#33 The Journey To B Corp Certification

Foreign.

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.

Kia ora. Hello. Good afternoon.

Hi everyone.

Oh.

Everyone'S streaming into the room right now. Welcome.

Hello. I'm going to say hi to the people who I can see. Caroline, Anna, Pete, Amy, Oliver, Greg. Kia ora.

Phoebe, Lauren, Catherine, Anne, Madeline, Serena, Ivan. Sorry if I missed you, but so great to see so many of you here today. My name is Mindy Liao and I'm the Head of Growth and Impact at B Lab. I joined B Lab six years ago and I'm the longest serving member and I've had the privilege to watch this movement grow as well as the team grow in these number of years. I want to welcome you to this webinar and thank you for being part of this moment where we currently have 52 B Corps in Aotearoa, New Zealand since the first one certified in 2012. It is also my greatest pleasure to introduce our newest team member at B Lab to you today, Kylei Wong, who joined us three weeks ago as the Aotearoa New Zealand Manager. She's our very first team member on the ground in New Zealand and we are excited not just about the creation of this role, but also the person that we found to fill it. Kyule has been working in the area of impact most of her career and has recently returned to New Zealand from the UK having been involved with the B Corp movement from aboard. So, without further ado, let me introduce Kyule Wong to say a few words about herself. Over to you, Kyulei.

Thanks, Mindy. Tine koto ka toa ko kile wang toku ingawa no toranga fiti me tianya okutipuna no Tamaki makoro aho. My name is Kyulei Wong. Good afternoon everyone. It's really lovely to be here. My ancestors are from Tauranga, Fiji in China and I'm from Auckland. I'm really honoured to be joining the B Lab team. As Mindy said just in my third week, so it's been a whirlwind induction right in the middle of B Corp month, but just so excited to be co hosting this webinar with her and hear from some pretty inspiring Kiwib Corps about their certification journey. A little short, little bit of background about me. I've worked across a number of not for profit and for profit organizations throughout my career really all about driving positive social and environmental impact. And I'm just really driven by the opportunity for business to have a, you know, to influence and drive change in some of the most pressing challenges we face as a society. And I think the global B Corp community is really demonstrating that this is not only possible, but essential for the survival of our planet and its people.

Prior to this, I actually led the B Corp certification for an organization in the uk. So I have kind of been on the other side of the coin as well and understand a bit about it from that perspective too.

But we are mainly here to hear about the exciting Kiwib Corp. So and their journey. So I won't go off too long, but I really look forward to connecting with all of you properly in due course and kind of building this movement with you. So I will pass back to Mindy to get us started.

Thank you Kyulei, and I'm so glad to have you co hosting the session with me today. So for all of you who are joining us, feel free to pop any questions that come to mind that you want to ask our amazing B Corps. There are eight of them here, seven of them here today. Just feel free to pop that in your chat and Kyule will be organizing those questions for our panelists. So you may be aware that March this month is B Corp Month and today's webinar is one of many online events featuring Australian and New Zealand B Corps. So I encourage you to visit our B Corp Month website as well to find out what other sessions that we have, as well as watch the recordings. As I said earlier, we're at a very exciting inflection point in business today. While some industries are rebuilding in an endemic world, many others are having a real awakening to purpose. When the pandemic hit two years ago, B Lab was bracing itself for a slowdown in certification. But in fact, the opposite has happened. I think our expectations of businesses are changing. People are expecting companies to be part of the solution rather than the problem. And this is stemming from consumers, workers, investors, partners and even suppliers. Luckily, as businesses we are good at pivoting and that's what we do to meet changing expectations. And this I think is fueling the demand for certification. In my opinion, the B is much more than certification. It is the framework for continuous improvement. It's a rallying call for workers, it's a powerful set of metrics to run your business, and mostly it's a community of like minded businesses who are coming together to create positive impact. Whether that's within your own operations or collectively with others. With so much that's happening in the world today, and the strange time that we find ourselves living in, having this community of businesses, the Bee community, stand in solidarity for something larger than themselves, I think is really inspiring. And that's what brings me to work every day. So in the spirit of B Corp Month, we are inviting you today to take a look behind the B and we'll be featuring the seven different B Corps as well as some B Lab team members. So our agenda today will include four speakers in the first section giving you an introduction to B Corp Certification. And then we'll have another four speakers as part of a roundtable discussion. And finally, we'll open up to a Q and A session from you, moderated by Kyule and a short networking at the end before we close. So without further ado, let's introduce our first four speakers. First cab up the rank we have Tim Jones, who's also known as the Grow Good Guy. Tim's business, Grow Good has been a certified B Corp since 2016 and Tim has been actively promoting B Corp to hundreds of businesses. Tim is one of the first Kiwis to successfully complete the B Consultants Training program run by us at Belab Australia New Zealand. And today Tim is going to talk about whether B Corp Certification is for you.

Next we'll hear from Brooke Roberts, who is the co founder and co CEO of Sharesies, a wealth development platform whose purpose is to create financial empowerment for everyone. Brooke is passionate about creating equal opportunities and using business for good as she is the force behind the positive impact that Shares Ease has on people and planet. Then we'll hear from Lauren Diggle who is a member of the B Lab Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand team. Lauren has played a number of roles at B Lab and is currently the Evaluation analyst and so you'll likely be hearing from Lauren after you hit Submit for certification. Lauren is B Lab's resident foodie and joy captain and you'll soon find out why. Finally, you'll hear from Penny Deborst, who is the head of Brands and partnerships at Wright Ltd. Riot uses the power of words for good and Penny helps organizations to use plain language to build trust, equity, get access to information. Penny has been involved in the process of helping Ryz get certified and she'll be talking about how you can use your B Corp certification in your business and to support the growth of the movement. So we'll hand it over to you Tim, to kick us off.

Hello Kia Ora. Let me share My screen.

Cool.

Can everyone see my screen or can someone see my screen? Let me know if you can see a screen. Fantastic. Cool. So in five minutes, to be or not to be. I think you're probably going to guess what the answer is going to be. It's going to be. You should be. But hey, let's just unpack that for a little bit.

Let's back up the truck though, a little bit. Like, what is a B corporation? Some of you will have a real depth of an idea of what this thing is. Some of you, this might be your first interaction with this thing called B Corp. Certified B corporations are a new form of business that aim to balance making a profit whilst also having some kind of higher purpose. And to achieve this little B certification and get it hanging on your wall nice and proudly, you have to meet the highest independence standards of verification around the transparency and accountability of your social and environmental footprint. So that's what B Corp's all about. But why should you even think about caring about doing something as grandiose and amazing as being a B Corp? Well, let's go and find out. Beyond it being a nice little certification, as Mindy alluded to some of these concepts in her sort of pre talk, there are plenty of certification frameworks and tools out there where it can just become a tick box exercise and you are very much in the realms of getting into greenwashing and purpose washing. I can tell you that B Corp is not that it is rigorous, but it is achievable. And as well as you having this rigorous and independently verified certification that you can prove that you're doing the good that you're doing, it is a movement in a community. For example, little things like putting this event together. We have many B corps from across New Zealand with the team in Melbourne and it's been pretty easy to come together because we all care deeply about growing this movement. So there's this sense of movement and connection and community. But perhaps more importantly, it's a commitment that your business is going to, I guess, step up to, to say that you want to be a better organization from today, but also going into the future. And the certification framework helps you do that because it's an impact guide. It'll help you understand the good that you're currently doing in your business and whilst giving you an indication as to where you might be able to start thinking about doing more good in the future. So it's a lot more than just a tick box exercise and a little pretty picture on your wall.

Why is B Corp. Becoming a thing, as Mindy said, like the growth in the movement in 2020 was about 25%, which is just insane. When we stop and look around and each of you can think and pause for a minute after this session, you know, what are the things that you see in the world that kind of make you feel a little bit, you know, worked up about, that you want to maybe make a difference about? There are plenty of environmental issues that each of us can connect to on an individual level. But we can also start to think about how our business can play a role in mitigating environmental challenges. We demand justice and change. You know, insert the social justice thing that you are personally, you care about deeply. And I think also Covid has had. Well, clearly it has. As Mindy was saying, with the numbers of, of businesses now looking at B Corp. I think a large number of people have had what I call the existential wet fish to the face moment where they're stopping and thinking, actually, what does my business do? And for those tuning in, in New Zealand at the beginning of the lockdown, when many businesses thought that they were essential businesses to society, and quite quickly they were told, no, your business is not essential. So at a systemic level, we've got environmental, we've got social, and I guess a pandemic as three major things that are driving people to just stop and think about what are we doing at a business level. And some of you on this call might yourselves be those people that are having those moments. If we bring it down to, I guess like the slightly, the lower level in terms of less systemic. Consumers, employees and investors are all looking to support businesses that can prove they are doing good. The stats come from all sorts of places. The stats from here that the consumer and the employee stats are from the Colmar Brunson Better Futures Report. The same sorts of figures are seen from McKinsey, from PwC, from KPMG. Every major consulting firm is showing that increasingly and these numbers are going up year on year. Customers want to support the brands that they can demonstrate and prove that they're doing some kind of good and that they have a sustainable lens to their business. Employees again, increasingly expect their employer to have some kind of greater purpose and meaningful societal impact. On the investment side, probably the better one is this one from May 2021. So ANZ bank issued a $100 million Australian dollar loan to Kathmandu. Who are. I think they're the biggest. It's either them or Sinle, I think, yeah, Kathmandu are the biggest B Corp in this region. So Essentially Anz offering lower cost money to Kathmandu so long as Kathmandu maintain and increase their B Corp score. So if you think about a business, every business needs customers, it needs employees, it needs money to grow and scale and it also needs suppliers. And we've definitely got experience at grow good, where companies are reaching out to us, where they are being asked questions by their customers to say, hey, we're having a look at our business and as part of that we're looking at our supply chain. Could you tell us what you're doing in your business around your social and environmental impact? And when they hear about this thing called B Corp and they can say, hey Mr. And Mrs. Customer, we're now a B Corp. That's a real slam dunk argument for people trying to prove their credentials within someone's supply chain.

Do B Corps do any good? Well, this is the really cool thing. So when you get your business to a place where you can understand how you can start solving some of these big complex problems as well as on that lower level, the really good news is B Corps are doing some really cool stuff. So B Corps are twice as likely to be offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions compared to their non B Corp peer. 63% of B Corps. This is from B Lab's global impact report from 2020. 2021, 63% of B Corps hire workers that have historically been barred or have been from underemployed populations. And 7 to 1 is the average pay ratio of the highest lowest paid employees in a B Corp compared to 144 to 1 in the market as a whole.

If you're, I guess if you're not convinced on the spiritual, metaphysical, you know, impact side of things, then there's actually some fairly compelling evidence on, I call that the roi, the return on impacts or the return of impacts. If you're genuinely just looking at the return on investment, then you should probably set up as well. So this was from 2018 where.

This journal called the Grocer surveyed all the b Corps in UK at the time which was 150. They're now almost close to 700. And they found that average year on year growth for the 150B Corps was 14% compared to 0.5% growth in GDP. A third of those companies surveyed said that they'd attracted new customers since certifying, whilst almost half said that new staff had been attracted specifically because they were a B Corp. And then there's this study from the University of Ghent where basically they did a panel data set of financial data of European firms that had certified as B Corps between 2012 and 2018. And as they say, this paper empirically shows that B Corp certification positively impacts the turnover growth rates one year pre versus one year post. Now, obviously we're not saying go and get B Corps certified just to make more money or if you do get certified, you're guaranteed to make more money, not financial advice, et cetera. But I think the evidence is pretty compelling that if you do it authentically and you tell the story correctly to the stakeholders that care and matter and want to hear the story and connect to it, you will have a great business. And that's backed up by this. So this is stats again from B Lab's impact report from last year. 52% of B Corps hired more employees in 2020. So in the middle of a global pandemic, B Corps will hire more. The majority of B Corps are hiring people. 47% of B Corps had employee growth of more than 15% and 2/3 of all B Corps increased their revenue in a global pandemic. And the same similar stats were seen in 20092010 post GFC. So it's not a blip in that regard.

So I will sum up my to be or not to be argument with the words here from Rose Macario, former CEO of Patagonia. The B Corp movement is one of the most important of our lifetime, built on the simple fact that business impacts and serves more than just shareholders. It has an equal responsibility to the community and to the planet. That's it for me.

Thank you.

Hopefully that was five minutes.

No problem. Thank you for that, for kicking us off. And next we're going to go to Brooke from Sharesys who will be sharing Sharesy's experience of completing the B Impact assessment. Over to you, Brooke.

Kia ora koto kte whanganuit.

Opuku oti ka hikahoto toku tangu mahi.

Sokia ore everybody I'm Brooke. I just acknowledge the Manafenu of the land I'm on and I'm the co founder, co CEO and director here at Shezzies. First off, I just love how many people are on this call and if you all became B Corps, we're double the B Corp community here in Aotearoa so that's exciting.

For those that don't know sharesies, we created Sharesies five years ago because we believe that everybody deserves an equal opportunity to grow their wealth. And yeah, we're based in Aotearoa in Australia. And yeah, it's Just been heaps of fun on our journey since we started. So I'll tell you, I'll talk mostly about our first ever application as a B Corp and the interactions we had with B Lab. So the first step was to complete the B Impact Assessment tool. So this is free tool available online and I just recommend every single business should do this assessment and I think it will even help you understand when Tim asked the questions, to be or not to be, everybody do the assessment and then you'll realise whether you're up for making the changes in order to be a B Corp or. Or whether. Yeah, and I think. Or whether.

But that was. We did the B Corp, the B Impact assessment tool.

Before we were pre revenue, when we were just starting. We really wanted to make sure that when we're creating shares is we're creating something that did have a positive impact and was a force for good. And there was a lot of, there's a lot of like buy one, give one models out there. But then you'd hear about like the practices they had with how they treated their people and stuff like that. And you know, like, I really wanted us to not be, not just say, hey, we're a social enterprise, like what are we actually? And I really respect, you know, the B Corp rigor, which you'll hear a lot about through this call. So we did the assessment. There was like 269 or something questions that we went through and we're only a team of 10 at that stage. So like all the information was kind of on hand, but there was a lot of things like, oh yeah, of course we'll do that, but we haven't written that down or we think about doing, you know. But it was really great to see, hey, here's all the things that we're doing that are, well, good at the moment and here's ways that we can improve. But we found that actually we did meet a score that meant that we could apply to be a B Corp. So we clicked the button, I think paid the fee at that stage and then got some great automated comms back from B Lab saying, hey, we've got heaps of applications at the moment, so it could take about six months till you can go through your audit. And we submitted application in November 2018 and by April 2019 we're a B Corp. The next stage, after, after we submitted our application and we got some of those automated responses just to let us know we were at in the queue kind of thing, we then started, we got paired with an auditor who asked for some more information from us to verify the question, the data behind some of the questions that were asked. And then we went through this 90 minute audit which was just such a wonderful experience. I loved it actually. And then afterwards they recalibrated the score and ultimately we became a B Corp. And it's just been an incredible journey since then. And now we're in the process three years on of going through recertification at the moment. So being able to do that all again with, you know, a team of 218 and heaps of changes in our, in our business. But I really, I really like going back and looking at that, the impact assessment tool every now and then and seeing, oh, what could we be doing that could be helping us make even a greater impact? And yeah, we've got Demi here too, who's our beekeeper, who's just been really fantastic at making sure that we're making great movements and strides to be better, essentially. So, yeah, that's a bit about our process and I'm looking forward to hearing more of the other B Corps talk about their experience too.

Thank you, Brooke, for that. That's wonderful. And at this point you might have lots of questions around what this is all, what does it all involve and what support you can get. So we're going to welcome Lauren, who's going to talk from the Belab perspective in terms of some of the resources that are available to you. Over to you, Lauren here, everyone.

It's lovely to be here. And like Brooke, I was just amazed at the numbers that I can see at the bottom of my screen. So it's very, very exciting to have you all here today. So I'm going to, I guess speak to a couple of different things in my section. The first thing, I'm going to give you a little brief overview of what B Corp certification entails. So for those of you who may not be as familiar with the requirements for B Corp certification, we have three key requirements. So the first one we call the performance requirements. So this involves taking the B Impact assessment, which Brooke spoke about before, getting a verified score of 80 points out of the assessment and then certifying. The second is the legal accountability. So this involves adopting the legal framework to embed, purpose and consider all of your stakeholders and then we have transparency. So this is when once you become a B Corp, you get your B Impact score and this gets published on our B Corp directory, which is the global sort of directory where you can, I guess, look up any B Corp anywhere in the world and find out A little bit more about their score and their impact as a business. So to learn more about the requirements you can head to our B Corp guide which I'm going to introduce to you all in a couple of slides time. But that's I guess hopefully a little bit of context and now I'm going to move to the next slide. Thanks Kyulei. Which is what does the B Impact assessment cover? So this is just a really quick glance of the five impact areas that the assessment has. So I won't dive too much into these again. You can read all about them on our B Corp guide. But I guess the main takeaway here is that the certification is really quite holistic. It's not just about how your company is managing your environmental impact, it's how are you interacting and engaging with your customers, what does your supply chain look like, how are your governance structures, how are you taking care of your workers? So it's quite a well rounded certification and I guess that is something that sets it apart from other certifications out there as well. Thanks Kyulei. So we're going to move on to the getting support with your certification. So I've popped a couple of different resources in here which you will get a copy of these slides post workshop so you can have a look at these afterwards. But we've got the Intro to B Corp short course. So this is a free online course that our B Lab team has developed and it's like super interactive. It's really great for companies who are not yet sold on the idea of B Corp. You might be thinking about it still wondering is this for us? Will it suit our business? Really recommend you start with the short course because it gives you a really good picture of sort of, I guess our Australian Oshawa community. There's heaps of videos and interviews and it also goes through a lot around the benefits of certification and why companies are going through the process themselves. The second one there is the B Corp guide which I've already flagged. So this is really great for any company that is at any stage of the process. It covers out things like eligibility, what the requirements are, how to set up your assessment, tips and tricks to help navigate the assessment and what happens once you submit. So really recommend if anyone's thinking of going down the pathway to certification that is the best place to start. Then we have our Become a B Corp workshop. So we run these both online and occasionally in person when we can and these are really great for business. Who's who just want a little bit of help Want a little bit of support, understanding how to navigate the assessment, maybe a little bit of help around impact improvement work. And they're just really great ways to meet other people who are going on similar journeys to you. And they're run by our B Lab team and also some of our bee facilitators, which is lovely. And then we've got our B consultants who are just such legends and I could not recommend them enough. These are consultants that have been trained up by our B Lab team and they are little experts in the bia. They're great. So I would recommend engaging a B consultant if you really want that sort of one on one tailored support. You know, maybe if you want some help, you know, not only navigating the assessment, but you've got heaps, of course, questions or you want someone to help you sort of project manage the certification journey. They are just truly wonderful and I'm so glad that we now have them available for you all. And then the last one there, which Brooke also touched on, which are the emails from Vlab. So once you start your online assessment you will get automated emails from our team as you progress through your journey. So heaps of like self help articles, really good resources, blogs from other B corps, tips and tricks to really help you along the way and really get you that support at the different stages of your journey. So I hope that these will be very helpful and yeah, look forward to I guess chatting with you all for the remainder of the session. Thanks so much, Mindy, back to you.

Thank you Lauren. And that was really, really useful and encourage you to check out some of the links that we just shared in the chat as well that Lauren mentioned. But we'll also follow it up and in an email with everyone who registered for the webinar. Finally, in next section we're going to hear from Penny Deborce from Riot and Penny's going to talk about using your B Corp certification. Over to you, Penny.

Kia ora.

Thanks Mindy.

Yeah, just echo what everyone else has said. It's fantastic to see so many people here. It's really exciting that we have so many organizations in Aotearoa interested in becoming part of this movement. So I'm from Wright Ltd. I'm also based in T Whanganui Aetau Wellington and we are a plain language consultancy. So we're a bit different. We've been around for 30 years and we only just became a B Corp last year. So probably a little different to some of the organizations that have sort of baked that in as They've been starting up. So you've done the mahi and now you're a B corp. But how do you bring it to life in your business? How do you tell people about it? How do you spread the word about your commitment to using business as a force for good? So I'm going to look at both of external ways you can do that and how you can do that internally within your organization as well. I think with the external stuff, it's about recognizing that any interaction you have with a supplier or a customer is an opportunity to get them interested in the B Corp movement. So, you know, add it to your signature block, your office signage, your invoices, your sales proposals and quotes, any marketing material you send out. We've also added it to our profiles on government procurement platforms. If that's the kind of work you're in. We know that there's a growing interest in ethical business and you just never know who you're going to reach. If you blog or you send newsletters out to your customers, that's an awesome opportunity to really get into your why behind, why you became a B corp and what it means to you as an organization.

We don't have big ad campaigns, but if you do, clearly that's an opportunity as well, as long as it sort of fits with the message. But I think really with the, with the external messaging, it's all about making sure that you tell people what being a B corp means rather than just kind of slapping a logo on it onto your signature block as well. So I'm going to attempt, bear with me, to share a couple of examples of the way we've done it, which is not to say it's for everyone, but here's a, here's a go. So is that working? Can everyone see my screen? Yeah. Great. Okay, so this is from our website. So what we've done here is just taken our overarching theme, which is using the power of words for good, which we've been living by for quite a few years now, and then sort of showing what that looks like in action and some of the ways we do that. And then in a physical sense we've created some space in our breakout room. This is one of our meeting rooms where we've put on the wall some text that kind of talks about some of the things we do that shows what goes on behind the business. So B Corp's part of that as well as a couple of the other pieces of work that we do which are not related here, but just thought it was a useful way to sort of bring that to life. Some other ways you can do that is really engage with the community. I think, as Tim said, there's an amazing B Corp community in Aotearoa. The forum is a fantastic place to really sort of connect with other B Corps, get some ideas from them and see how you can work together. You know, you can do so much more with the power of two or three of you working together than just trying to do that on your own. Share it on social media there's loads of ways you can create shareable video content or infographics. Support other B Corps and their stories there as well. We found LinkedIn's a really great place to do that. Consider purchasing from other B Corps, which is going to help with that supply chain question later on as well. So if you buy gifts for clients or suppliers, that's a great way to start sort of sharing some of the B Corp stuff. Everyone here is getting fix and fog on their toast this month, but it's just making those opportunities to have a conversation with people about B Corp and why you're involved and what's in it for them. Try pitching some stories. I mean, the news cycle at the moment is try your luck, but you could get some really good media coverage. I know Kiwibank's done that really well with the spinoff recently and that's fantastic to see. So those are some ideas for external things, but I think internal communication is probably the most powerful tool you have, and that's all about supporting your people to live those B Corp values and to be advocates for the mission. Tim shared some fantastic stats earlier about people feeling connected to purpose and feeling like their work has meaningful impact. And we know that people who feel that will naturally share that with their networks, with their family, with their whnau, with their customers. And you know, they'll be happier in their work too, which has got to be good for your business. So make B Corp explicit. I mean, I talk about it all the time. Like people are sick of hearing me talk about B Corp this month, but I think the important share some resources and podcasts and try and find different ways to talk about it because we know that it takes lots of exposures for people to make it stick and things will resonate differently for different people. So you just got to trying a few different ways to connect the dots and help them see how their purpose connects to that sort of B Corp way of thinking. Some other things we've done is we've invited other B Corps to speak at our professional development days about what being a B Corp means to them. And that's been a really powerful way to get people on board and promote the movement more widely as well. You could look at opportunities for people to connect their daily tasks and responsibilities and to purpose and to that B Corp thinking, you know, where are those direct connections to purpose and how can you make more of those? How can you find other ways for people to build purpose and impact and B Corp thinking into their roles? You might like to develop some business frameworks that require you to explicitly factor in B Corp thinking. So that might be a matrix to help you decide what customers you work with or you don't work with. It could be just a question that goes in any, I guess, business case that goes to your senior leadership team. But have you considered all of our stakeholders and the B Corp commitments that we've made when you're making these decisions? So, yeah, lots of ways there. The last thing really is just to invite and reward ideas. So two ways that we've been doing that. One is to invite general ideas about how we could bring B Corp to life at work. That's really useful for helping people to start to see those opportunities and to give them a sense of ownership and participation in that as well. So we've asked for suggestions throughout B Corp month and we've been rewarding people with prizes from different B corps. It's just a little gesture, but it's something, something that really helps people feel connected and that they've got some sort of skin in the game a little bit. With that another way you could do that, as Brooke alluded to, in three years time you get to recertify and there's an expectation that you'll get a better score this time around. So it might be that, okay, you've just been accredited, so give yourself a year to celebrate that. But pretty soon you're going to start thinking about what are you going to do differently to increase your score next time. And so you might identify some specific areas where you want to improve and then take ideas from your team about ways that you can bring that to life. Would highly recommend getting onto that earlier rather than later because three years will roll around incredibly fast. And as Lauren said, there are loads of resources available from B Lab as well. The step by step employee engagement plan is brilliant, as is the B Lab course through Torrens University. Highly recommend getting all of your people so to do that as well. So yeah, some top tips. That was a whirlwind tour, but Namahi thank you very much.

That's fantastic. Thank you so much, Penny. And now we're going to introduce four new voices to this conversation today. Very exciting. And then we're going to go into Q and A. I love that all the questions are coming in now, so keep that coming. It's going to be a great Q and A session. So in this next session, we'll have four B corps, including Julia Jackson, who is the head of Purpose and Sustainability at kiwibank. In her role, Julia is responsible for setting the purpose and sustainability strategy for kiwibank, which means that she helps businesses to consider how they can enable financial education for Tamariki, financial security for Kiwi, and sustainability for businesses to help Aotearoa to be better off. Julia works to ensure that Kiwi bank demonstrates best practice in all areas of sustainability, including but not limited to, B Corp certification. For the roundtable, we also have Anika Speedy, who is the general manager of Dignity. Dignity provides free period products through two impact initiatives, a Buy one, Give One Partnership for Business and gifting initiatives for the benefit of Kiwi workplaces, youth and community groups. They believe that no one should miss out on opportunities simply because they have their period. Incredible. We also have Mike Carroll, who is the founder and principal consultant of Brightly, which is an independent IT services company, working with businesses to create positive impact through it.

Mike founded Brightly to bring together leading technology solutions with a drive to work towards social justice and climate impact. And I know that Mike has been the force behind their B Corp certification as well. Last but not least, we have Claire Everett, who is the People Experience Manager at Springload, which is Wellington's largest independently owned agency, digital agency. Claire is passionate about organizational consistency and she makes sure that Springload's values are baked into their processes and policies. Claire is also a keen member of the B Corp community and she loves to organize meetups for the folks in Wellington. So maybe when you're there you can join for an online get together or an in person coffee at Peoples on Luke's Lane. So in the next 20 minutes we're going to throw some questions at our panelists, but we have a few and to start off with.

So for the first question that I want to throw to our panelists is the question of why, Why B Corp for your organization? And I'm going to go in the order that we've just introduced our panelists, so starting with you, Julia, and then we'll go to Anika, Mike and Claire.

Cool, thank you. And I think for us, kiwibank was set up with A really clear purpose. But when we were starting to look at in 2020, when we began this journey, we started to have really good conversations around actually we say we're purposely but how do we prove it and how do we know where we are currently at? So for us our why was quite strongly grounded in really wanting to have an honest and independent assessment of where we stood. So you know, where were we sitting, where was our baseline? And then secondly being able to actually hand on heart say that some of the things that we do, the decisions that we make are aligned with our purpose. So having that external verification of yes, we are operating in a way that is considering our stakeholders, that is purpose led was really what drove us to to take the leap and go down the certification pathway.

Awesome. Thanks Julia. Over to you, Anika.

Thank you. Yes, when Dignity was founded, we were actually two years into the journey when we went for BIQU certification and as we found at that stage my outta university 23, 24 and purposely business, social enterprise and it was about having some credibility I think and having that external like you're saying Julie, having an external validation of our values. That was all about accountability, all about sustainability, all about transparency and just seeking some validation and just living our values. Because I think it's really, really easy to live your values when things are going well and things are all good. Something like Covid comes along, you get this blip. I think it's really important to be held accountable to those values and it just ensures that we are continuing to live our purpose and following our mission, really. So yeah, that was us.

Thank you.

Oh, I think you were just on mind.

Sorry about that. You think I was going to get that by now? That's right. Over to you, Mike. What brightly story on B Corp certification?

Yeah. Kia Ora. So for us very, very similar. I think there are a couple of key things. One was that fundamentally the system of business and a capitalist enterprise are just kind of broken. It's just not working. So there was that general understanding and some of that was around kind of, you know, setting up the business to begin with. But then it was really making sure that those good intentions actually have some weight behind them and for us, for ourselves, that we know that what we're doing is making a positive difference, that we are holding ourselves to account for that and looking for again beyond just a certification, but a community and a movement that's creating kind of broader system change, particularly as a tiny business, essentially that we can be part of a growing movement. They have a much wider impact than we would ever do on our own.

Thanks, Mike. Last but not least, Claire.

Hi, everyone.

I think that.

We, I think that when we've discovered B Corp, we were just so impressed by the, by the values behind the movements and the, the rigorous assessment of businesses that it made us just stop and think this is just really cool and we want to be a part of it.

And the fact there were so many.

Big names and that it was, it was really taking off and we. Yeah, so, and when we started to look into it and then the more we went down the path and realized that it wasn't just something you could just pay to get a certificate and that really just made us go, yeah, I think this is the one that's we're going to, we're going to go, you know, go for. And. Yeah, and I think we could see the value in definitely our clients and our potential clients. And. Yeah, and yeah, it just really spoke to us.

Thanks so much, Claire. And so the next question I have for the panelists is how did you get buy in? And assuming, you know, for an organization like Kiwi bank, there would be number of stakeholders that need to be engaged in the, in the value proposition as well as the, you know, this kind of commitment to sustainability. So the question is, yeah, what you had to do to bring others in your organization along the journey. And we'll start with you again, Julia.

Yeah, definitely. I think it's such an important part, particularly if you are in a, a larger organisation with a few different moving parts. You are going to require, you know, people from across the organisation to help you when you're completing the B impact assessment. You know, there's lots of different components, so you do need those people on board with you. We were, I think the honest story is that we had tried a couple of times just sort of within the sustainability team to go actually, should we have a go at seeing if we could meet the minimum requirements for B Corp pre2019 and not really gotten that buy in because we were trying to do it sort of on the side of the desk. And so I think my key point would be make sure that you get the key decision makers on board really early. And that's what happened in 2019, in November, when we actually had conversations with our executive team, with our CEO and said, we think this is the accreditation that is right for us for the sort of the reasons I took that before and probably the one that I was reminded of is, Claire, you were speaking that. I think one of the best things about B Corp is that it's really honed into the impacts that are appropriate for the sector size and country that you're operating in. So the questions that Kiwibank received on our B impact assessment were different to what Springload and Brightly and Dignity would have had. And I think that's one of the real benefits for it. So when we started to have those conversations and actually explained what the process was about, what we were going to get out of it in terms of that baseline of where we're at and potentially if we manage to get certification, then some of that reputational benefit we can get from that as well. But really important to go in with that full buy in from the top and then once you've got that, it's easier for people in the business who are going to have to help you on the journey to actually understand where this sits in terms of organizational priorities. The other thing I'd probably say that was quite important for us is not sugarcoating it. So, you know, don't go in and try and say, hey, this is going to be something that's really easy. We'll get it done really quickly. You know, it'll be, it'll be a nice logo for us to have. B Corp for us is about being really honest about, you know, committing to our purpose and committing to doing things differently. So if you don't have your senior leaders understanding that up front, I think it becomes really difficult. So in hindsight, one of the things I'm really glad that we did throughout our journey, but from the beginning, sort of at that 2019 point, was we did start to talk to our board as well. And we started to talk to them quite deliberately because even though we knew that the legal requirement wasn't actually in place in New Zealand yet, so you didn't actually have to make those constitutional changes, but we knew it was likely to be coming and we really wanted to make sure that they were on board and understood that and again supportive of that journey before we did a whole bunch of work.

Thanks Julia. That's really, really helpful, especially when you're working in the size of organization like Kiwibank to have that early buy in and the resourcing to be able to get the job done. What about for an organization like a startup like Dignity? Anika?

First I mute myself. Well, Dignity at that stage really was two co founders and two other part time workers and I actually came on board after I came on board actually in the auditing process. So my job was actually the proof side of it. But I think is that it was just so integral to dignity was set up as a social enterprise. It was set up as an impact driven business. So everything we do is around creating impact and addressing the needs at that stage of period poverty and the fair and equitable access to period products. Everybody. So I think it was, was just totally ingrained in the ethos and just.

Way of being really so there wasn't really, I guess was just inherent and so it just seemed a natural progression and a natural sort of certification just fit with what we were doing already which is one of the benefits. There's pros and cons of being small, but that's one of the benefits of being a small team. You don't really have to get that external buy in.

Yeah, thanks Annika. And Mike, you're the co founder so you probably made the decision but did you have to bring other folks along and maybe you can talk a little bit about like what you had to do as well?

Yeah, totally. I think for us, you know, it was so well aligned for us as a business that it wasn't a hard decision in terms of whether we wanted to do it. The really difficult thing as a small and growing business was whether it was the right time and the resources to dedicate to it. But it's such a useful tool. So in terms of, you know, what we needed to do, it was a lot of it was around making some decisions around how we wanted to work. And again as a small and growing business, there are a lot of things that we didn't necessarily have in place in terms of policies and so on. So we were able to pretty rapidly make the decisions that needed to be made because the decision makings, decision makers were an integral part of the process, but also put together the resources to demonstrate for ourselves and for B Lab that we had those things in place and then we're following through with what we said we're going to do. And all of those things have just paid off massively as we've grown. It's all incredibly useful stuff for a small and growing business.

Yep.

That's awesome. And Claire?

Yeah. I was thinking about how a lot of the journey of doing the impact assessment and I guess the first six months after you've been accredited is a lot of documenting things you already do and often just thinking about getting buy in when right at the beginning when we're like, oh yeah, we do that. Oh we absolutely do that. We should write it down. And that kind of makes it feel like less of a barrier because you're already on the journey. And I imagine lots of people here today are already, you know, their recycling stations are probably beautiful and they're looking into offsetting their carbon emissions. And I think that you're already amongst friends. So actually having the conversation about taking it to the next step.

It'S not as scary as it can sound.

Yes, you're doing it with others, which is part of the joy of the journey. Okay, I'm going to ask one last speedy question and then I'm going to throw it to QA to moderate the questions that have been coming in from our audience. So the last question I have is the what does it take? How long did it take you in terms of hours for your organisation as well as from the start to end, you know, number of months?

Julia?

Yeah, so we.

Just made the decision in November, as I've talked about, and I sort of set myself a goal because I think with the B impact assessment, which is the key piece of work at Can Drag, so I submitted that by Christmas. So December 2019, we got an analyst assigned in around March and it took about three months then of working through that. So, yeah, probably all up sort of a seven or eight month process. We were, I think, lucky in some ways that we got an analyst assigned relatively quickly. I know not everyone has that same journey, but I think, you know, setting yourself some clear goals and deadlines for it as well can definitely help keep things moving.

And Julia, what was the process like getting to that point? So prior to submitting, you know, getting the assessment done.

Yeah, I mean, it does take a lot of work. You don't show it. Take my own advice. It, you know, it does take For a large organization, we needed information from so many different people across the organisation, from the people team, our customer teams, our legal teams, our procurement properties, all of that sort of stuff. So it takes quite a lot to actually just facilitate all of that. One of my sort of little tips is you can download the B impact assessment onto an Excel spreadsheet. Highly recommend you do that. We added another column which was just basically people who are responsible for each different question. And then it becomes sort of like a project management of making sure that they're clear on when their deadlines are and all that sort of stuff.

And then you're into sort of, once you've gotten all of those initial responses, you're also then into the verification stage where you have to actually provide evidence for all of those questions. So then you're going back to those people and actually making sure that they understand.

You know, how we can prove what we say we are doing. One of the big things for us was actually the disclosure questions. That was probably the most challenging for us, if I'm honest. And so we often talk about the bit. Well, I just talked about the big impact assessment, which is the 200 and however many questions which are scored, there's also these unscored questions which is called the disclosure questionnaire. And as a bank, those were some of the biggest things that B Corp really wanted to understand from us in terms of basically who and how we lend money. And that making sure that we were really clear around how we were getting that information to them, that we had clear data and that we were clear around what we were actually doing took quite a lot of back and forth with our analysts just to make sure we'd answered all of that, all of those questions sufficiently because that's reviewed by basically an independent committee. So it's not like with the B impact assessment, at least you sort of know immediately, you know, whether you meet that requirement for that question or not. With the disclosure questions it is a little bit more subjective. So there was quite a lot of back and forth for us on that one.

Thanks, Julia. Anika, how long did it take you?

So I came on board, it was just after Jacinta, one of my co founders, had submitted the application. I believe it took her around six months of pretty intensive because she actually pretty much did everything herself. So just one, one person, a lot of it did exist. That was huge. And then I came on board and it probably took about three to four months with I guess the validation. And as, as we've heard before, a lot of it was just writing stuff down because we're a really small team and you take for granted that there's this beautiful method in other be called recycling bins in the, in the kitchen. But it's kind of like, okay, just making sure that we actually formalize the process that we, we do use them for the intended purpose and taking it a step further, encouraging people to do that at home or encouraging us when we're in our storage unit, for example, where there might not be bins that we also keep everything to take away and recycle. So it's just putting those actually having the proof, but also really thinking about how we do things and things we just assume, because all of us here are already on the journey, you're already thinking in your day to day life anyway about sustainability, about the environment and about impact. But in terms of, not everyone is far on the journey or thinks that way. So it's just formalizing that, documenting it and just having it written down. So it's a fantastic process to go through. Just takes a bit of time. So I think, as everyone says, start, start now, just write it down. Anything that comes up that you do, just have it written down and then it makes it so much easier. So probably all up, I'd say probably 9 to 12 months. The only one hack out we had was that our buy one give on model didn't fit the traditional framework within the B Corp. So we had. There was a little bit of changing around in terms of where we fit in and that was just a little bit of extra, extra work. But because we're so small, it's very easy for us to adapt and make those changes.

Thanks, Anika and Mike. How long did it take you and what was the process?

Yeah, it was probably pretty similar to dignity in terms of overall time frame. I think we did have an initial go at it and sort of hit a couple of roadblocks in terms of understanding what it meant for our business model. In terms of as an IT supplier, we have predominantly a services business, but we do sell hardware. And so suddenly it's like, okay, what's the process around that? And there are a few things that we actually hadn't thought about up front. And so we sort of had a second round where we went back, back to it. And again, from a, I guess, a resourcing point of view, we had an opportunity when we brought on some new team members to kind of make it a key focus for them. That helped kind of keep the momentum going and drive it through for us. So, yeah, all up. I'd say it's pretty, pretty similar. A good sort of six months to get to submitting the impact assessment and then a few months to kind of get through that process and kind of complete the documentation and so on.

Thanks, Mike. Is that similar for you too, Claire?

You're still on mute.

Unmuted.

Yes.

I actually only came in, I came back from parental leave in the last couple of months of the application. So I got to do all the fun documentation, which is honestly fun for me. And I'm working with B Lab and then got all the glory at the end when, you know, I'd just been.

There for the last bit.

Cool. Well, hopefully that gives you a sense of the level of resourcing that you need in the journey that you're about to embark on if you're interested in becoming part of the B Corp community. So now I'm going to hand it over to Kyule to start asking our panelists as well as some of the other B corps who are here today the questions that you've been asking. So over to you qa.

Great.

Thank you guys. Thank you so much for sharing your stories and being so open and honest about the experience. I'm sure it's really helpful for everyone here. So we had a few questions that were submitted prior to the session and we've had a few in the chat here. So we'll try and get through as many as possible. I'm going to go to Brooke first. There was a question specifically for you around kind of maintaining that focus on impact as you grow. It's pretty impressive of going from 10 to 280 in five years. So how have you managed that?

Yeah, so we. Yeah, the question I saw too was about, you know, was it is it harder as you grow? And I think what was fortunate from us doing it from pretty much day one or early on means that it's just grow. It's natural in the way that we work and it's grown with us. And when we do our objectives and key results, you know that just having the sustainable scaling side of our business. So a key part of that has been instrumental over the years. So what we've been more focusing on is like okay, we know we're, we're at this base level and what also happens is every year I think the questions or the standard gets higher because as you know, one what is it is the tide is one is the tide rises, all boats rise. I guess and I think, you know, we're starting to see that as more and more businesses become B Corps, we're increasing the standards of what we're expecting, which I just love. So I think we focus a lot too on what are the areas that we can next. We're really focusing on leveling up on and yeah DMing our beekeepers, keeping us honest to those every, you know and make sure that we're making good traction along the way. So yeah, it's, it's been, I think it's been really fantastic. We've had it embedded so early on.

Yeah, that's my answer.

Nice.

Thank you.

Is that why jump in and add something? I'm just thinking about, I guess if it's with the growth spurts. What we have found is that by.

I guess retrofitting some things back into our onboarding process and.

Really highlighting certain things in the induction around the different B Corp areas especially sustainability and.

I.

Guess the Things that thinking about digital accessibility is a big thing at our company and making sure that everything we build is accessible for everyone using the Internet, which is, you know, lofty goals. But we like lofty goals in the B Corp community. Yes. We found that with the growth spurts, if you start at the beginning of people's employment journey, then it slowly evolves and changes the culture of your company in a really good way to really embed those B Corp processes and values into your team.

Awesome.

Thanks, Claire. Any. Any of the other panel or B corps want to jump in on that?

We'll move on. I've got a question now actually for the B Lab team. So maybe either, either Mindy or Lauren can take this. We've had quite a lot of questions around the how the process might differ for different kinds or types or sort of sizes of companies. Whether you're even just a sole trader, can you be certified versus a company that has thousands of people maybe operating in different countries with subsidiaries and sort of very complex structures. So maybe you can just give us a bit of insight into that.

Yeah, I can take that one. Kyulei, Great question. So I think, Julia, you touched on this before, but every company sort of gets generated a different assessment based on your characteristics of where you're based around the world, your size so your number of employees and then also your industry. So I think, Grace, I was just typing a response in the chat, but I'm going to take the floor and answer your question now. In terms of, like in terms of when companies go for their recertification, if they're, you know, they've grown in the last three years, if they've decreased in the last three years, if you've gained substance subsidiaries in the last three years, if any part of your business has changed, that will be reassessed when you go to recertify. So for sharesies you'll go, they're going through their recertification at the moment. Their assessment looks very different to the one they did three years ago based on the growth that they've had in the last three years. So I hope that makes a little bit more sense. But yeah, so a company who you know and marketing company is going to get a very different assessment as a restaurant, for instance, because they've got very different impacts, their materiality is very different. So it's really important that when you're sort of creating your assessment that you're selecting into those right categories. And again, I'm going to plug the B Corp guide here. We've got a section on how to set up your assessment correctly. So really important that you're getting that right because you really want those questions questions to be accurately, I guess, reflecting and.

Gathering the impact of your business in the best way possible. Because you know, you could have accidentally selected into a wrong category and been like, why am I getting all these manufacturing questions when I don't manufacture the products that I sell? So, really important, that would be my, probably my number one pick tip. Consult the guide and make sure that you set your assessment on the right track from the very start.

And my other. Sorry, Kule, my last thing is if you are a complex sort of larger business and you've got multiple subsidiaries or you're a subsidiary and you've got a parent company and you want to certify independently, if you've got more than 250 employees, feel free to contact us directly at B Lab because there might be some additional requirements that you might have to go through. Thank you, Mindy. Yes, send us an email at certificationcorporation because we might have to do some extra, I guess, scoping of your business and see what the best certification pathway forward is for you and the entity that you want to certify.

Yeah, I just wanted to add to that. So that was really useful for us because otherwise, if we hadn't done that initial engagement, there were a couple of things. One, because ultimately we're owned by three crown entities, could we even certify as well? So the BE Lab team helped us do that initial assessment, but I think also what they found through that is the track that we'd chosen for ourselves would have been quite wrong. And so then we would have done all these questions and then had to go and do them again. So that was really useful. And then the other thing I just saw sort of on the process thing, there was a question around large organisations, so I just wanted to sort of quickly speak to a couple of things that we had to do which were a little bit different as a large entity. So one was that we had two analysts looking at all of our stuff, and so sometimes they had different questions because they'll review things slightly differently. But then the other thing, which actually I think was probably one of the best things and really lucky that we got to do it in terms of the employee engagement and understanding of B Corp, is that they wanted to interview two people from our Frontline that B Corp just chose at random. So we sent them essentially a list of our employees with their employee numbers, and very randomly they said, okay, we want to speak to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. And another person. So, and that's really, I think, was actually a really interesting sort of step that they add for large organizations of going, hey, you've got all these policies and you'd say you do all these things, but actually, like, how does the rubber hit the road for the people who are having conversations with customers every day? And so, you know, it was someone from our contact center and someone from our operations team, which, you know, luckily in our report that we got back from B Corp, they said it was one of the, you know, they could see the passion and the connection to our work shining through. But actually, for a large organization, there is a moment of truth there where you go, really, how does this land for our people? So again, speaking to the robustness of the process, I think it sort of shows you how they do, how B Corp has tried to really think quite deeply about ensuring that companies that go through the certification, they are being held to a really high standard.

I'll jump in there as well, just to pick up, I guess, a few of the questions that have come in the chat regarding who can certify. And the process is different. As Lauren said, B Corp certification.

Is aimed for businesses. So if you're a company and in different legal structures, including sole traders, can certify. And there was a question that asked about social enterprises with potentially a charitable structure. And in New Zealand we actually have a precedent where Kilmanok Social Enterprise was able to certify as a company with charitable status, but they were able to show. So there were some additional steps that were involved showing that the company is not relying on their charitable status to earn income ongoingly. So we're not going to go into details of that, but if that's a situation that you're in, definitely contact us in the same email and we can walk you through those processes. But the question about value proposition is that, yes, I absolutely think that certification is for social enterprises as well, because this is a framework that enables any organization to continuously improve their impact over time. So, yeah, hopefully that answers the question. And was there anything else that we have missed?

Kyulei No, I think that covers most of the questions that have come in around that. But if you've obviously got any more, feel free to pop them in the chat. We're going to dive into the weeds now with a more practical question that came through before the webinar around collecting data for your green credentials. So how, for any of the businesses that have been through certification, how did you go about collecting that Data and do you have any tips?

Anyone want to come forward or else I'll pick on someone I can.

So yeah, so we. Well before we were a B corp, we had already been offsetting our carbon emissions for quite a number of years. So we were able to use the reports created by the company we work with to offset our carbon emissions to break down the data and I suppose going back a step, those who don't already offset their carbon emissions, most of the data collecting to do that comes out the accounting system. So you can look for flight purchases, taxi purchases, electric bills and then there's I guess the waste to landfill which you know, we estimated by literally weighing a rubbish bag at the end of a day and think that's probably a day's worth. We're starting to get a little bit more granular. We're trying to actually collect the real data over a certain amount of time to see what we are sending to landfill. But they're the main sources I guess of the carbon side of things.

Trying to think what else is in the there. There's definite questions in there about water use, if that's something you monitor and even air quality I believe, which is something that there are people in New Zealand who can come and assess the air quality of your office if that's something you choose to do.

Yeah, so yeah, that's a bit about the practical stuff.

She always jump on there too because for example a lot of like external suppliers. So for example we partner with organic initiative and so they as an organic business they have their own certifications that we were able to use. We do a lot of work with main freight, for example, a lot of distribution and they're amazing, they provide all the spreadsheets. I think a lot of the larger suppliers of businesses you're partnering with have all that information anyway. So you're there to sort of provide new information to add to what you're doing. And like Claire, we offset our carbon so that information is already there. So I think you probably surprised at how much actually is there and is actually available. It's just drawing on it rather you don't have to sort of recreate everything yourself as well.

Nice.

And Anika, I'm just going to follow on on that because we also had a question around suppliers and how to the best way to get data from your suppliers. Would you have any insights on that kind of. Do you, do you share an audit, a questionnaire or is it just sort of open question?

Yeah, we just ask them. I mean we do it, we sort of have partnered with ecosystem. So we're sort of in terms of measuring our carbon. So they have set parameters and formulas and spreadsheets that we send the suppliers as part of that process. So that that already existed. But as some of the smaller ones, it's just a matter of literally just contacting them and saying, hey, this is what we're doing, this is what we need. And some of them, for example, like our footprint is so small it's almost negligible. So it's just a matter of just taking some, some base numbers and doing some information. But yeah, mainly it's there, there's a lot of templates, calculators that already exist that you can just tap into and use and get the supplies to fill out. If they don't do that already, which I would say probably the majority of them would be doing it already in some shape or form for their own business.

Great, thank you.

Jump in on that one.

Yeah, go for it, Tim.

Yeah, a couple of things I guess a lot of companies that we help have been stuck because they're trying to kind of do as much good as they can in year, you know, year one or first time certification. But I think you end up in that paralysis analysis where you end up not doing the certification. So we just typically advise year one get over 80. But don't sweat the small stuff of trying to be a 150 point B corp in year one unless you're genuinely really close to it. And some companies get quite competitive about trying to become a best for the world competitor in year one. And if you do, if you're close to it, that's cool. So year one just aim to be a B corp because you're going to see so many and to even get 80 out of 200, which is what you need to get, you're outperforming almost every other business business on the planet. So don't get scared that, you know, we're only just an 80 point B corp.

A lot of the companies we're helping and I think in general supply chain visibility is just not something that many businesses have had to think about. So again, don't be too concerned if you haven't. If you're like, I don't know about the environmental impact of my suppliers, not many people do that. And as Anika said, you know, it's depending on how close you are to your suppliers. It can just be a quick survey that you send out to them and you can click all the, all the questions from the assessment that are looking at your supply chain and send that survey. But it's nicer if you can actually go and have that conversation with them because then you're sending the signal to your supply chain that, hey, we're going on a bit of a journey. We'd like you to come on this journey with us and that's how we can kind of help grow the movement. And yeah, I guess on the sort of getting to the points really most businesses will either do exceptionally well on two sections of the five or will do pretty well across all five. So again, if you're not hitting your points on supply chain, don't worry about it because you'll probably be able to go deeper on typically Kiwi businesses score really well on the workers section because we're nice people, we look after our people. So yeah, don't get too scared about smashing it first time around.

Awesome.

Thank you, Tim.

Some good insights there, particularly around collaboration. I love that, you know, it really helps businesses work down, you know, across their supply chain and with people in the same industry as well. Going to come back to the B Lab team. So maybe one for you, Mindy around, there was a question about the legal framework and whether that can be implemented before the bia. And also another question I just thought you could answer two in one about the growth of the movement and whether kind of where we're seeing that is just small businesses. Are we seeing more large businesses? Try and certify. Could you speak a bit to those trends?

Sure. So on the legal requirement, the short answer to that question is yes, it can be met before and it will be verified at certification. So we talked about the performance requirement of 80 points. There's a question in the governance section called Mission Lock that awards points for meeting the legal requirement prior to certification. So I'm going to pop a link here in the chat that gives you details about what is needed and the timeframes that different companies have to meet this requirement. But it really involves including a purpose clause and a stakeholder clause in a company's constitution.

To embed stakeholder governance. And that's sort of the legally, that's legally embedding purpose in your organization. And having met that prior to certification gains you the kind of full 10 points available in that Mission Lock question.

And highly recommend going to the how to guide that gives you the different legal forms and the steps needed for those legal forms. And what do you have to do sort of before you make the legal change as well as after you amend the consequences institution. The second question is around.

The growth of the movement. And yes, the B Corp movement has been. The early adopters have been kind of small to medium enterprises. As I talked about earlier, the first company in New Zealand was egoprotect that certified in 2012. But in the last several years we've really seen an increase of demand and interest from companies of all size and sectors. But predominantly we're seeing more in the kind of large company space as well. And we have different processes. As Lauren talked about earlier, if you are a large company and complex organization over certain thresholds, there are additional steps for you. So we're really excited that we have all types of businesses and all sizes involved because, you know, big companies have big impact as well. So imagine one decision the impact that can have. So yeah, we welcome really businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Great.

Yeah.

And I'm just going to jump in and answer one quick question from Pete there around whether there's an indigenous framework within B Corp to assist certification for MORI organizations. So this is something we're really interested because to look at and learn more about and I think, you know, having me just start in this role, it's a great time to start that conversation in Aotearoa and figure out how we can align those two things. So if that's something that you're particularly interested in and have ideas on, I'd love to hear from you. We're very much just in the kind of discovery learning phase and trying to figure out what direction to take that. So we'd love to talk to anyone that interested in that space.

Another question now for any of the B Corps, what were some of the unexpected hurdles that you had during the certification process? Anything that took longer or was a bit harder than you expected?

I think the one thing I wasn't as aware of is, and Tim was so good with what you said before is I think when I did the assessment our school was like out of this world. And then it got brought back to reality through the audit. So and I thought I was answering it right, but I think, I guess I didn't really realize the rigor or the documentation requirement side of it. So I think we're way better placed for that this time. But I think like don't be disheartened by that and be. And also if you are going into the application with just around the 80, maybe think about what are ways that you could get that up a bit so that you're in a good stead when it does come to the auditing time. That's probably one little tip.

Yeah, I'd echo that, Brooke. We were like, yeah, we're well over. Oh, sad face. I think one of the hurdles we had was, Lauren, you're right on the money. Trying to find the right pathway from the outset made a huge difference. We started out the wrong way and then had to kind of redo. So I guess spending a little bit of time up front, really thinking about what your pick a path story is going to look like, will really help you streamline that process and make sure that you're answering the right questions. That will really reflect your materiality as an organization.

And I think for me, companies that we tend to work with that have been going, they felt like they've had a solo operator, they've had like the concerned citizen or the sustainability manager running it by themselves and they've been doing it in isolation and it's rigorous but achievable. But you get to a point where it's like, I can't see the wood for the trees. The companies that. And I think, you know, we've definitely heard this from all the other B corps. Bring the team on the journey and it will help you share the load of, you know, instead of Julia having to go and find all the information for the assessment, it's like, hey, HR team, can you go and help me with this properties team? Yeah. But even in smaller teams, so we typically say create one person as a king or queen bee and then get a team of beekeepers around them to go and help them find the information. And it just brings the B corp to life on a day to day basis. Exactly. You know, sort of Penny was saying as well about bringing that purpose to life. Yeah, spread the load. Don't, don't do it by yourself if you can help it.

Great.

Yeah. And just following on from that, Tim, that we did have a question there from Patrick about the best way to go about stakeholder engagement and how you kind of keep this at forefront of their mind. Have you seen from the businesses that you've worked with any, you know, really practical tips for how to keep people engaged?

Yeah, I mean, like I say, internal stakeholders is possibly the most important if you get the team involved in it. And increasingly, you know, four or five years ago, we'd normally have someone like a Julia, a concerned citizen in the company saying, hey, can you help us sell this to the C suite? And the board now we're getting people coming to us saying, hey, the board have said, I need to go and look at B Corp. What? I want a bit more information. So Definitely getting get all your internal team on board. But I think the earlier you can engage external stakeholders and you know, in the governance section there are questions around stakeholder engagement. You know, do you know who your stakeholders are? And a lot of people when we're at that point they go, what is a stakeholder? Well, in the B Corp world it's pretty much anyone and everyone, including the planet. So you know, the quicker you can connect with as many of your stakeholders that are important to you and you're important to them, the better. And it's almost like, you know, trying to work out how you're interacting with them, what good do you provide to them but also what are you doing that's maybe not so good? So the quicker you can have those conversations with more people, A, you're going to get recognition on the assessment but B, it's going to help you create that stronger, more resilient business which is ultimately where you're going to see the real value, you know, in terms of that pure economic return on your assessment because the stakeholders see what you're doing and that and you know, you're co shaping how you're performing as a business, which is really what the whole, you know, B stands for. Benefit Corporation. How are you benefit benefiting more than just your shareholders? So yeah, and that's going to be different and harder. You know, sometimes for smaller businesses it's a bit harder because, you know, but equally for big businesses you've got lots of stakeholders.

So yeah, thank you. I've got probably just one more, two more questions and we just, we might not have time for the networking today but we, if anyone wants to kind of pop anything else in the chat and you know, hopefully this, the demand for this webinar means that we'll have many more in the future and lots of opportunities for people to connect, which is really exciting. So don't worry, you'll be hearing a lot more from me and from us about future opportunities in the future.

So I've got one more question for maybe for Lauren around. We had a question submitted previously around templates for best practice and kind of how much support a business might get going through the certification if they don't know how to write a policy on X, Y and Z, what support is there for them?

Great question. The best, I guess assessment tip I can give anyone on this call is in each of the questions in the assessment on the top left hand corner there's a little button that says learn more. That is your best friend. If you click the learn More button. It gives you definitions, it gives you examples that other B Corps are using. It gives you implementation tips. So whenever you're reading a question and you're thinking, I don't really understand it, or is there something that I could be doing that I'm not doing, definitely hit the little Learn More button. The second thing, I would say that once you have a B Impact assessment account, at the very bottom of any page in the footer, there's this resource called the Knowledge Base. And this is sort of like our BIA Wikipedia online portal with a bunch of sort of self help guides. And there's a really great best practice practice section where we've got templates that B Lab has created around creating a supplier code of conduct or how to implement an environmental management system, or, you know, how to implement justice, equity and inclusion in your organization. So I might get our follow up. I'll make sure our follow up email includes that as well because it's just a really good, I guess, spot to start because like you've heard many people on the call say, it's, you know, a lot of people are doing the things, but it's formalizing the things that's the hard part. And quite often people don't know where to start. And you know, we're all about not reinventing the wheel so we can all use things that everyone has created. So I'll be sure to put that in the email because they're super handy to have.

Great.

Also add in there. The actual B Corp community is amazing in this space.

A lot of I've spent a lot of time going onto the forum and how do you do that and what does that mean for you guys and your business and using the other B Corps to help me kind of benchmark.

What that means for us.

And, and I have received many templates and other people's policies to try and help us build things. So. So yeah, the B Corp community is really great there too.

Awesome. Thank you. All right, we're gonna start to wrap up now. I'm sure everyone's probably getting hungry and wants some lunch, but I'd just love the panelists to share one quick final piece of advice. It could be something that you've already said today, but what do you know? What's the most important thing? And for everyone else in the room to also just start thinking about your key takeaway for today and start to pop that in the chat as well. So I will start with Penny. What's your biggest piece of advice?

I think it's Take everyone with you. Really help people to see that connection between having purpose, their impact and what that means as an organization. I think if you do that, then yeah, you've got a whole bunch of allies who are helping you to make it real and it just becomes a lovely virtuous circle where feeds itself.

So great, thank you, Anika.

I think one thing that we haven't touched is we've talked a lot about trying to get points and losing points and the auditing process and it all sounds really, really scary and really intimidating. But I mean, B Corp is here to get businesses certified as a B Corp. So the whole process is geared around helping you to get what you need. And so the auditing process is. It sounds really scary, but really, it's just, it could be 90 minute from us. It was a two hour conversation with someone who's literally going through step by step with you and saying, okay, for this particular question, this is what you can do to get more points and talking about it, having a dialogue and so actually helping you and talking you through on that journey. So it's actually nothing to be afraid of and in fact it's something to actually embrace and welcome. The auditing process is actually really, really positive and it's really, really helpful and it's designed to get you over the line and it's all designed to get you where you need to be. So thank you.

Great, thanks.

Annika, Claire, piece of advice.

I am going to say.

Well, I'm.

Going to say start writing things down and start that process of just thinking all those things we do ad hoc. Start documenting them. And I would say document them in a way as if if somebody new joined your business tomorrow, how would you explain how you live your, you know, how you live in your business to that person? And then you're going to be well on the way to taking steps to sharing everything you do with B Corp and your team.

Awesome. Julia.

Adding to everyone else's great advice, I'd say probably just give it a go. You know, don't be afraid of just getting into the B impact assessment, answering as many questions as you can and seeing if it's right for your business. You're going to get something out of it, sort of. Brooke, I'm sort of stealing your advice in some ways, but you know, I think we definitely found that as well. Give yourself a deadline, get into it and make the most of it because undoubtedly you will learn something along the way.

Great stuff, Mike.

Yeah, I think if I can be cheeky and offer a couple One is on the back of what Julie was just saying is to make the most of the opportunity to look at your business and how you can improve it. The certification process is such an excellent, holistic way of looking at your organization. Use that especially, you know, coming from the perspective of kind of small and growing businesses, it really helps you get a fantastic framework in place and it helps you look at, you know, what you're really doing in terms of impact. And it's. It gives you that opportunity to kind of go make some changes in a significant way. And the other is just to embrace the community. It. I think in the past, trying to kind of have an impact and make change within organizations, you often feel like you're fighting a headwind. And I think that what we're seeing now is across the board, within the B Corp community and wider, there's such a significant momentum behind it. So, you know, if it's feeling hard or if it's feeling like, you know, insurmountable or you're wanting some tips, reach out to the community. We're all really, really keen to see it grow and can see the benefits. And we're, as Claire was saying, fantastic at helping each other out and sharing those resources.

Okay, last two bits of advice, go to Brooke and then Tim.

Kia ora. I'll just build on all of this and really go about. Share the Araha. So you've done the bkl, the B Impact Assessment Tool. You're about to do it. Share the Araha. Tell your other business owner mates or whoever to give it a crack too, because the more of us that join this community, the better society will be.

If you don't do it today, you'll be one day older when you do start it.

So.

Great.

Yeah, I do hear the B Lab team saying that everyone, you know, it's not. And if you'll become a B corp, it's when sort of one of the things I've heard in my first few weeks here. So definitely get ahead of the game. All right, thank you all so much. Please do feel free. Yeah, as Mindy has said, share your key takeaways in the chat there, but we'll. We'll wrap up bang on 1:30. So thank you so much to all of our speakers for sharing their knowledge today.

Yeah.

Giving up your time. It's. It's hugely appreciated by us and the rest of the New Zealand business community and I'm really looking forward to continuing the conversation and meeting a lot more of you in person soon Now, Mackie, thank you.

And That's a wrap. Thank you so much for tuning in 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 at www.growgood.co. until next time, be.