B Corp Certification certified business and why more businesses should see the value of going through the journey to become certified and achieving that B Corp certification. And Serena, we thought we'd start with you on that one.

Perfect. I got a head jump already. So there are so many benefits I don't want to take up. I could take up a whole hour talking about all of the benefits. But let's just say from a brand perspective and a branding person and marketing, positioning your brand so that you have loyal customers and you're differentiating yourself from somebody else. So if there's a lot of people in the same market doing the same thing, saying that they're sustainable, you get to prove that you're sustainable and you get to do it with, you know, B Corp. That's one of the biggest positions. But also just from a personal standpoint, I want to work somewhere that I love. And being a B Corp means that I get to focus on creating a shift in the planet, which is what I love.

Amazing.

I can definitely chime in with some, some benefits for being a big. I mean the B stands for benefit corporation. So there has to be some benefits being a benefit corporation. I think at the highest level it's getting to sleep well at night knowing that your business is contributing to trying to make a positive contribution to the world. That has to be the biggest benefit for any business owner that's considering B Corp or wanting to do more good. But if you look at really this is why for me, like B Corp is a slam dunk argument. Because if you just care about making more money, then you should be a B Corp. As well. So there's some really cool data sets that have come out. One from the UK, this is from 2018, so maybe needs a bit of update, but it was a journal in the UK called the Grocer, which looks at consumer facing brands, mainly sort of consumer brands. And they showed that in 2018 the average B Corp company grew by 14% compared to GDP growth of 0.5%. And the 150 companies that were surveyed, a third of them said that they'd attracted new customers specifically because they were a B Corp. And almost half of them said that they'd attracted new staff because they were a B Corp. There's another study from the University of Ghent that surveyed all the European b corporations between 2012 and 2018. And they basically empirically showed that the Turnover growth rate 1 year pre certification, your growth rate was higher 1 year post certification. So if you Just care about making money, you should definitely be a B Corp. But if you care about anything else, if you want to get better customers, if you want to have better employees and retain your staff.

Increasingly we're seeing people supply chain putting pressure on. I've just started working with a client, they sell into a bigger company and that bigger companies emailed all their suppliers to say, hey, we want to know a little bit more about your social and environmental impact. And this smaller company, like, where do we start? And I said, well, just become a B corp and you'll be able to hand it back to them on a platter and maintain that relationship. And lastly, investors are driving this. The amount of ESG investment is growing and growing and growing. So even in New Zealand, we're pretty late to the party normally on a lot of sustainability initiatives. One of our biggest regional banks here recently issued a $100 million ESG backed loan to Kathmandu, who's one of the biggest B corporations in this region. Which essentially means they get access to cheaper money if they maintain and increase their B corp score. So it's like, show me why you wouldn't be a B corp and I'll have a conversation with you. But it's a slam dunk argument as far as I'm concerned.

I fully agree.

The examples of being able to attract more staff and more clients, yeah, we can tick both those boxes as well. It's really hard at the moment to find good people, especially in New Zealand because we're only a limited pool of people in this country. We need a lot more people doing sustainability work. So there's a fair bit of competition going on, but we are able to attract really cool people because we're a B corp. In every second interview that we do with a candidate at the moment, we ask, why thinkstep? Well, because you're a B corp. And we also have quite a few clients coming saying we want to align with the right people who not only know the technical stuff, but to actually want to do something good. And we're on the journey. We might not become a B corp and I'll have that conversation with them separately, but they realize what the values of being a B corp is. They identify with it. There are quite a few business out there who tell me what they do for their environment, for their communities, how they look after their staff. And I say, you sound like a B corp. They go, what? What is a B corp? And then when I tell them about it, they go, well, I think we are a B corp. It might not be Certified yet, but it's absolutely taking hold in New Zealand and Australia that businesses are on that track. And I think B Corp just gives that recognition for it for what a lot of really good businesses are already doing. And, yeah, that was one of the reasons for us to become a B Corp as soon as we could, because we were a subsidiary of a global company, and as that, we couldn't do it. But as soon as we were our own after a buyout, we went on the journey to get certified for B Corp. And it has really proven well. And it's a feedback we get from clients who are now on the journey to become a B Corp. And it's the bigger companies, too. Traditionally, it was a lot of the smaller companies, but now it's also the larger companies.

That's very interesting, Barbara. And I'm just curious, Serena, are you seeing the same thing here in the US in terms of trends?

There has definitely been a influx in B Corps. Huge during COVID.

I think that overall in the world, I think that there were 4,000 certified B Corps and 4,000 applied in the last year. So we're talking about doubling in one year because I think that the time has come. The time is now. There's that famous quote, which I can't remember who said it about, there's nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. And this idea's time has come. And Covid has been a catalyst of everybody just going, whoa, I have a minute to think. And I hate what I'm doing, or I hate how I'm doing it, which is my story. I hated how I was doing it, why I was doing it, why I was using my talents to lie to people. And I think that everybody sort of was in that space of, what are we doing and how do we shift? And, you know, 15 million people in the United States have quit their jobs in the past six months, and you don't have that great resignation. You don't have people just walking out because they love their job or, you know, they need more time. No, they want a major shift in their life. So B Corp is sort of that catalyst, that space where we can start shifting things.

Thanks, Serena. That kind of is a good segue into our next question, which is what success stories can you share about companies becoming B Corp certified? So hoping to hear some shifts there as well. And Barbara, we'll let you take this one.

Oop, I think you're muted.

There we go.

Well, I think that the largest successes, really, for those companies are that they are now more easily recognized for what they already do. I haven't worked with a company who's actually shifted what they do because they became certified, because they become certified very often to actually be recognized for being a good company. But having that actual recognition for it.

Is really valuable to those brands.

It is about they all the same for us. We always had our people, if they wanted to volunteer somewhere, they said, oh, we want to have, I don't know, a day to teach somewhere at a university or to teach at the local school. We went, yeah, sure, go, that's a great idea, definitely. But we didn't have any policies around that and we couldn't, we didn't keep track of those sorts of things. So it also enables us to actually tell the stories better and to encourage people to actively do those things. So and that's the same for the businesses who have become a B corp. They are now able to actually tell those stories and to tell the stories. And because it's certified, it's measured. So you also have that encouragement to do better in future to do more good. And I think that sort of benchmarking, which is also a really valuable thing.

Can I jump in? I've got a couple of good Kiwi examples. I think my all time favorite B corp today is a company based here in Ototahy Christchurch called Ethique and they sell solid bar beauty, health and beauty products. So Brianne, the founder, if you haven't interviewed Brianne, you should definitely get her onto your group because she is just like a one woman wrecking ball for goodness.

Her whole thing, you know, she was a biochemist I think by training and she looked at the shampoos and conditioners and health and beauty products that were sold and you know, they mainly were full of chemicals that you have no real idea what they are and how toxic they might be. You've got a plastic container, container that's 90 water with a small bit of, you know, shampoo or conditioner in it. So her, her whole business was built around getting rid of the bottle. And I think she was b court number three in New Zealand. This would be sometime probably like 2015. So really, really early in the piece. Her business is now a global phenomenon because the whole, it's a business that you cannot hate. Like you, you look at a teak, at everything that they're doing and you go, your packaging is amazing, your supply chain is amazing, you treat your employees really well. You're solving a massive environmental challenge with getting rid of plastic bottle. It's like I can't hate you. I can't find anything to look at you and go, oh yeah, but you're not doing this. And so that for me is an example. I always use them as an example, like if you can show me something that they're doing badly. And they're historically the highest scoring B Corp in New Zealand, which is why it's really hard to find anything that they're doing badly. The second one would be the first B corp here in New Zealand called Eagle Protect. Steve Arda, the CEO, he, you know, rightly describes himself as the dirtiest B corp in the world because they import single use disposable gloves for food, hygiene and medical practices. But as he says, if you're going to the doctor or the dentist, would you like them to be wearing the same pair of gloves all day or would you like a fresh pair of gloves when they do an examination on you? And it's like, that's a fair, you know, a fair call. But he was, he was B Corp number one. And B Corp for him has definitely been a tool that has seen his business grow from outside of just New Zealand. He's now, Steve lives in Tahoe and he's grown the business into the US And a large part of that success in terms of gaining the right investment partners, but also getting some really good big customers in the US has been the fact that they're the only global or the only supplier, sorry, of protective equipment. That's a B Corp. So they have. And I think this is the key and maybe Serena can talk to this. Like just getting the certificate on the wall is part of this, part of the piece. You have to do two other things. You have to bake the story in internally and bring the staff and everyone internally on the journey so that they get a sense of the good that we're actually doing and they connect to that, which is where you get that feeling of meaning and everyone connected to the good you're doing. But you have to effectively tell the story to the right stakeholders because otherwise it's just a certificate on the wall. And most people go, why aren't you an acorn? Like, surely you should be that if you're so amazing. So yeah, I don't know if Serena can talk or show anything about effectively nailing the external story, external and internal.

So part of B Corp is really embodying that purpose. So many other companies, you know, they talk about their mission statements, they have it on a wall somewhere, they never look at it again. You know, some, they pay some big Branding agency to make all of this fluff. They put it on a wall. Nobody gives a crap about it. B Corps live it. They embody it every day. And one of the most beautiful things about being a B Corp. I can tell you a story of a local business certified as a B Corp here in Miami. They're a swim school and they have five different locations here in Miami. They have 125 employees. The employees are the ones that are over the moon about this certification. They have never been anywhere or worked at a job where they were empowered to create more sustainable options and figure out more social things and more environmental things that they can do. And they're the ones taking the reins and running with it. I mean, the, the CEO was the person who initiated it, but the employees took it over. If you can have engaged employees, you can basically the statistics say that an engaged employee can produce at 225%. That means that they're doing the work of two people. If you can fully engage your employees on purpose, you can have half the staff.

Same amount of money. We go back to that. Making money, having a great place to work at. I just for me, it's a win win. And I've just seen story after story of employee engagement of going to work fueled with a purpose and having a happy life because of it.

I've got one other example, and that is also how B Corp ties in with other certifications. A client of ours is going for cradle to cradle certification for their products.

And cradle to cradle for the product is for me what B Corp is for the organization. So the B Corp is the how you behave and the cradle to cradle is how you produce your products. Now the cradle to cradle certification looks at healthy materials, circular economy, carbon, and social fairness. So you actually need to be a good business doing good to get the product certification. But what cradle to cradle do, at least in the current version, is to recognize B Corp certification for the social fairness aspect. Because they realize we don't have to come up with all our own criteria. And a large chunk of that will be dealt with. If a company already is a B Corp. So you've ticked that box.

Not in a bad sense, ticking the box, but by already being a B Corp, you can achieve other things then as well. And that is, I think this interaction between how a business behaves and how they produce their products is B Corp does quite the all of the how.

Actually, one more example, building on what Serena was saying as well. I just finished helping a company here called Genora. They are an Amazing company that makes collagen based health and nutrition products. And when I work doing the bee consulting with a company, typically they have a company size of 20 people. So in a company that size, I might typically suggest they have four or five people that we come and do the assessment work together. They had all 20 employees.

So.

So we had the whole company sat around, we're going through the assessment question by question. And they were going. I had like, some of them would like the warehouse lady, Meg would go, I had no idea we were doing that in the office. And it's like, cool. Now you know what you're all doing. But the sense of engagement and connection that they all had and they thought they were doing some stuff pretty good, but there was. It's like being the fish in water. There's typically a whole lot of stuff that you're doing that you just do because. And it's as Barbara said, there's a lot of businesses that they're doing good, but they just think that's normal. And when they started going through the assessment and it's like, hang on a minute, you could be a very high scoring B Corp here. And they were just like, wow, we had no idea that we were this good. And you cannot. It's really hard to capture that and bottle it. But going through the B Corp process well and telling the story, it's gold dust. Yeah.

That's fantastic. Thank you for sharing all those examples. It's amazing to hear what people can achieve when they go through this process. And I think picking up on what you just said, Tim, about being able to share what businesses are already doing externally with their customers and their market is amazing. How the B Corp certification can demonstrate to that external market what businesses are already doing, but might not realize the powerful impact that it can have on their target market and consumers and everything. And I think that leads quite nicely into our next question, which is I'm sure a lot of people that might watch this webinar and engage in this narrative might be working for a business, wondering what they can do to get the organization excited and involved in the idea of going down this B Corp journey, no matter what their position is, whether they're at the top in the C suite or someone, you know, working in any role, what's the best way, I guess to start the conversation and sort of help businesses get on that journey. And Tim, we thought we'd open up the floor to you on that one.

Oh. So I call these people the concerned citizen. So I frequently get someone, they're like, hi, my name's Sarah, I'm ringing you, but my boss doesn't know. I'd really like us to be a B corp. How do I convince my boss? I get that call so many times.

It's a great place, that it's a great thing to have. But it can be challenging because if the C suite, the managing director, the owner or whatever, if they're generally not interested, it's really, really hard. And you know, sometimes it can be a one or two year journey to convince the right people, particularly in a larger company. You know, financial years, CEOs come and go. You know, it's like asking dad for the car keys when you're a teenager. Like, you got to pick your moment. Are they in a good mood? Do I ask on the right day? Is it the right person? The key piece of advice I always give is keep kind of going up your food chain and keep asking people like, what are the top three things that are keeping you awake at night right now? Because Most senior leaders, CEOs, managing directors, what have you, they're all, they'll have three to five things that are on their list that are keeping them awake that they, because they either want to achieve them or they're scared something's going to happen. And if you can work out what those three to five things are and then find the evidence from a B corp perspective and a purpose perspective as to how you might be able to help solve that problem. Because not many people, like, if people are thinking, oh my gosh, you know, we're really struggling to get employees right now, well, they might be sitting down with the HR team thinking about incentives and benefits and da, da, da, da. But have they actually considered maybe we have a meaningless company that no one wants to work for fundamentally, well, that's a purpose and B corp solution. So it's finding what the problem is or what you're trying to achieve and then working out. And I think that's where people like myself and Barbara and, you know, Serena, anyone who's in a B corp can give you some advice. The other thing I would always suggest is go and connect with the B corps locally within your region. Start building connections. You know, start looking to see how maybe like if you're in a position where you can make a decision, see if you can start working with a B corp to get one in your supply chain. Because, you know, doing good is infectious and contagious. Once people come across a B corp, there is, there's just an energy that B Corps kind of have like the vibe is there. And once people start bumping up against other B Corps, it's kind of like actually I kind of. It's like B Corps are trying to have the best party on the street so that everyone comes and joins us. So when you come and go to a B Corp event, it's just full of great people having a good time. And so you can kind of maybe wear down the person who's really resistant to this idea by just bringing them to the B Corp party.

They are human centric organizations. That is my experience of working with B Corps versus standard corporations that we really just have a human approach to doing business. We do business with other people, we don't do business with business. We do business with people and we listen and we have open eyes, open hearts.

And why wouldn't you want to be that? And honestly, B Corp is not for everyone. There are companies that are just not going to be a B Corp. And if you're in one of those corporations, there's a nifty little tool on the B Corp website where you can find B Corp jobs. I highly suggest you check that out and apply for a new job because the cream rises to the top. The good talent is going to go to the good companies and that's the bottom line. And sometimes you're in a situation where you can try and there are companies that will listen and if you are in a level of sort of authority and leadership and you can guide that, then guide it. Please do. We need as many B Corps as we can get. But if it's falling on deaf ears, seriously, don't waste your time. Go find a B Corp to work for or start your own.

That might take a little longer, but I promise you, you could do that too.

I think it comes back to what Tim said at the very beginning. It's big Corps also do make more money. And if that is what the CEOs or general managers or whatever they are in those businesses are driven by, just give them the examples. So we always are about the translating. So sometimes I say I'm not a consultant, I'm a translator and my languages are sustainability business. Still working on the English but. And it's really translating sustainability into the business language because quite often there are different tribes. Sometimes there is sort of a growing momentum of them being one and the same tribe, but they still very often just don't understand each other. One understands the language of investment capital return budgets and the other one understands community emissions doing good. And if you are able to translate that as in if you are a B corp, you might be able to secure more revenue or actually just build in some revenue resilience because some of your clients, our B Corps, are looking for them. You also save cost by keeping the staff not having to go through a lot of recruitment. The brand value, of course. And also once you've gone through the assessment, you've identified potential risks and you start doing something about them. So it's on all those fronts. Those are really good arguments to convince us from the business tribe to actually get onto the sustainability journey and understand that language better.

On that resilience piece. There were some really good stats. Some B Lab, the nonprofit group that runs the certification program, essentially they run an annual impact report. And some of the stats from 2020, 52% of B Corps hired more employees. In 2020, 47% of B Corps had employee growth of more than 15% and 2/3 of all B Corps increased revenue in so in a global pandemic, B Corps in general were scaling and growing. That is clearly not the same. For obviously there are some nuances with how many hospitality businesses are B Corps. Probably not as many as there are other brands, but still. And the same stats were there from the GFC in 2008. B corpse in general outperformed the market in terms of resilience during a tough time. And this is why I say it's a slam dunk argument. And I kind of don't care if ultimately you sell it into your business. It's the profit thing. Because once you get into doing good, once you get a. I call it the purpose horizon, today you can only see so far forward into purpose and how much good you can do. But it can take. Once you start doing it, you'll just want to. Unless. Unless you're, you know, the boss is a genuine narcissistic psychopath, in which case it will just be about the money for them forever and ever. But in general, most of those people, they're lost. But most normal bosses and CEOs will suddenly come into the fold of actually this purpose thing. I get it now. And it's about legacy and what, what business am I leaving here? Rather than a question I always I ask I like CEOs is can you give me the name of the company that was number three on the New Zealand Stock Exchange in May 2013? No, of course you can't because nobody cares. But can you name me a brand that's done something cool and innovative and helped some people recently? And they'll be like, oh, yeah, that brand did something really cool. So it's like.

We'Ve been choosing the wrong metrics typically in business and so helping. Yeah, getting people initially, if it's about the same metrics, but we can like slowly move them by 5 degrees each year to be more purpose driven. Like, I'm cool with that as long as we get them in.

I just had a follow up question. Sorry, I'm going a little bit rogue off our questions that we were going to cover today. But hearing what you guys have just talked about, if we sort of flip to the other end of the, of the trajectory, if we have some businesses and some people who are on board and they're thinking, yes, we want to start this journey, can you guys just give us a few thoughts and ideas on where businesses should start? If they're sitting there thinking, actually this sounds fantastic and we would like to either do the assessment or start our certification process. What should they be doing? Where should they start? I guess sometimes that could be daunting in itself. So what would be some good tips for people or businesses that have decided they would like to get on board? What should they do next?

I can start, I think the first is to talk to some other B Corps, ask for their experience and the second is to just give the self assessment a go. Just go in there and do it and don't spend hours and trying to get the right answer for every single question. If you go it through the first time, it's just about exploring what those questions actually are.

And that's also the advice when we talk to business. We have no idea. They don't even know about B Corp and they've never heard about it. Might not want to become one, but we want to do sustainability because we think we do the right thing, but we don't actually know how to go about it. Where to start. I'll send them to do the self assessment because it's almost like a gap assessment for them to go, okay, well we should be doing those things or we should be thinking about those things. And as Tim said before, they will probably do half of those things already without being specifically aware of them. So self assessment, just give it a go. Don't get hung up on some of the questions, not quite race through, but just sort of go through and explore and talk to other B corps.

Also I'd add, like, tell as many people, bring as many people on the journey. There's two good examples. I won't name names, but there's two good examples in New Zealand where one Company, basically it was the sustainability manager did the certification on their own. They got certified as a B corp. The CEO sends an all company email haver, and we're a B corp. And everyone in the company's like, I have literally no idea what you're talking about versus another company of a similar size. They had a team of about 20 people in the company whose job was to go and find points and work out what they needed to change. It took them quite a long time to get certification, but the whole team was bought on the journey. And for me that is the key thing. Like if you're the curious or the concerned citizen and you've got the approval to go and explore it, try and bring some people on the journey. I typically call that person the king or queen bee. And then you get some beekeepers around you, like get those people. People and ideally across the company so that you're spreading this vibe across depending on the size and scale of the company. But you want to get the vibe and the curiosity going across as much of the company as possible because that's where you'll get the most gains.

Agreed. And another place that is great to start is usually in your local community. I know that when I became a B corp here in Miami, I was one of three, so there was no local community. But I immediately started a community to educate people, educate businesses on what B Corp was. So now we have impact Mission Miami, which where we invite any Miami business that wants to do well, you know, to do good through business, to create a positive ripple effect. And that's our hub basically where we can bounce ideas off of each other and we can help people that you know, are in businesses or outside of businesses trying to create this shift. So look, look around you. You never know what local resources that you might have in community that you might have either locally or now, you know, ever after. Covid, there's a plethora of sort of virtual places where you can go to.

That's definitely good advice. In Australia, New Zealand, we call them B local chapters. So that's a great like in. If you're in New Zealand, you know, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, we have B local chapters. Mike Bright, Mike Carroll from Brightly is our Auckland. He's just amazing. Particularly through lockdowns, they've been trying to keep the community going. Find like connect with me or Barbara or Serena, we'll help you find those people if you can't find them. But yeah, be locals or local. Community chapters are definitely really good places. Like I say go and connect to the party and see what it's all about. So yeah, definitely agree with that.

Fantastic recommendations on how to get started from all of you. Thank you and appreciate you all offering to be resources for those who are interested in your areas. So another question I had around getting started is could you guys share with.

Us.

What can people expect in terms of the timing? So for the application process, how long does it take? Like what kind of expectations can.

We expect have there? And then also maybe if you could share any challenges, common challenges you've seen during the application process.

And what that looks like.

Personally, as a micro business, it took me a long time to get through because I was doing it alone, sort of off and on. It took me a full year to get through it. But this was five years ago, six years ago when I started. It was six years ago when I started and there were no resources and nobody in Miami knew what I was talking about. So there was nobody I could bounce ideas off of, ask questions to. But now it's a different place.

So time, you know, the commitment that you're willing to give it, if you're going at it alone, it's going to be a while. There's resources, including here, there's universities that take corporations on for free and walk them through it. And of course I think that Tim should speak to this because he is very well versed in getting people through it.

Why thank you. The time thing is a really interesting one. So I remember there's a company here called Blacksmiths. They do like conscious leadership training and I think they certified as B Corp number seven. They were just before me. I was B court number eight in New Zealand and I remember talking, talking to Kate and Paul, the people that run it, and they said it took them 90 minutes to go through the assessment. Now that's because they were chapter leaders of conscious capitalism here in New Zealand. Their business, as Barbara sort of alluded their business was a B corp. They just had to go through and basically upload some documents and away they went. Compared to some other businesses, like I guess Steve Eagle would say he'd be one of these Sinlay, who is basically a milk powder manufacturing and distribution company here in New Zealand. It took them two years to certify and they sneaked in with like 80.1 and they had to make some massive changes in their corporation to enable them to get those points. So the timeline really depends on what you're currently doing and how quickly you can make change happen. And typically the bigger you are, if you're publicly listed, if you've got masses of shareholders. It can take time to get board approval and resolutions and what it took to sometimes make a relatively small change in a business. Smaller businesses, as Serena said, the challenge is typically just capacity time. You're a small business. If you've got family. I know what it's like. You get to Friday and it's like, yeah, I could look at this assessment thing or I could go and have a wine or a cocktail or a beer. Yeah, I think I'm going to the pub.

Some people. I spoke to someone yesterday, I said, what have you done so far? And she said, well, I kind of opened the assessment and I said, let me guess, you were kind of like this, this. She's like, yeah, it was pretty scary. So I get it. So.

Some companies can get through the questions pretty quickly. So I typically spend between four and six hours with a company and we just go through all of the questions and we get them the answers that they can give today. We'll also give them some advice around, well, look, if you were to institute this policy and like as Serena saying, there are loads of resources, I've got loads of templates and resources that I give away to clients who are working with me. It's like if you were to put an ethical marketing policy in, you're going to get, I don't know, whatever it is, 0.75 of a point. Cool. If you're happy to do that, I've got a template for you. You can look at it, you can review it, you can update it, make it yours. You've got it. So it is. When I'm about to start working companies, I say, look, I don't know how long it's going to take until we lift the lid and have a look at your company. Because if you're, you know, if you're a tobacco company selling cigarettes to 15 year olds outside schools, well, are you not. You're going to struggle to be a B corp full stop. But you know, if you're not built to be a B corp, it's going to take you longer. And so. But yeah, typically to get the questions answered, you can get through them all in about four to six hours. Then the homework side of it is going to be dependent on how close to being a B corp you currently are. I definitely, I always advise people in year one just get certified, but so many people, oh, yeah. But if we just implement this, if we just implement this and two years later you're still not a B corp. And by then the assessments are updated It's a new assessment and half the work you did last time is now irrelevant. Like year one, get in, get certified, get the benefits of the certification. Then currently it's a three year recertification cycle. You've got three years to then look at all the other little projects and places you want to be better at and put a plan and put a process in place so that in three years your score's gone up. So yeah.

I agree. It really entirely depends on how much you've already done. So it might be faster for a smaller business, but then some of the larger businesses who already behave like a B corp, they would have already done things like they know what their carbon footprint is, they already have measures in place to reduce the carbon footprint, they might have already done a weight and those sort of things are asked for as well. So those questions can be faster sometimes for larger companies. So it really depends on how far the journey you already are on.

So one thing also to make note is the demand on the system is extremely high. Currently the B Corp movement had a growth of 25% in 2020. There can be some significant wait times for you to. So that the process typically looks like you do this initial self assessment which you go to bimpactassessment.net it's completely free to do. You can like muck around with it. You can answer all the questions, change all. You are like, nothing's, nothing's going to be, you know, nothing's going to happen. You have to meet the minimum criteria of 80 out of 200 points, which a lot of people go, man, how easy is this thing? That's like not even half marks. The median score for most companies attempting it first time round is between 40 and 50. So they even get 80. Like a lot of people go, oh, they snuck in with 80.1. It's like, yep, but they're still a B corp, you know, and what's your score? So once you're at the 80 out of 200 threshold, you click submit and then you wait in a queue to be assigned a standards assessor or a verifier from B Lab. Small businesses are moving through relatively quickly because they're easier and quicker to assess. Like, if you're a small business like mine, like, I currently have zero employees, like it's pretty easy for them to audit my business through that verification queue. If you're a massive multinational company with seven global subsidiaries, you could be in the queue for up to sort of eight months where because you're such a big entity that they have to assess. So there is some wait times. They are working on that. They're hiring, they've hired, I think Barbara, it's like three or four people in the Melbourne team, just locally. I think they've also outsourced to an independent auditing company to help them on a global level. It's a great problem to be having, you know, too many people interested in this certification. So bear that in mind. It's not going to be like, hey, we've done, we've done the sort of five to six hours of question answering, we do maybe 10 hours of homework, collecting the data that we definitely need and then we click submit and we're a B corp. There will be a bit of a, bit of a wait time but hey, all good things take some time.

So our US current waiting time is about six to eight, eight months for anybody. Unfortunately they just don't have the manpower right now. A good friend of mine did a very funny.

Sort of social media event where he did 80, he did eight, got 80 points in 80 hours and he did the whole assessment like live stream.

That was months ago. And he's like, yep, just waiting for an answer from B Corp still. So he did it in 80 hours, but they're gonna take eight months. But it is what it is. Just keep it in mind, be patient.

Right.

Because that always for me raises an interesting point because a lot of people I work with say, oh, should we talk about us going on the journey to be a B corp or do we wait until we're certified and it'd be interesting to get your thoughts. So I'm now going rogue and taking over the question asking Megan, Sarah. But hey, we're here now. For me, I think my personal opinion is start telling the story as soon as you can. Like we're on the journey, we're not going to be perfect. We don't know when we're going to certify, but we're doing some good. Whereas a lot of people, I think there's a part of people who are doing good is they're typically more humble and they don't want to actually tell people that we're doing some good. But yeah, from a marketing branding perspective, what would you advise someone?

Definitely. So part of branding a purpose driven business is being authentic and if we're a hot mess, we're failing. We're a hot mess and we're failing. But at least it makes good story. It makes authentic connected story. Oh, look at that business. They screwed up, they tried, they failed, whatever it is. Or when you do fail, admit it. Just go, yep, I screwed up. Sorry. Here's what we're going to put in place to try to make this never happen again or to amend or whatever. And it's still all really good story. What's that quote about? No bad publicity, still being good publicity. It's the same thing. But you have to come from an authentic, you know, real place. You, you can't be fake about this kind of stuff because then it just comes off as yucky. So as long as you're doing it from an authentic place. Yeah, take them on the journey. Everybody wants to see the, the behind the scenes.

I fully agree. And why be different about wanting to be a B Corp than setting a carbon target? Everyone announces their carbon targets. They don't go and wait until they've actually achieved us. They just set a Target now for 2030 and talk about it now going, well, we've set a really ambitious target or we've set a science based target and they don't do that now and wait until they don't set the target and wait until they achieved it and then say we've set ourselves a target and actually achieved it. Now. They tell the story now. And why should that be different for B Corp? Set yourself a target to become a B Corp and talk about it. Yeah.

Absolutely. I think that's fantastic advice. And even though the wait times might be long and getting longer by the sounds of it, with more businesses wanting to get involved, I guess the time is going to pass anyway, so you might as well get started now and get things underway.

So we've covered some great areas today. I am feeling very excited. I don't have a business myself that I could become B Corp certified, but if I did, I would certainly want to get the journey underway.

To leave our audience today when we round things off, we thought we might just ask each of you if there was sort of one thought or one nugget of advice that you would like to leave people with about B Corp, whatever that is, we'd love to hear before we round things off today.

Don't wait for anything, get stuck in.

Just give it a go.

That would be my key part of advice. Yeah.

Awesome.

I'm going to second that, Barbara, that sort of just do it, just try it. It can't hurt you to try it. Go on the bia, at least take a look. And one of the important things that I went through through this whole B Corp journey is understanding that what's measured gets managed. And the more that you measure, the more that you sort of want to improve yourself. And the next day it's kind of like going to the gym. I'm not going to lift the same weights every day when I go to the gym, I'm going to want to go a little heavier, a little heavier. Every time I go to my assessment, I'm like, oh, we're going to get more points. What can I do, you know? Or where do, where do I fall? Like, I didn't last year, I didn't make best for the world and I was so ticked. And then I saw the scores of the other people and I was like, oh, I got a long way to go. So now I have a goal for the next round.

Yeah, 100% agree. Just get stuck in, you know, if you, if you don't do it today, one of your competitors will be doing it tomorrow. It's as simple as that. You know, it's just becoming the trend that's sweeping the world. And exactly what Serena said, like one of the phrases we use at grow good is be better. It's like, just aim to be better if you can be one point better next year, like you've done something better for the world. So. Yeah.

Well, thank you, Sabrina, Barbara and Tim for sharing a wealth of information with us today and just your expert opinions and perspectives on this. We've learned so much just in this brief time together. So thank you for sharing all that you have today. And so thank you to Sarah Redding for being my co host today and facilitating this conversation. If anyone watching wants to reach out to any of our lovely panelists, please do so. You can connect them here with them here on LinkedIn and we will tag them in this post. So look for that. So thank you.

Yes. And a big thank you to all our panelists from me as well. Thank you. Been exceptional to hear your insights and expertise on B Corp. And hopefully we have inspired some people to start the conversations within their organizations and businesses and get on the journey to becoming B Corp certified. Thank you to Meg as well for co hosting with me. It's been wonderful to hear all the insights today and as Meg said, please reach out to our experts. They're all doing wonderful things in the B Corp space and would love to hear from anyone who has questions or, you know, wants to get the journey started.

You can follow us, follow the circle of entrepreneurs on LinkedIn and look out for any upcoming events we have. So thank you and everyone. Have a great rest of your day.

And that's a wrap. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you found it interesting, informative and inspirational. I'd love to know where you are on your BCOP journey, and if you have any specific questions or people that you'd like me to interview to help you on that journey, please do let me know.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube for other content that you might like also. And finally, if you think that we might be able to do some epic work together, you can check out how that can happen through my website, www.grogood.co. until next time, be.