#47 Russ Stoddard - The OG B Corp Unit of Impact!

Cool, right? Well, we are live streaming, so, yeah. Kia ora, everyone. Or shimai if we go on the Welsh side of my. My family. Kia ora from New Zealand. I don't know. Russ is in America. We'll just go with a good old hi, I suppose, or hello.

You know, my part of the woods. We'd say howdy.

Howdy. There we go. That's what we like. Yes. So with, with me today, I have got Russ Stoddard, who I think, Russ, it would be fair to say you are up there as a B Corp legend hall of famer. And if you're not, there should be a B Corp hall of fame and you should definitely be in it. I feel like I've been, you know, talking B Corp smack for a couple of years and trying to convince people, but I kind of feel like you've been doing it for a little bit longer than me. So. Yeah, Russ, quick intro. Like, who are you? What are we. What are we doing talking to you today?

Who am I? Well, I live in Boise, Idaho, over here in the States. Right now, I'm up in the small city of Salmon, Idaho, population 3,000 and it snowed six inches last night, so it's starting to feel like winter here. I am the founder of Oliver Russell, which is a social impact branding firm. We first certified as a B Corp in December of 2011. So almost 11 years ago. I think we. It's funny to see the growth. I think we were B Corp number 299.

Oh, nice. That's got a nice ring to it.

Yeah. Yeah, it does. Although I've got a buddy in Boise and they were in the first 50 or 60, so he always like throws that card at me. Anyhow, we. We hopped on Ernie board and we also became our state's first public benefit corporation in 2011. In addition to those, I've joined with two other B Corps and co founders, Alina Panchevsky of Ramsay and Lisa Hare of Unity Web Agency to create unit of Impact, which is a new startup we're launching to help small businesses measure and report their impact.

Nice. So you are knee deep in B Corp. Like, I mean recivitis B Corp from way back in the day. So yeah, I feel like any work that I'm doing is definitely standing on the shoulders of giants such as yourselves that have been pushing this. And of course, when, when we first connected on LinkedIn, which I can't remember, probably was been like a couple of years ago now. I don't know, like pandemic years. It's really hard to remember, but I was like, oh, Boise, Idaho. Because, yeah, in my former life as a dirty medical device representative, I was fortunate enough to take quite a few orthopedic and neurosurgeons to a really cool conference that was held in Boise, Idaho, and we'd get to go and ski Sun Valley. So I'm very, very jealous. I've taken the skis away from the corner of my room and I now have my bike because I'm trying to get out on the bike in this. In the summer here in New Zealand. But, yeah, no, very jealous. So, 2011, I think Patagonia certified as B Corp in 2011. B Corp. Number 299.

How did you like B Corp? Where did it come on your radar? How did you suddenly discover this thing?

Oh, it was kind of. It was very serendipitous, Tim. You know, my business started in 1991, and we had a core value being socially responsible. So we always basically did that primarily by giving back to the community. And it was always in. In the heart of our business. And one day I was in a teacher's conference for my fifth grader, and his teacher, who had come to know, said, like, have you ever heard about B Corps? And I was like, no. And she goes, you should be a B Corp. I've just been helping B Corpse down in California, and it'd be perfect for Oliver Russell. So I shit you not, I hopped in my car, I drove back to my office from my son's student teacher conference, and I hopped online and I started going through the certification that day because I was like, oh, this is me. This is what I've been looking for. So that's really how it. How it came in. I just jumped right into it.

Nice. Nice. Yeah, I think that's the same for a lot of people. I was kind of the set. Like, I discovered it by Googling. I was working for a company looking. Looking for, like, a cultural HR tool that could help with some internal challenges. But also I was really interested in business, you know, environmental sustainability. Like, I was kind of going down a bit of a rabbit hole, having had a bit of an early midlife crisis and recognizing that just chasing money as a business didn't seem to be giving us great outcomes for society and the planet. And yes, I like, just Google literally as like, HR fix for business. And somehow B Corp turned up and I went and met someone and they were like, this is what? What someone? Steve Arda from Eagle Protect. Who? Yeah, indoctrinated me and and you've met, have you met Steve over in the States?

I know of him.

You know of him? I think a lot of people know of Steve. He's. He's on his way back. Yeah. To New Zealand shortly, so be good to actually see him again. Have a beer. But yeah, he, he introduced me to the idea of B Corp and similar thing. I was like, oh, my word. Like this just makes complete sense. So, yeah, back in 2011, 299B Corps in the US there can't have been many more than that globally in 2011 because B lab wasn't even a thing over here until 2014. I think Steve might have certified as B Corp in 2012 as B Corp number one in New Zealand. But the global community must have been pretty small at that time.

I think it was still very, very small, limited primarily to the US and maybe Canada at that point in time. So it was just really under the radar. You know, it started what, 2007, maybe? First class of B Corps came in 2008 or so.

Yeah, something like that. Yep.

B Corpse. And then it stayed very, very small. And then sequentially over five years. So if you think about it, we, we certified at the end of five years and there had been 299 years.

Yep.

And that now you look at it and you get, you know, that many over a course of several months, as far as B Corp's go.

Yeah, yeah, well. And the UK has just hit a thousand and I think that's really interesting. So you look at. There's a study that I reference when I'm kind of like, you know, pitching B Corp to potential people. 2018, there was a survey of 150 UK B Corps, which was the total community. In 2018 they're now at a thousand. And I think it took from. Yeah, about 06067 to get from 0 to 4000 B Corps and then a year to get from 4000 to 5000 and we've got to almost 6000 in way under a year. So.

Wow. Well, that kind of growth in the uk, it would show that they've been fairly efficient at moving people through the certification process, unlike other areas of the world.

Yeah, it's not much better in New Zealand. We've got people waiting at the minute, but don't let that stop you. There's lots of cool ways that we can help you manage that. Yeah, yeah. So you, you were running Oliver Russell in a way that was aligned with B Corp, and I think that's quite common. Certainly almost all of the early adopters within B Corp. It was kind of like, we've already been doing this. This is just a way for us to prove that we were doing the good that we thought we were kind of doing. But where did, where did that come from? Like, were you brought up with, with a set of values or were you proven like, have you, have you always run business like a B corp or did you like. So for me, I had a big epiphany of like, I used to be thinking that business was just about making money and that was the environment. You know, working for large multinational medical device companies, like make as much money. Were you always values driven or had, did you have like a transition period of going from like, let's just make.

Money to no transition period really, Tim. You know, I was, it's in my DNA to help others. I was born to serve and I had the.

Good fortune of working for a very large forest products company here in the US that was exceptionally progressive, which is kind of unusual in the forest products industry. And they were a values based business. So I got to see how that was implemented at a large company and I came away from it going like, okay, so when I start my company, I got to make certain that I inculcate a value system into it. And the first aspect of it was to be socially responsible. And I'll never forget, I would always lead new client conversations, you know, trying to prospect new business with talking about our values instead of our skill sets. Want to have you. And one prospective client came in, we did our song and dance and then I later heard back from a member of the community, said, wow, they're pretty sharp folks, but I think they're a bunch of hippies. They're talking about the values of what they can do for the community and the environment and what have you.

So anyhow.

My community is fairly conservative in many regards, so I can understand how to them it was like totally off the wall that there'd be a value based business. That's been an awfully long time ago.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Because I think there's generally two, two types of people who have ended up doing this kind of business for good thing either from day one, like you say, whether it's just from, you know, your upbringing or the environment that you're in, like this idea of just doing good and service has been a thing or yeah, there's people like me that obviously didn't have such good outbreak who were sent on this, on this path. Maybe there's something in the water yeah, had that kind of epiphany moment and I think, I think, yeah, the vast majority of B Corps perhaps to date have been companies that like, well, we've always been doing this. This is a way for us to just connect to a community and movement of like minded people. But I think we're, we're now morphing into this. Hey, look, we realize that maybe we haven't been behaving like a B Corp for most of our time, but now we realize that we do need to. So yeah, it's interesting and I guess it's, it's an open church. We're happy to have anyone who, who wants to be better and, and work out how they can do.

Yeah, I think the pandemic occasioned that with a lot of people, everything from workers reassessing where they were working and how they were spending their time, to customers thinking, okay, I'm going to vote with my dollars, I'm going to actually to see if I can be part of a solution rather than the problem. And then working all the way up to investors who have perhaps the greatest hammer of all, looking at a lot of practices of B Corp as being those that not only minimize risk but also create new opportunities.

Yeah, 100% agree. And that's like, yeah, when we're, when we're talking to people about, you know, should we do B Corp, is it right for us? Pretty much. Those are the four groups of people we mentioned is that you're either going to lose employees or not attract the next generation of employees. Your customers are increasingly going to be interested in how you're doing and what you're doing. And you know, we're even getting some companies now who are like the raw ingredient manufacturer selling to another company who make the thing, who are distributing it into other countries and the retailer is now saying, hey, the customer wants to know what's in your product all the way back to the, you know, the raw ingredients. So that that supply chain pressure is then coming and then investors again talking this week with a couple of sort of startup world people where they're sort of being asked by private equity and VC funds, hey, we want you to report against our own framework. And I'm kind of like maybe go and tell them about B Corp. Because that's possibly better than just the spreadsheet that they've made up where they've taken some random questions from the Internet about doing good. But the intent is definitely there and I think Covid had a massive part to play on that. So in New Zealand. We had a pretty aggressive lockdown, national lockdown. It's pretty easy to lock down an island in the middle of the Pacific. And very early on, a lot of businesses were trying to claim that they were essential. And if you were an essential business, you got to keep running. And, yeah, it was interesting. Some of the businesses who thought they were essential, turns out they weren't so essential.

Not so essential.

And for me, I think that's a really interesting metric. It's like, well, if your business is not essential to humanity, then what are you doing here? You know, it's like, what do you. You know.

You know, if you. What's the word? All right. There's a really bad expression like, you know, if you're taking up too much space, you know, then, you know, sort of get off the island type thing. It's like, well, yeah, yeah. So, no, I think it's definitely helping ignite this. This interest in B Corp more generally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So what. What were the sort of. So when you did that first, B Corp, where do you remember what your first score was back in 2011?

Oh, dude, here's the thing of it. We did not pass.

I know. I went into it thinking like, okay, awesome. We've been acting in great ways for a long time now. We'll go ahead and do the certification. And I can't remember, I think we ended up at 77 or 78 points, and as you know, you need 80.

And so I was chagrined about that. Nobody likes to not pass a test, right? But by the same token, I was very encouraged by it as well, because it's like, okay, so this isn't exactly a lineup. It's not a gimme, and there's some real teeth to this. So we went back to the drawing board and made some changes to policies and procedures and some things that got us about, I think, two and a half points and three months later went back to the drawing board. Back in the days when the analysts and people working on the assessment were available.

Twiddling their thumbs, waiting for a company. Yeah, yeah, the good old days.

Yeah. So we made another run at it and certified.

Nice. Yeah, it's would have been a bit different back in the day. And I think for my first certification in 2016, it was like you click submit and pretty much like two weeks later. Yep, cool. Let's go through it. And then if you. If you. I think. I think I was. I can't remember if it was like 82 or 84 or something. Year one, it was like, pretty quick turnaround process. Hey. Yeah. Can you just go and update this? Can you show me that? Like, done? Yeah, it's. I mean, I. I guess I was.

Gonna say it just shows the.

Popularity and the gaining traction of B Corps. The B Lab, the organization that runs certification, is having such a hard time keeping up with it. So, yeah, ultimately, it's a very, very good problem to have.

I think it's the better of the two problems.

Yeah.

Because, you know, I think when Covid first hit, I think they were quite nervous because typically, you know, when a pandemic economic turndown is on the horizon, the first thing that goes is memberships, certifications, any other extraneous things that we're paying for that we don't need. If you're the CFO, potentially shout out to all the CFOs listening in. I think increasingly they do get it, though. But, you know, it's pretty. It's like, that's an easy thing to say. Hey, we're just not paying that because we can't buy it. And I think B Lab were quite shocked by the amount of interest that that came during the pandemic. I mean, think they had like 38% growth or something. Yeah. Yeah. So I think same thing happened at.

1% for the planet.

Right? Interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because how long have you been part of 1% for the planet?

You know, I first joined as an individual member. I think I was like, individual member number eight or nine.

Wow.

And then a year or two later, I did it for Oliver Russell. You know, pandemic time. I'm going to guess it's been five years or so ago that we became a member of 1% for the planet, joining that lofty and elevated group of B ones, those who are both B Corp certified and belong to a B1.

You're really appealing to the. The red. The red personality CEO archetype here. I want to be a B1. Why? I want to be an A1. Yeah. Why? Let's change this thing to Acorn. I want to be at A Corp. Not a big.

Yeah, your blood type. Right. I'm the one.

So for those not aware of it, 1% for the planet is basically.

How they describe themselves. An organization where you can commit to donating a percentage of. Is it revenue or profit? Or can you choose? I can't remember.

No, it is a revenue, and it's 1% of your yearly revenue. And it was founded by Craig Matthews, Blue Ribbon Sports in the state of Montana, and Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia and they decided that, hey, you know, you can manipulate your expenses and your bottom line, really your top line, you can't do anything. So let's make this one rigorous and a true commitment that you'll give a percent of your sales, not just your profits.

Yep. Because yeah, it's. It is.

And so if you have a year where you don't make profits, you're still making your commitment.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, that's something that I'm looking at. So, yeah, I've just, I've just done my third certification this year, so. And yeah, I guess being a small business, you know, it's. And I think it's also, you know, one of the phrases maybe hearing in the UK would be like the builder's house on the street. You know, you're so busy fixing everyone else's houses and making sure everyone else's house is looking good. And I guess you, you might be the same with your own marketing. Like you're great at helping other people do theirs, but sometimes it's like you got to eat your own dog food and actually just take a second and maybe we do need to do a rebrand or maybe we need to refine our strategy after. Yeah, so I've definitely, yeah. Having gone through the last one.

That sort of designed to give impact business model is very much in my mind and I've been looking at 1% for the planet. There's also B1G1 who were a B corp.

I'm also a B1B1 member.

Look at, look at you. You're just crushing be.

I kind of planted the seed with Paul and Masami of B1G1 to actually become.

We did a rebranding for them a few years ago.

Well, there you go. The circle is complete. Yes. So because Paul, Masami, they come over to New Zealand quite often because Masami, I think she grew up here, went.

To school here either, did it there in Australia.

Yeah, I know they've got a connection to New Zealand because they come over here semi regularly. So I need to, I need to get Paul actually or Masami on here as a guest. They're on my kind of list, so. Well, there you go. You've set the bar. I know because I was kind of like, do we do 1% or B1G1? That's like, I don't know. Da da, da, da. So, okay, the gauntlet has just been thrown down to Timothy. You need to do both, buddy.

Come on, dude.

All right, all right. I'll have a look after this. Call Making me feel bad now.

It's all a process of improvement.

Yeah, man. Yeah. So, yeah, see, so yeah, you kind of, you did the B Corp. You didn't meet quite meet the standard, which is like I say that's, that's cool. But you managed to see that quickly and then so did you. Were you using B Corp as a marketing tool, as a, as a sort of a marketing company back in the day, or was it still so fringe that people were just kind of like, well, you're a bunch of hippies anyway. What is this bee thing? I don't care. I just want some good marketing.

Well, you know, it was fringe and I'd hesitate to say that it's gone mainstream today. I'd probably say, you know, 90, 90 plus percent of the people we introduced to the idea of B corps had no idea something like that even existed. So we have a long ways to go there. But when, when we first did it, just because it's the type of company that I wanted to have, Tim, I wasn't looking at it like, hey, we're going to juice sales with this, or we're going to differentiate our brand because none of the other agencies have this or what have you. Now, is that true? In some regard? Yes, but really it was just that I wanted to basically be at the vanguard of a movement that added meaning to work above and beyond simply creating a profit.

Yeah. And I think that's true. Yeah. For most of the early adopters, it's like, you know, there's the four pressures that we talked about, but fundamentally it's the right thing to do. And I think that level of consciousness and awareness about, well, what is the right thing to do? I think, yeah, that's just sort of steadily been increasing over the years.

Yeah. And I don't necessarily care about the motivations that you have to certify, because what we need are business models that are going to help the planet and help people. And if you're doing it because you think it will primarily make you better at selling your, your products and wares, awesome. Quite simply because it's the way you want to treat the people that you work with, fantastic. So I, I don't necessarily question the motivations as long as you're living up to it and supporting words of action and.

Yeah, I tend to agree on that. I, I kind of, I don't really care why or how you get to this point, but you're at this point and if you're at this point, you're at some level willing and open to a conversation around, you know, and I just had a, a cup of tea with a, with a mate of mine in a, in a coffee shop locally and we're just talking about, you know, let's not forget that for some companies stopping doing bad is actually quite a big effort and quite transformational. So that to even get to a point of, you know, sort of being almost like bad neutral, it's like there's quite a, quite a lot of sunk costs embedded ways of doing things that just to get to turn those supertankers around to then start about doing good, like if, if they're even willing to, to get to the point of not doing bad, like, well, we should embrace that and.

Yeah, absolutely. And if you, if you think about affecting those small changes, that scale which our community is nowhere near, that's really what we need to do. Whether it's take a company and have them score in the 90th percentile or have them being a giant conglomerate that all of a sudden improves performance in regards social environmental impact by 3%. It's huge.

Yeah. And that's, that's the conversation. I've mentioned it a couple of times on this podcast, working for a company called Conscious Consumers, where we, it was like a marketing insights platform. So we'd go to a big box retailer and say, look, we've got, I think it was like 20,000 people on our app. And they, they would log on to the app and say, well, I care about people being paid a living wage. I care about animal cruelty free foods, I care about recycling. Dah, dah dah, dah dah. And so the company would sign up to be on the app and every time someone bought something on their store or in their store, it was linked to their credit card and debit cards. So you would see how much money was being spent in your store by the people on our app. And so you could get an indication of what your customers cared about. And then you could start thinking about, well, maybe actually we do need to do better on recycling because 50% plus of our customers care about recycling. We're not really doing anything about it. And we used to have the conversation every time, like, what if McDonald's rang us and said they wanted to be on the platform? And half the company were like, no, they just don't, they shouldn't even have a mandate to exist. The world would be better without McDonald's. But then the other half were, it's like, yeah, but if we can make McDonald's be 2 or 3% better in terms of how they treat their people or where they source their products from, isn't that a win? Yeah, I guess it's, it's a nuance.

Yeah. I think there's a process for transformation. It doesn't happen overnight. And obviously with the shape of climate around the world, we need to move faster than, than not. But I don't think we can afford to turn up our, our noses at anyone trying to improve. And certainly we can also bring pressure to bear on those companies that we think need to improve more and faster as well.

Totally. So yeah, it's the new N word in the B Corp community, the Nespresso word, you know, that, that really has, it seemed to have like split, put a rift in the universe and certainly in some online communities that I'm a part of that, you know, just for B Corps, that there were some people who were kind of like, here's me ripping up my certificate, like, I'm out. If Nespresso could be a B Corp, I don't understand what this framework's about. And I get that, and I get if you're a real, maybe fundamentalist isn't the right word, but if you, if you're, if you've been deeply committed to systems change and transition and you've been a high scoring B corp, you know, since 2011 or whatever, and suddenly it kind of almost feels like these big companies have maybe, you know, I wouldn't say bought their way in, but you know, they can make some, some small changes to maybe meet the 80. Yeah, it just seems to have been a real rift in the community where some people are kind of like, no, they shouldn't even be, they shouldn't even get to even think about being a B Corp, Whereas others, and I think perhaps you and I are more aligned on this. And my take was, well, if Nespresso is now a B Corp, that means however many thousands of employees that they've got, they now know about B Corp, they can now hold the company to account and equally us as a community of B Corps can look at this company and go, really? Do you think that's really a B Corp way of doing things? So, yeah, I don't know what your thoughts are on or how you saw that in your local B communities.

Oh boy. I participated in a few zoom calls with folks who were super pissed off about it. And I completely understand, and I think it, and you'll probably possibly talk about this a little bit later, the changing of the B Corp standards that we're anticipating, but I was like, okay, so we've got an assessment and they scored above 80 on it and guess what? That means they get to be a B corp. So rather than it being perhaps an espresso issue, it might be an issue with the actual certification itself. And that's something that not only B lab, but the entire community, community of certified B Corps needs to weigh on and see what, what type of standard do we need and especially if we want companies that are best for the world. So yeah, I go back and forth on it. I completely get the plastics issue. I complete. They understand some of the issues that Nespresso has in their supply chain. And it's like, you know, some of us would never even think of having issues in regards that as far as small companies. But the goal is to actually get our planet to a place where we can be sustainable and live in far more harmonious ways. Which is super tough if you look at human nature just to begin with. And I think we need to look at not being so absolute. Absolute, but more incremental perhaps.

Yeah, yeah, I kind of agree. It was, it was really interesting when.

Nespresso kind of announced certification. Like I say, it just felt like there was a real split immediately. There was also, was it, I think BrewDog, the UK B Corp that got slammed. You know, the CEO is a complete dick. He's the misogynist. He's an. It's like B Corp assessment doesn't look at whether your CEO is a dick or not. You know, the B corp assessment is a measure of your operational goodness as an organization. And in fact, you know, if you look at the, the workers question, there's only one real question on worker satisfaction and you don't need to score 100% because it's not a measure of culture. And I think sometimes people, people forget that yes, B Corp is aimed at, you know, purpose driven business and, but, but it is, it is a, it's, it's more of the way I kind of see it is, is the rational, logical assessment of what you do.

Cannot, and I don't think ever will be at all that measures how you do it in terms of the spirit, the ethos. So it's kind of like the yin and yang. It's like, yeah, this is the physical, this is how we make our thing and how it gets shipped and what it looks like. But the purpose side of it is a separate part of it. And I don't think you will ever really come up with a logical, rational tool that can measure that. Culture, purpose, connection, spiritual almost element of why we want to do good. And I think people sometimes forget that. Yeah, it's a rational tool, almost like an isotype tool of how, how are we doing stuff? And it, it doesn't take that into, into account.

We humans are messy, aren't we?

Yeah, I, I'm often amazed how we are all still here. Like, how did we actually manage to not screw this up so much already that we're even still here? Yeah, yeah. So I, I reached out to Stefan Vermeerlen, who is the New Zealand managing director. Kind of like after the dust had settled, I sent him a note on LinkedIn's. Like, I connected. I was like, like, are you okay? Like it's, you've taken quite a bit of back on this. But you know, I actually met with him when he was down in, in Christchurch because I look, I'd be really keen just to meet and just say hi, you know, you're a fellow B corp, you're in the community as far as I'm concerned and, but listening to some of the stuff that they are doing, it's like actually you're genuinely doing some good stuff. And there's interesting arguments. You know, a lot of people kind of go, oh, they're little capsules that, you know, they're terrible. But being a Swiss based company, they've, they've done the research that potentially proves that their capsule is less environmentally destructive than, you know, like a barista made coffee. So when you look at, there's a specific amount of water usage that goes through, it's a specific amount of coffee with zero waste and the capital itself is actually recyclable. Whereas, you know, there are other coffee pouches that you could buy for a home, you know, coffee system that comes in a silver metal package that currently actually isn't recyclable. So I think this is the thing. It's, it's gray, it's nuanced, it's tricky. There is no 200 point B corp. No one is perfect. We're all just trying to muddle along and do the best that we can.

Some, some do it better than others. But it's a tough one, man, it's a tough one. But yeah, so, yeah, so for those of you who don't know, there is and, and you currently have time to.

Review and look at this new standards update. So it's looking like in 2024 the B Corp assessment is going to be going through a big, big change. But actually before we get to that, I've just got, we've Got a chat question from Andrew. So Andrew has put in the comment which is relevant to what we're just talking about. He said B Corp surely is about setting standards to strive towards across multiple parts of a business, not just environmental. It would be great if these questionable businesses were celebrated and highlighted for how they achieved their qualification. Yeah, I think that's kind of, I think we, we probably agree with that. It's like, let's focus on, celebrate the good that they're doing. And again, having spoken to Stefan at.

Nespresso, you know, there is a, there is a lot of good that they are sharing across the entire coffee world in terms of, you know, supply chain improvement and, and so on and you know, how, how, you know, on the operational side. But again, it kind of gets thrown out. The baby gets thrown out with the bathwater on that one because they are just, they shouldn't exist.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I get the larger picture too, is can you be so bad in one area that it outweighs the good you do another?

Yeah, Andrew said definitely don't judge the CEO. He is the CEO of the company.

I would disagree totally with, think, you know, culture, leadership, decision making. It all sits with you, Andrew.

So for those of you tuning in who are like, who's this guy Andrew? So all the clients that we work with this, this podcast gets live streamed into our community group of our clients that we're helping on their B Corp journey. And Andrew is one of our clients. His business is actually really, really cool. I don't. If Andrew is still listening, let me know if you want to have a shout out because what you do is actually super cool.

Where's Andrew from?

So, well, I'll wait if he's still on, if he lets me say who he is, because some people are like, oh, no, don't tell everyone that we're doing B Corp, which is like, oh, come on, people. Which we'll get to that in a minute. But so new standards coming through in 2024. So, yeah, for those of you who are like B Corp curious, the current and as Russell mentioned with his own journey, currently you need to meet this minimum requirements of 80 out of 200 points on this assessment, which looks at your business across your governance, your workers, your community impact, your environmental impact and your customer impact. And what some people are sort of saying is, well, hang on a minute, how can Nespresso certify where potentially they haven't scored as well on their supply chain? Perhaps I can't remember their exact scoring, but let's say for the sake of the argument, this company is doing really, really nothing about its supply chain or it doesn't know about its supply chain, but it's kind of scored pretty well with how it treats its workers and it's doing some stuff okay on its environmental stuff. So yeah, this has been the criticism is like not gaming it, but it's kind of like, you know, you can get to 80 by not being perfect everywhere. And so yeah, what they're looking at is creating an updated standards or certification process where you have to meet minimum requirements across more areas. I think it's gonna be eight or 10 sections rather than five sections and you have to meet a minimum. So. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that, Russ? I know we've had a couple of we've actually spoken a couple of times this week, so we've had a bit of a chat around this.

But. Oh, you know, ultimately I think it's a good move and I think it'll be a Strengthen the certification. One of the issues that arose out in Espresso is the big PR head and the reputational hit to the B Corp brand. Regardless of their goodness or lack thereof or what have you, there are so many negative associations with Nespresso globally that when all of a sudden people see it certify as a B Corp, it furnishes the certification in a way. Whether that's warranted or not really doesn't matter the board of public opinion. So I think, you know, pretty much if you're going to measure up to the B Corp certification, you should meet a minimum in all the areas and not do great in one and not the others. And it might be tougher, it might be more aspirational, some regards, or it might change some corporate behaviors, ways that aren't currently being done. So I think I'll have to see it before I fully commit to it. But by the same token, I'd say that'd be pretty good.

Yeah, I think I've kind of been talking about it. There's the podcast that's coming up for this one is with Kristen Tucson, who we talked about. She is a staff editor for Fast Company and she wrote an article about hey, this B Corp backlash, you know, which is kind of interesting. Like, you know, it's like the B Corp backlash, but it's like you're not. We're still at the point where not everyone knows about B Corp. So we've got a backlash from like it's kind of like, it's just kind of like it makes it Almost makes it feel like the whole world is like going, oh, B Corp. It's awful. But it's like, actually, we're still. As we were saying before, we're like 0.0. One or 2% of companies are currently a B Corp. So not even 1% of limited companies globally have met the standard to get to be a B Corp. So it's still not like it's. They're not like, throwing them out like lollies. Like, yeah, like. Or like Oprah. You get a beacon. You get a beacon.

How cool would that be if Oprah did like, yeah, you must know someone who knows Oprah.

But, yeah, I kind of get it. Oh, man. Well, you must know someone. You know. You must know somebody knows someone who knows. Was it, you know, six. Six degree In New Zealand, we call it the two degrees of separation. Because you work out that everyone knows everyone in New Zealand, but it's. Was it The Kevin Bacon six degrees of. So power of LinkedIn. Someone. Someone connected with Oprah. You can have. Russ and I can be on the Oprah Show. We'll talk about B Corp. Great. And then we'll go skiing.

Yes, I think. Yeah, I kind of. I hear. Yeah. I kind of feel like I need to see a bit more depth because I do think, like, for some, for smaller businesses, I think it's going to be challenging because it's like, well, we're going to have to potentially put a lot of effort, you know, more effort. Whereas at the minute, if you're generally doing okay, you know, 80 is pretty reasonable. You can sneak in with an 80. I mean, I say sneak in, but, you know, the median score on first attempt is still 50 out of 200. So to even be getting to 80. And like I say, the vast majority of clients we're currently supporting are kind of like where you were when you started. It's like we've been behaving like a B corp. There's just a couple of things that we didn't know about and now we know about them, we'll go and implement them and.

Which is one of the values of the certification, the framework, it gives you, the way, it opens your eyes to the type of company you can become if you really want to use your business to change.

Exactly that. Yeah. And we were just talking beforehand. There was a really cool. There's an article. I'll try and post it with the. It was from Pioneers Post. So an interview with Dan Asewski, who is the head of standards for B Lab, and his article actually gave A really good summary as to why they're doing it. And I think, like you said, the prick's going to be in the pudding. It's the timing of, like I say, we're at 0.0. One or 2% of companies are currently a B corp. If we ratchet up the requirements now, are we going to lose people who kind of go, actually this is now way too hard, or is it actually meeting the market and aspirations for companies who recognize that, okay, we want to be pushed and we want to know what the gold standard looks like and yes, we are willing to have the minimum requirements. Yeah, I think, as we said before, I think it's going to see. Most companies we work with, we say, look, get to 80 and then worry about being better. I think what this is going to do is have companies go, no, look, you need to be better. And then you become a B corp. So I think you potentially, you're going to end up with the same kind of ultimate outcome, but maybe quicker because people have to do, you know, that improvement first rather than right. Like, you know, we'll kind of wait on that. We'll do it maybe next year.

Yeah. And I, I think we're still flying a little bit in the dark until we see the final products from the certification.

I agree. Yeah. Andrew has said yes. Give him a shout out. So Andrew Chambers, he is CEO of Tsunami Sports. They are a super cool company. So they make sporting wear, sporting apparel out of recycled plastic, which is super, super cool. Yeah, yeah. So if, hey, company.

Mainly based in Hong Kong, but Andrew has just, he's over and he's like moved to New Zealand with his family. They just getting going so. Here in New Zealand. So, Andrew, we are looking for a sponsor for the podcast. Just saying.

You'Ve had one free shout out.

I'm looking for a new client too, Andrew. I can manage time zones.

Well, there we go. We'll see what we can do. So. Well, that's, that's a cool segue though. So obviously, you know, are branding, marketing sort of strategy expert in, in this world. Like what would be some tips? And you just put this has backfired in the chat.

You've been boxed into a corner. We'd like to welcome our new sponsor for the, the Be Better podcast of Tsunami Sport. There we go. It's official.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah. So in terms of like branding strategy execution around utilization of B Corp, is that, is that something that you advise clients around? Is it something that you have pushed people to do or is it still kind of like, you've got to pick your battles and if it works for you and your sector. Because I think there's be lots of people on who will hear this who would be like how do we leverage the B Corp? And I think my personal take is if you don't leverage the journey and what you've done, I think you're missing a massive opportunity for that stakeholder engagement, particularly with customers.

Yeah, you totally are. In the heart of the successful branding is differentiation and you know you're not going to be able to appeal to everyone nor do you want to. You kind of have it. It's like a pheromone. Your brand should either powerfully compel someone towards it or repel someone away from it. And the B Corp certification is such a fantastic differentiator. It opens itself up to fact based storytelling as well and completely different conversations with whether you have a professional service firm that has clients or you're a CPG firm with customers. It's a great way to engage and demonstrate that you actually are a different company. Especially with a younger generation that are kind of built for this, they have it in their DNA. So I think it's one of those things that if you go too quiet on it, you miss the benefit of all the hard work you put into it. And it is self serving but it's all in the way that you actually tell that story and engage people. And ultimately a lot of it comes down to having third party verification that someone else that's actually making a statement about your firm, it's non profits that you work with that are telling your story, it's members of the community. So it's really at the good part of reputational management which is ultimately get other people to tell your story for you and people will believe it.

Yep. Yeah, there's definitely, there's a, there's a cool phrase I've heard recently called green hushing. So we've kind of heard of green washing but green hushing and the phrase I use with us talking to someone yesterday about, you know, whether B Corp was right for them and we were talking about this thing and it's like we almost need, it's like the Goldilocks, you know, talking too much crap about what you're doing, not talking enough about what you're doing. This middle ground of authentic disclosure of stories of good that you're doing but with that humility of look, we're not perfect but we've done some really cool stuff and like work. I think it's yeah, for Me, I just think it's, it's a, it's critical that you get that stakeholder engagement, particularly with your customers around. Like, this is what we're doing, this is what we plan to do. Let us know. Like, does that work for you? Is that a cool thing? Does that resonate? Like, what are the programs we should be looking at? You know, maybe, you know, what are the impact improvement that we should be looking at that you care about?

Oh, for sure. And the story isn't necessarily about your brand. It's about B Corp and being able to educate and introduce people to that. And then your piece and part of the story within that, which is all the actions you have to do in order to become certified. So you can tell a story about worker welfare, you can talk about climate action your company's involved with, you can talk about.

The nonprofits that you go volunteer for in your community. So you're actually telling stories of others. But it comes back to frame a very positive image on your firm.

Yeah, no, 100%. What about people on the journey to certification? Do you see many clients in the uk, in the, in the US or do you have any advice? Because that's one thing we get asked about. And again, I'm typically of the opinion, start telling the story. Like, tell people that you're on the journey. Tell people that you're committed to becoming a B corp. Because if you're genuinely committed to being a B corp, you're going to get there whether it's this week or it's a year, because you've got to make some changes. But I think in general, people keep it very, very quiet. And then at the last minute it's like, ta da, we're a big op.

They do. And you know, that's a tough one for me, Tim, because I fall into two camps. You have folks that are actually entered in the B impact assessment, the bia, and are actually working towards it. And you have others who are, who have intentions to actually start working on the assessment. And in that former camp, I know people who've been talking about it for seven or eight years and have never quite gotten there. So for me it would be like, you know, the certain, the status of pending B Corp that some companies can get. I'd say if you're actually genuinely committed and you're making progress on the assessment, we're talking about that and talk about your journey because I think people will genuinely be interested in it. But if you're always talking about like, yeah, we'd love to become A B Corp. But 2022 bleeds into 2026 and you're still just kind of doing it, then that one doesn't cut it.

Yeah, no, I, I agree And I, yeah, 100%. Like, if you're committed, if you're, if you're in the assessment, you, you're like, you're ready to click submit. Start telling the story like you say. Because, because I think what we tend to find is I'll give a shout out to Genora who we helped.

Late last year. I think, yeah, I think it was last year we worked with them. They certified this year. I think for a lot of companies, they, they're almost like the fish in water. They don't recognize the good. Like some of the good that Genora were doing. I was like, oh my God. Like this, this is so cool. And they're like, yeah, but that's just how we've always done it. And I'm like, yeah, but not everyone else does this. And, and having this external person come in and looking, you know, I guess I see quite a few companies going through B Corp. I'm like, you really do need to start telling people about that. And I think there's massive missed opportunities. If you're committed, you know, you're going to click submit and it's just going to be a case of what number we get, you know, once we're certified. Yeah, I think tell the story and talk about what the trials, the tribulations.

You know, I think there's a really practical reason to approach it in that way as well. Tim. You know, if somebody's looking at a. Buying a product, let's say it's a food product, they look at the ingredients that are in it. Right. You know, everybody the ingredients. Well, increasingly the next step is like, okay, so who made this product and what are the ingredients of the company? Right. Because they can pick another like product if they want to for sure. And it's a question like, okay, not only is the product good for me to put inside me, to put on me or what have you, but the company making it is also good for me as well.

Yeah, 100%. And we, we are seeing that. And if you. I think I've got some stats, I'll try and put a link to it somewhere in the show notes.

If you look stats.

That's stats that. Stats. I'm so not a stats person.

And some color commentary here.

The. If you look at the vast majority of B Corps by sort of number are consumer goods, health and beauty, food and Beverage. It's, it's, that sector is by far and away like the largest sector by number of B Corps. And this is exactly what we're saying to people. If you're in the health and beauty, consumer goods, food and beverage sector, I'd say within the next six to 12 months, if you're not on the journey to B Corp, you're looking at a tough time. Like I said, there's a thousand UK B Corps and so many of them are in that food and beverage, health and beauty sector where in the UK there's a supermarket called Waitrose which is like a bit of a top end, kind of almost like a bit of a whole foods ish type thing. And during B Corp month, March this year, they had in store B Corp promotion. So it's like here's, here's the front, here's the end of aisle. These companies, B Corp, this is what B Corp is about. It was in conjunction with B Lab and there's another company, WH Smith, who are kind of like a corner store, sort of news agent type store, sell magazines and you know, small snack type stuff. They had a similar in store kind of thing. So yeah, this is what we're saying, particularly for like Kiwi businesses who rely a lot on export markets, this, this thing is coming, you know, if you want to be competitive in the US or the UK like you say it's going to be. We take it for granted that you're a, that your ingredients are good. Now we take it for granted that you're not selling me toxic crap in a plastic container. But I want to know a bit more. And like I said, you know, we're now getting raw ingredient manufacturers having that pressure put on them from retailers overseas who, who are now wanting to trace back all the way back to the raw ingredient. So.

You bet.

Yeah. Which leads nicely into your latest B Corp. You're so greedy with all these B Corps that you've, you know, you're a part of so unit of impact.

And I think there's probably two parts to this. So I'm pretty sure the US is the only jurisdiction that has the benefit corporation versus a certified B Corp. I might be wrong on that.

Actually. Yes, you are wrong and I'm just so happy to be able to correct you on that.

Excellent. Let's go for it.

You know, it started in the US and it's a legal structure that basically holds you to a promise and to account for creating a benefit for the public and, but by the same token, it also gives you the legal latitude to actually create bottom line outcomes in addition to having a focus on the financial bottom line so you don't have to be concerned about a shareholder lawsuit. What it also does is it requires you as a public benefit corporation to publish a annual report each year that details exactly how you lived up to your promise of legal structure. It's in I believe 40 states. The Canadian province, British Columbia has adopted a similar legislation. And then I believe there's maybe 11 other countries around the world who have very similar legislation as well. So starting to spread. And unit of impact is actually a public benefit corporation in the state of Maryland. It's not quite yet a certified BP corporation. We haven't gotten gotten there yet. We're like a startup that's.

You're already young, let you off.

Yeah, we're young, but we were, we were founded by 3B Corps. So 3B B Corps each own 33% of the company. So it's there on both lines.

Nice. So yeah. So because in this part of the world and the uk, so the uk, Australia, New Zealand and I guess a lot of the other countries, there's always been this tension that, you know, as a for profit company, limited company, you were still, I guess going to be ultimately potentially controlled by shareholders around ultimate decision making. So yes, you could be a certified B corporation in that you've gone through this independent certification. But when it came to that governance level of how do we actually make decisions and true stakeholder capitalism, there was always this missing piece. So in our jurisdiction, so Australia, New Zealand, like I said the uk, a lot of the other countries that we might be helping people with in that regard, there's this new legal requirement that you need to update your constitution or highest level of corporate governing document to include a stakeholder and purpose clause. So they did look at trying to have that sort of public benefit corporation legal entity be established over here. But they kind of, I think with all the, you know, sort of research and I guess lobbying, for want of a better word, you know, talking to government, talking to lawyers, talking about trying to work out like how could we create this legal, you know, I guess framework or this new type of company, they, I think they just came to the conclusion that actually the short circuit, the quick way to do this is make it a requirement for B Corp certification that you need to put this in your constitution, which basically. Yeah, so it's gonna be, I mean, any thoughts on whether is that? Because I know in some jurisdictions in the US you can, you don't have to be A public benefit corporation. But you can update your. Is it your articles of incorporation?

Yes. And you actually are required to do that. And I think now in the certification, if you are domiciled or headquartered in a state that has benefit corporation legislation, you're required to.

Switch over to them. Yes.

Right. And is that. Is that an easy process or.

It's a very easy process.

Nice.

You just go to the Secretary of State, which is the governing body.

In your state. There are just some simple.

Forms to fill out and away you go. Oftentimes with a startup that wants to get into the business of social environment will impact all the. You become a B corp or what have you and go like, well, let's make certain you're going to be successful and business first because it takes resources to become that. A good first step would be to become a public benefit corporation because you're going to learn a lot there makes requirements of you. In some ways the process is less onerous and you can then start building towards becoming certified as a B clerker.

Nice, nice. Great summary. So yes, back to unit of impact.

It's a pretty cool tool and it was partly born out of the recognition that you do have these public benefit corporations that they need to report, but also the fact that B Corps need to keep tracking how they're doing and also impact reporting. So yeah, give us the. Give us the elevator pitch on unit of impact.

Yeah, well.

I started working with Polina Pinchevsky at Round Pigs and it was during the pandemic. That is really our pandemic baby when it comes down to it. And we started doing some research on ideas around like what could B Corps or Benefit Corps use. We came back with some results that were pretty encouraging. And as small businesses we discovered, hey, there's a gap in the marketplace for that. There are businesses that are required to file annual benefit reports. Doesn't appear there are any tools out there to really help them do this. And a certified B Corp, we understand.

The challenges of not only collecting your data, but actually measuring it every three years. So we thought, wow, what if we could put together a platform that would make it easy to and do it specifically for small businesses. Because it seems like in the crl, CSR and ESG realms, there's a lot of big enterprise sort of offerings there. But we know small business best and we thought what if we could do something there that would help small businesses? And you think about B Corps, I think it's something like 70 to 80% of them are small businesses. So was really born of A desire to go like, hey, you know, we could use this ourselves. I wonder if others could. Some initial research substantiated that and so we thought, okay, let's build it. And two and a half years later as working out of the side gig, we finally launched it last month.

Nice. Yes. Yeah, I mean I agree the, the, I think, yeah. For the public benefit corporations like, yes. Like obviously they need this way of pulling this data together but. And again you're so. You're correct. The vast majority of B corps are small to medium businesses who don't have necessarily a CSR officer. It's potentially the owner operator or it's, you know, and again we're, what we're seeing increasingly is someone is in charge of operations and impact or marketing and B Corp or you know, so someone is taking responsibility. We would call them the king or queen bee. You know, they're suddenly taking responsibility for, for what they're doing. And yeah, one of the first questions we get from clients as they've got pretty, you know, far down the path, like almost at the certification or clicking submit is how do we keep on top of this stuff? And it's like, it's a great question.

And typically it's been down to the individual company.

Yeah. And anyone who's ever been, I've been through it. Realizes like the initial Russian elation of certifying and then all of a sudden three months go by and another three months and jack over and HR kind of keeping track of this and Susie might be doing this over in the community aspect and holy smokes, you have to knit together disparate spreadsheets and, or somebody hasn't been on, on top of it because they're doing their regular job. So we thought if we could create a database and a dashboard that would make it easier for whether you're a solopreneur or a team within a socially responsible business to actually aggregate, centralize this data and stay on top of it. Then at the end of it be able to turn that into a marketing tool with an impact report.

Yep. Which is. Yes. When those. I quite often say, you know, where's the, there used to be that joke, where's the best place to hide a dead body? Page two of Google. But I think the other good place to hide a dead body is it an impact report. Because you see like these thousand page brochures that people print off and you go, even the person who wrote that hasn't read it. Like there's no way.

You know what I mean?

There's like these reams and reams and reams.

Oh, exactly. And you know, Polina, Elise and I are all marketing pros so we brought that aspect to it as well, which is like, okay, how can we create something that sharp, professional and communicates the fundamentals and holds the viewers attention and, and doesn't lose them in the weeds?

Yeah. Which is easily done. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's super cool. Yeah. So, yeah, like I said, we'll, we'll put some links around that and put.

Some links around it and for, for listeners to do podcast here. I've got a discount code, early bird 2022 on that.

Early bird 2022. Well there we go.

First of the year. Yeah, look at that.

So we've got discount codes for unit of impact. Andrew's going to be sponsoring our podcast from next week. No doubt. Hopefully we'll all get some T shirts or something or some bounding. Some workout.

Limited. Excellent. Nice. And so what do you see then is the, I guess you've been around this movement for quite a while.

What do you think of the future? Are you hopeful? Yeah, like obviously there's changes coming. It's messy, it's nuanced. But yeah. What do you reckon? What's, what is the next, what do you say? 2011? So man, that's like almost like. What's that, 11 years you've been part of the B Corp movement. What do you think it looks like in 11 years time?

Well, you know, I'm not certain about the B Corp movement when it comes down to it, but the movement for business to actually demonstrate and invest in all the things that B Corp stands for, I feel very, very positive as far as that goes. And I, I think really it's the younger generations that are starting to drive things. They've got the town and the treasurer to make it happen and they don't put up with corporate bs. So I think really it's going to be a bottom up sort of driven exercise that's going to make companies, whether they want to or not, respond to the marketplace and start giving back and creating real value as far as natural capital goes and instead of just simply extracting it.

Yeah, totally. And I think we're also.

Talking to. So we've got Katmandu based here in Christchurch, who are one of the biggest B corps in this region. They're kind of like a mini Patagonia. You know, they sell outdoor apparel.

I know them, you know, you know.

Them and they, it was, I think it was May last year. They got a 100 million Australian dollar loan from one of the big banks over here. And part of it was kind of like an ESG backed loan. And part of the conditions around that loan was they had to maintain and increase their B Corp score as well as some other conditions. But what was interesting talking to the, the team that created that, that loan vehicle within the bank, you know, they were just saying on the investment side and I think this is going to be happening also because you mentioned like bottom up, a lot of the people who now own the money in terms of like big family funds and what have you, it's the new guard. It's now that they're like in their late 30s, early 40s. It's not the, you know, 78 year old mum and dad who've been running the money and a lot of the private equity funds, a lot of the, the money world is now kind of, it's this, it's this 30 to 40 year old generation that are getting it and they are also now coming in as the next CEOs potentially. Who knows, we might even get a Prime Minister or, or a President, I think. Well, the UK's got a Prime Minister who's under 70, New Zealand's doing all right. Who knows America like, you know, we're getting this younger generation of leadership coming through who for them this is like I say it's the fishing water. It's like, well of course we need to think about the planet and people like that's taken as a given. Whereas I guess, yeah, that older generation who are like, you know, Friedman generation. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, no, I'm hopeful. The other expression I talk about from my medical device days, the guy who invented the hip, the modern hip replacement was called Sir John Charnley and he always talked about how the hip replacement is a race between the implant failing and the patient dying basically. And at the minute, you know, the implant is, is, wasn't lasting as long as the patient and I kind of feel like business for good is the same. It's like we've got a narrowing window when we actually just need to get shit done. It's a race between getting shit done and me making an extra dollar on my share price next week.

Exactly. And it does. We have to adjust our expectations for what percentage of profit we might have. I know what I hear oftentimes from folks who are keenly involved in trying to get impact investment capital is that there's a lot of that money there, but they still expect to get exactly the same sort of financial return fast, fast. Timeline that they did otherwise and it just doesn't work that way. And it should be.

Yep.

Well, there we go. Well, we're at the hour. Mark. Any final. Yeah. Thoughts. Any. Any.

Yeah.

Any final words of advice on people who are like bcot curious or who are on the journey?

Oh, geez. If you're bco Corp curious around the journey, talk to Tim. My. My door is always open as well as far as Zoom calls or what have have you and reach out there and talk to people so that you can gain a better understanding of water than jail. And then, yeah, hop on board and one of these days, if you're. You're here on the stage, me, we'll meet in Boise and I'll. I'll bend an elbow with you over beer. How's that?

I'm definitely gonna hold you up to that one. Yeah, I think I quite often like using the Warren Miller quote, you know, around B Corp. If you don't do it this year, you'll be one year older when you do. So. You know, maybe we should apply that to us drinking a beer in Sun Valley doing some really nice ski runs next season. Yeah, there's. Because there's quite a few ski companies doing B Corp, so maybe we should just go and we'll just. We'll. We'll do a sit in protest at Sun Valley and do a.

They become a B Corp finally taken to the slope so we can. You know, I've never been much of a golf guy and. Or done any golf meetings, but I have written the lifts on a few occasions with clients, so more of that, please.

Definitely. Well, let's try and make something happen. Awesome. Well, yeah, Russ, thank you so much. It's been. I've been wanting to get you on. On my podcast for quite a while and so I'm really glad we finally got to have a chat with you. So many cool little nuggets I think, here for people to. To. To listen to and reflect on. So. Yeah, thank you so much. Go hopefully and enjoy some skiing in the near future. Yeah. And hopefully I'll get to do that with you. With you soon. So. Yeah. Cheers, mate.

Okay, thank you so much.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp, how to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some other videos. They're probably floating around here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.