#63 Seeds Impact Conference — B Corp Certification 101: Why It Matters

This session we are fortunate to be hearing from Lauren Kane and Tim Jones with the Krero on B Corp. A quick reminder that if you want to check out other sessions, do look at the program, which I will drop into the chat in a minute and you can click on the links for those to transform you into a separate room and watch some recordings of the sessions later as well. Now over to you, Lauren and Tim. And yeah, we're really looking forward to this topic and learning with everyone here.

Kia.

Awesome. Kia ora.

Kia ora. Thanks, Erica. Well, Tim, I think we should just introduce ourselves firstly. Kia ora. Yeah, I'm Lauren Kane. I am the certification and Growth manager at B Lab Australia and Aotearoa, New Zealand. And I'm excited here to be. To be here today. Going to have a sip of coffee. Already got cottonmouth, Tim. I'll leave it to you.

So, yeah, Kia ora. I also go with a Shamai. I'm half Welsh, so let's get you fully multicultural. So I'm Tim. Yeah. So I think, well, I'm Tim. I run a company called Grow Good. We are a certified B Corporation and we help other companies become B Corp certified. And I was just thinking, probably what we should really explain to people is what is B Lab versus a B Corp? Because sometimes people think there's like these two competing frameworks or systems. So, yeah, maybe if we start off with, well, what is B Lab and how does that relate to B Corpse?

Yeah, I think that's a great starting point. So B Lab is the organization, nonprofit organization that holds the standards and works with companies in order to certify them to become a B Corp. So, Tim, I mean, like, you are a B Corp. Your company is. So from your lens, what, what did that journey look like?

Yeah, so. So, yeah, like Lauren said, so. So B Lab is the organization that runs the certification framework which allows companies to become a certified B Corporation. So, yeah, we first certified as a B Corporation way back in 2016, which is literally a lifetime ago. It feels like that. So we would be corp number six in New Zealand. And it's quite. I think it'd be interesting just to reflect on the process over that time. Like, back then, the process was pretty quick and easy because there just weren't that many people interested in B Corp, to be honest. And that's something that I know B Lab and we've all been working on over the last few years and we're definitely seeing more people interested in B Corp. So, yeah, my first certification, it kind of probably Took me about a month of just sitting down to do the questions and then literally within about two weeks I got an auditor. So the, so Lauren's like, we'll explain why Lauren's life in that a minute. So the way you get your B Corp certification is you can go online and if you just search or Google B Impact assessment or B Corp Impact assessment, you can create an account for free and go and basically take a series of questions on this online assessment to see how your business performs against five main areas. And once you hit over 80 out of 200 points on that initial assessment, you then submit it for verification for one by one of the awesome B lab team who are the really smart auditors who go through and go, yeah, no, you answer that question completely wrong and no, you don't have any evidence for that. So you're not getting those points. So yeah, back in the day in 2016, yeah, it was about, about two to three week turnaround to get an auditor. It has been. And I think in the UK it is still up to something like 18 months to get hold of an auditor because so many people want to be a B Corp, which is quite cool in some ways.

It is pretty cool. And it's funny you mentioned the wait times. I had a giggle because.

It'S actually gone down in our region quite significantly, which is excellent. We're down to an all time low of being about two months to get into your first auditing round.

Which I'm, you know, is amazing. But when, when the COVID 19 crisis actually started, we, we expected that companies would not want to become B corps. They had other areas to focus on, but it was exactly the opposite. So there was this boom throughout the world which was just a beautiful glimpse into to companies and humanity. You know a lovely commentary there in the the light of crisis, but I just realized, Tim, we haven't actually assessed the room about who knows what B Corp is.

Do any of you even know vaguely what we're talking about? Or, or are we preaching to the converted? Maybe just put in, in the chat a little thumbs up if, if you know what a B Corp is, maybe do you even work for one? Or can you, do you. I would typically say do you eat one in the morning? Because there's quite a few breakfast companies that seem to be B Corp certified. Or do you use one in your shower or in your bathroom? Because there's quite a few health and beauty brands that are B Corp certified. Or you might be wearing one. You might be wearing Kathmandu or we are clothing yeah, there's quite a few out there. So we've got a few people. Yeah, a few people know what it is.

Okay.

So Adam, he says he's got a vague idea. Hopefully we're making the idea slightly less vague.

Yeah, Okay. I think it's, I think it's interesting. So I guess also just for a bit of context. So Lauren is, was a last minute replacement into this event. We were, we did have a different representative from B Lab but they've unfortunately moved on from the organization. So Lauren and I were kind of last minute trying to work out what we do in this session and we figured we'd keep it pretty open, pretty Q and A. So if at any point you've got a question for us, just, just like shout out and we'll make this as interactive as we can. Rather than listening to me and Lauren waffle on about B Corp, which we could do possibly for four days.

Yeah, exactly.

We should probably go. There's probably a record. We could look for that. Like what's the longest two people have had a conversation about BE for. Let's.

I mean like it's my bread and butter and it's your bread and butter. So we might be here forever. Erica.

Yes. Filling this out. But it's interesting you mentioned the COVID because I always like to reflect on where B Corp came from and so B Corp was founded or, or sorry, B Lab was founded in about 2006 on the back of crisis and tragedy. So the guy who was the co founder of B Lab, a guy called JCO and Gilbert, he used to be the co. Well, he was also the co founder of AND One which was a basketball apparel brand and their whole aim at AND One was basically to sell more basketball shoes than Nike. That was, that was the thing that was driving them up until Jay's sister was one of the people trapped in the Twin Towers in New York in September 11, 2001. And luckily she was pulled. She was pulled out. She was one of the survivors. And then a week or two later, one of his close friends and one passed away and he had what I call the existential wet fish to the face moment. A lot of people in Christchurch had that moment during the earthquakes where, you know, kind of what am I thinking about what, what's life all about? And, and, and I think Covid was that moment too where a lot of. Where I know, as we said as a movement, we kind of thought, well, this could be the death knell for B Corp. Because typically when in tough economic times the first Thing people do is look at certifications and other payments and go, okay, well, that can go. So, yeah, really, really interesting. That crisis can actually lead to a change of consciousness and to do more good.

100%. And that's exactly what we experienced. I think a lot of people were drawn to the B Corp. Certification because it is holistic. It's not just about finance. It's not just about environmental standards or products. It is, you know, Tim mentioned five impact areas that take into consideration your governance, how you treat your workers, how you work within your own community.

How you treat your customers and the environment. So it is quite holistic. And I think a lot of people and companies and then their consumers were drawn to that, which I think is absolutely excellent.

Yeah, 100%. And that's. We're typically seeing there's kind of four main reasons why people are interested in B Corp. Well, I'll say five. The best reason is because they want to do it and they think it's a really cool thing to do. But. Well, not just cool, but it's the right thing to do in terms of actually we want to be measuring and reporting our social and environmental impact.

Beyond that, there's kind of five. Sorry, four other reasons why people typically look at B Corp. And what we are seeing is customer pressure, employee pressure, supply chain pressure, and then I guess I'd call it investment stroke, regulatory pressure, where increasingly, if you're a bigger company, there's regulation coming where you have to be at least going to be reporting your environmental impact. And you know, kind of while you're at it, it's like, well, we might as well just dig in and look at our social impact as well. So, yeah, those would be the reasons that we're seeing people. And again, I think Covid just accelerated people's thoughts and opinions around that.

Yeah, 100%. It's a way for businesses to keep ahead of the curve of that regulatory.

Tidal wave that's coming, which is a great thing.

The.

The other thing that I was going to mention is just speaking of the tidal wave and the sheer number of B corps now globally, we've jumped considerably. I think when I joined B Lab, we were at 5,000 globally. Now we're at over 7,000. And in this region, which is Australia and New Zealand combined, we're over 600. We are a rapidly growing region, which is. And New Zealand, especially in that is actually the one that is experiencing exponential growth as more and more companies decide to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk and have the circle be to prove it.

Yeah, 100%. We've got a question in the chat. So the first one's from Carolyn. Really interested in hearing about moving from baby startup to B corp. And are there stepping stones we should be looking at? Got any thoughts on that, Lauren?

Well, I would say the first thing is that the B impact assessment, which is the 200 questions over the five different impact areas, is a free tool. So baby steps, I would say start looking at that and get familiar with it. For sure there are great pointers that you might see and go, oh, actually as a startup I haven't actually built that into my business model yet, but I will now. I think actually using the BE impact assessment while you're setting up your business is an excellent framework in itself. What do you think, Tim?

100%. Yeah, we get this question a lot from startups or. Yeah, even people, yeah, even people who've got an idea and haven't even got the company registered yet. It's really, as I've said, you know, to go and look at the impact assessment. It's completely free to go and create the accounts and just look at stuff and, and just start building the business around how you want to build it. Because you know, you might not be employing anyone today, but if you've got a fast growth startup, maybe in 12 months you might have your first cup of employees. Okay, so look at the worker section. Think about some stuff like, well, do I want to offer ownership to employees? Do I want to, yeah, offer health, you know, say, you know, healthcare products above and beyond what's provided by the government. Is that stuff that I want to do? Well, if it is, I need to start factoring that, factoring that into my budgets now so that I know, you know, and for me it's always, it's always like do the most good with what you've got, you know, so don't stress about, oh, I can't build 150-point B corp from day one. Don't stress about it. Do what you can with what you've got but just, you know, use it as a framework to build the business towards. Does that answer your question? Excellent.

Great. And if certification is something that you decide you wish to do as a business, the only we have eligibility requirements. So you have to be a business. We don't certify nonprofit organizations or government organizations. Operations for 12 months doesn't mean you have to turn over a profit or revenue for 12 months, just operations. And there's some other eligibility criteria which is listed on the B Corporation website about controversial industries which I encourage everyone to have a squiz at before they go down their B Corp certification journey. But even if you're not eligible as a business, please use the free tool. It's there for the taking, it's there for the.

Please, it's a gift to you.

And there's always just so many questions that you just see people go, ah, I just never thought about that before. I never thought about that before because typically we've not been conditioned to think about that kind of stuff and you know, your only duty when you're launching a business is to trade solvently and legally. There's no, there's no other criteria around that. So yeah, get, get amongst it and yeah, see what you know. Yeah, we've got another. Got a couple of questions. So Adam has asked. I'd love to hear about the fuck and puffer of the assessment framework itself. How was it developed and how was it kept up to date and relevant? I'm firmly going to throw that straight to. I'm doing that because that's where Lauren sat on my screen as the certification expert. What do you know?

So the B Impact assessment is updated every three years. Admittedly this cycle is taking a little bit longer because we are doing our biggest update of standards to date and it's called the Evolution of Standards. And there will be more comms coming out about that from B Lab over the next year or so. So we keep on top of it by constantly working on the standards and trying to keep, you know, on top of it, knowing that business in itself probably outpaces us considerably. So we learn from our stakeholders as well. We have a standards body, it's B Lab Global. They sit separate to say who I work for, which is B Lab A anz. We service the community and the standards body needs to sit quite separately to maintain their integrity and their standards. So they work constantly in the background to make sure it's relevant up to date and with stakeholders considered throughout. I hope that answers your question. Quite a top level Adam, but happy to take, you know, go more in depth with you in person. Tim, do you have anything to add to that?

Yeah, I guess, I mean my sort of understanding of how it's developed over the years. So when Jay, Adam and Bart. Sorry, yeah, Andrew and Bart launched B Corp or the B Corp framework in 2006, it's kind of in my mind it's like they did a high level materiality assessment of where is business doing good and bad and how do we. So the B Corp Assessment itself is a point scoring tool currently. So you need to score a minimum of 80 out of 200 to then submit for the independent verification by a B Lab auditor. And it's basically a positive screening tool. So you get rewarded for things that you are doing. You don't get points taken off of what you're not doing. But there are some questions and considerations around, okay, well have you thought about the unintended consequences of doing ABC or what have you? So yeah, at the high level when they launched it they kind of looked at, okay, and this is partly, I guess why not for profits aren't really in the B Corp mix because typically not for profits are, have been solving the problem and historically typically business has been causing problems, you know, due to its, I guess, focus on just shareholder primacy. So yeah, at a high level they kind of go, well let's see where business either is causing concern and, or how do we reinforce good. And the point system basically then rewards you for doing more good. And so yeah, over the years as I guess as some challenges have maybe been solved or they become less of an issue, there's less of a focus on those questions and then as other things pop up. Plus as Lauren said, you know, on, on every question in the assessment, you can provide feedback on every single question and say I don't think this question is relevant or you know, there's a drop down list of about, I don't know, 10 or 15 options you can say about why you, you think this question could be changed. So that's the one thing I think is really impressive about B Lab is the, is the availability and the options for stakeholder feedback on what is A. I mean how these people create the assessment. I mean, I wouldn't even know where to start. You know, question one, I don't know, what do we start with? I don't know, just write something down. Yes, it's constantly evolving and I would urge everyone to get involved. Even if you're not a B Corp, if you're a concerned citizen in the business for good space, you can still have input on the draft standards that are being discussed right now. So yeah, hopefully that answers Adam's question.

Yeah, we actually have a couple of standards being developed at the moment which we're inviting stakeholders to partake in with feedback. So any interested party is welcome to do that. So yeah, we can find the link. When I get a quiet moment, I'll add it into the chat. We have a question from Sho Keen to hear how B Corp B Lab would support large corporates to be certified as a B Corp in Australia and New Zealand or Australasia. So one thing that I would like to note is that the B impact assessment, when you start, when you set it up, will ask you some questions about your company, the makeup of your company. So we'll ask you the size of your company, where you're based, how many different locations you may have, the industry that you're in and the subset industry that you're in. And based on that you will get a tailored bee impact assessment. So not all Bee impact assessments are like, for like, so say a small business like Carolyn's would not be seeing the same B impact assessment that say a Kathmandu saw. So that's one, one way that you.

Large corps are supported by the tailoring of a B impact assessment.

Depending on the complexity of businesses, there are different.

Steps throughout the process that you need to take. So that, that is one thing that my role is, is actually support large businesses throughout the journey. You get. You would talk to me a little bit more. We would go through different application processes and steps and I would essentially hold your hand. And also folks like Tim and Tamara, who's also on this call, we have an absolute wonderful network of B consultants who are there to also help small and large corporations through their B Corp journey with the technical know how and also the standard knowledge that you may just be a little bit unsure on. And how do you apply it to your company in your particular context?

Yeah, it's, I just, I'd reflect on that as well. It's interesting because a lot of people say oh it's really hard for small businesses if they're a small business because we don't have any resource and time to do it. And then people in big businesses go yeah, but this is really hard for us because it's complex and I have to try and tie down 50 people across 10 countries to get the information from them. There probably is like a Goldilocks sized company in that proper medium sized company where you can get information quickly and you can kind of build a team around it. Yeah, I think the challenges that big companies face is quite often stakeholder engagement because particularly if they're publicly listed, you know, you've got to get shareholder agreement that we're actually going to because I think that's one thing we haven't already mentioned is for you to become a B Corp pretty much in any global jurisdiction now you have to be willing and able to update your company's governing documents, which in New Zealand would be A constitution to say that this company will at all times consider the impact of its operations on its stakeholders, including workers, community, customers, planet, et cetera. So if you're, if you're a big company, typically the bigger the company, the more you have to navigate. A lot of opinions around. Is that actually what we want to do? Whereas typically smaller startups and even the medium companies, they're founder led, still or family owned and they're like, we want to do this, we're already thinking this way. It's going to be an easy win just to change the constitutional or to get one written up. So yeah, I think we've worked with one particularly large company and it was really interesting having spent so many years working with smaller companies just to sort of see how much longer it just takes to move a big beast. I used to work for Johnson and Johnson way back in the days. I had some recollections of how slow big companies can be. Yeah, so it's, it's kind of almost more a stakeholder engagement piece with large companies because you, you've got to bring everyone on the journey whereas in smaller companies pretty much everyone's just raring to go and you can. Yeah, that'd be my one big observation.

Agile and dynamic.

Way more agile. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, Dennis, I haven't skipped any questions. No. Are you moving towards more New Zealand relevant assessment criteria? Things like LEED and accident insurance are more relevant in the U.S.

If I've understood your question correctly, Dennis, B lab is a global standard. So for it to become.

The assessment and the questions to become more relevant to one region would be fairly difficult.

Am I understanding your question?

I think that's what is being asked. But yeah, yeah.

So because it is a global standard, it has to. Yeah. It can't be really tailored to different regions across the world. We can try and understand the context of, of different regions, say New Zealand and apply it. We do have a look at, you know, equivalencies of certifications that you may have in your region. Like for instance, biogrow would be considered even though it's not necessarily something over overseas. We would consider that a standard that we would give a nod to and award credit for in, within the B impact assessment.

And I'm not too sure about accident insurance what you mean there, but yeah, I hope that answered your question.

Feel free to, to pop up on the video. Yeah, yeah, go crazy. If while you're considering doing that, I would just say, yeah, as Lauren said, this is the challenge between it being globally relevant and so, you know, particularly for a company that's operating globally or exporting or doing something internationally, part of the value of the B Corp certification is it, it is globally recognized. And so it's, it's really tough. What I would say though is we're really lucky in New Zealand because, you know, we get particularly under the workers section pretty much given points because we have things like state, you know, state mandated leave entitlement, state mandated parental leave entitlement. We have a free healthcare system. So sometimes you massively benefit and sometimes you lose points because it's not recognized. But in general you pretty much find it'll even out over the assessment. There'll be a couple that you don't get, but there'll be a few more that you do get. And you kind of, you know that that's, that's the challenge. But I think the risk, and I've seen this having spent a good decade in the sort of business for good sustainability arena, the more diverse and the more niche certifications are actually the less valuable they are because no one's heard of it. And so, you know, theoretically a bunch of us could create a business for good framework just in New Zealand. But if you want to take that outside of New Zealand, no one knows what it means. Whereas this global community, global movement of companies that people are increasingly recognized, for me that, that trumps the local.

Value. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

I think I might have just confused Dennis with Adam. Sorry, I just got the chat wrong there. Adam, I've just noticed your message here. You're curious about the relationship between B Lab Global and the frontline folks. I'm assuming you think the frontline folks are me who work with. Yep, yep. Thumbs up.

The real workers.

And Tim.

So we have a very close relationship with B Lab Global. To be honest, I talk to them daily. They we what we call an interdependent network. So we're constantly feeding back, feeding forward.

Trying to engaging where their stakeholder, they're our stakeholder. So we uphold those values like when it comes to decision making. So it is quite fluid. You know, they do hold the standards and they do maintain the standards and implement the standards and, and it is our job as the local regional partner to help our companies in our regions understand how they're applied and kind of like translate them, so to speak. So great working relationship can be fun at times, but we definitely love our.

Colleagues over there and I would say yes as something that we support quite a few companies through B Corp, the local crew, they're always really like I mean, I feel sorry for Lauren because it's normally me spamming her going, hey, Loz, really random one here. Can. Does this like, does this count for this one? And can we sneak this one? And then she's really good. She'll go, look, I'll go and take it to the global team. And then within, depending on how big and weird the question is, the global team will come back really quickly and either go, okay, yeah, we see where you're coming from. That one. Yeah, we will let that one. Or yeah, nah, sorry, guys. Nice try, but no, that's. That's not going to count. So it is. And again, it's tough because, you know, obviously a certification needs to be pretty rigid and know this is the bar. But it does have that little bit of flexibility in it to say, yeah, but actually locally, this. This is an equivalent. Or this is just because there is, you know, that is quite, quite often the challenge. But that's just how we do it in New Zealand. And it's. And so know, as we get more and more B corps, we can have a little bit of influence and get. It's all. I almost say, like, doing my job is almost more like a defense lawyer than a sustainability specialist. Because I'm, I'm trying to help you get the point by you being able to prove that you're doing what you say you're doing. And so we kind of, kind of do build up a little bit of a precedent case which, you know, Lauren can then say, hey, look, there's five companies that now do this in New Zealand. We actually do think that that could be a benchmark. Could we have that locally? So, yeah, they're pretty good for such a big system that is all encompassing.

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely, you know, B Lab Global uses their global partners, which is Australia and Artero New Zealand, to keep their finger on the pulse, essentially. So we definitely work with all of our companies in our region to see, you know, are there precedents that need to be set. And so, you know, we're a room of trendsetters, essentially, if we want to be, which is really cool, I think.

What else have we got?

Yeah, what. Who's next?

Adam's just smashing out questions.

Yeah. The original process. So do you have information about the original process to. Founders of B Corp went through to assess the things off. Off the top of my head, I don't. My kind of vague understanding is they. They were pretty well healed, fairly connected business guys. So Jay and Bart had both. Jay was CEO and co founder of Hand1, Bart was chief operating officer and CFO and I think president. And then Andrew Castoy was a Wall street banker. So the three of them were pretty well connected, sort of business types. And my understanding is they kind of just went to some other big business guys that they knew and said, hey, like here's a first draft of some questions that we think a business should be asked about how it's doing. What more than beyond making money. I guess the other thing to that is when. When Jay had his kind of epiphany of, hey, it's not about just making the money. He. He went back into and one and set up a whole bunch of stuff. So they created opportunity for worker ownership. They brought in like massage therapy and yoga treatment into the office. They worked with some local charities to do leadership outreach programs to Aquis youth in Philadelphia where they were based. And they'd worked with their supply chain to try and get better conditions. So I guess having gone through a little bit of their own journey, they had an idea of where business could make a difference. But yeah, other than that. Yeah. Lauren, I don't know if you've got any more to add to that.

I think someone had a link into politics as well along the way. And the Benefit Corp legislation was also developed out of Washington. It's something that we don't have in our region. We update our constitutional documents, but in America there is an actual entity that you can create a Benefit Corp, which is pretty funky and cool. Just to add some additional.

Information there.

Yeah, okay. Fiona's coming.

She's coming through. She's got two questions.

Yeah.

Oh, no, sorry. No, it's Fiona and Paula. Sorry, yeah, my bad.

Following on from how hard is it for larger companies? Question and chat. How about a business unit that is part of a much bigger business? Can a business unit be certified or does the total wider group of businesses have to be certified? That's an excellent question. And it is a case by case basis. Fiona. We have something that we call the complete and distinct criteria which a lovely B consultant or B lab can assist you with.

Where if a company.

Had their own P and L have their own management.

They have control of supply, demand, sales, they may be considered complete and distinct enough from their parent to certify as a unit. However, it does take a little bit of digging. So for instance, we have in a good example of one in our region would be thinking Unilever, Australia, New Zealand were certified independently of Unilever Global. And that's because they met the very rigorous complete and distinct criteria. So that is a step that we would take with you to determine and we would then map out and scope what certification and certification journey would mean for you and potentially your parent.

Yeah, it's definitely a chat with someone on that one. Because there are. Because I believe I'm correct in saying that there are some risks that if you are complete and distinct, but you are connected to a company, if you certify, that can trigger, meaning that the parent company might have to certify within a certain period of time. So you want to be really, really sure. Otherwise you're going to be a very unpopular person at a board meeting. Hey. Well, we just had a letter from this bail app saying that we have to be a B corp by next year.

Yeah. And that would be laid out well in advance. So we wouldn't, we wouldn't have a company or a sub subsidiary certify without the notification of any kind of requirement on a parent. So you would be well, well aware and being able to consult with any global team or exec or GLT global leadership teams well ahead of time. So no nasty surprises.

Right. Adam's back. Following on from the tips for startups on the pathway. Correro, is there anything, Tim, is there anything you'd wish you'd known earlier that would have made your accreditation process easier? That's a really great question because back then, I mean, I was a startup business myself. Like, my business was literally a year old. There was so much I didn't know about everything. And there's still quite a lot I don't know about much things. Anything.

I think for me, when it's your first time round, the key is just going in with a mindset and intent that I want to achieve this. And as a startup, and I'm presuming, therefore a slightly smaller business, as we said, you're really nimble and you can just, you can just implement stuff that you didn't know existed.

Yeah, this. I don't think there's anything specific that I can think of that I wish I'd kind of known.

Yeah, I think it's just, just most people that, that want to do it, that they're so committed to doing it that you're going to do it. You know what I mean? There's going to be some hard times, there's going to be some introspection, there's going to be some late nights filling in spreadsheets possibly, but it's all for a really great cause. So, yeah, I feel like I've not Answered your question very well because I'll ponder on it a little bit more. But yeah, I don't know if Laura, if you've got any thoughts or insights from people you, you hang out with from the people.

Well, I could say, well, the reason I got introduced to B Corp and B Lab is because I worked for a travel company prior to Covid that were trying to become a B Corp themselves and I was the main driver of, of that process and I think it was the resource and the time that took me.

By surprise. But the other thing that really became a roadblock was leadership buy in. They on the, you know, on the surface level thought this was all well and great, but as soon as you started trying to collect documentation to prove the claims that we were making, you know, we were told no, can't provide that P and L's no, you can't know that Loz. So it is all about, you know, the buy in as well is something that I experience personally.

Yeah, I think my only other reflection on that would be, you know, carve out time to do it because yeah, like I say, I vaguely remember but you know, me and my wife, we got, we had a two year old daughter just moved into a house startup business. You know, I'm, yeah, it was just kind of like getting to the end of the week going oh, I really should look at that B Corp thing. Whereas actually if you just kind of set yourself the time aside to just get on and do it. Like I say for most, most small businesses you can, you can actually get through it relatively quickly. It's just making that time to sit down and do it. Yeah.

All right, Paula, what is the attrition rate? What percentage of companies drop off or do companies stay once they are in the B Corp family?

This is actually there is attrition, I'm not going to lie. But there's different reasons. So some companies might unfortunately not survive the three year cycle until recertification. So they will drop off.

The attrition rate of when someone tries to achieve B Corp certification.

From when they hit submit all the way to signing the dotted line with Belab Global. I think it is about 80% make it through these days. I think it is. Which is excellent and just shows the quality of business applying and the, you know, the amount of effort folks like us, you all here today are putting into the B impact assessment. You know, you are answering questions with authenticity and able to be able to back it up with documentation so our lovely standards teams can verify it. Do people DB Corp. Yes, that does happen. And this could be for the reason I mentioned before. Sure. Maybe it's not for everyone and they've just gone, yeah, that's cool. Loved it, but got some other things to do and that's perfectly fine as well. And then also, if a company, upon recertification, we uncover that potentially they're now working with a controversial industry or within a controversial industry, they. They may decertify as well.

Okay, thanks for answering. Nailed it.

No worries. Happy to answer.

So, Dennis back, thanks for this. We've been working towards this for a year and a half. New question. I'm keen to create staff ownership structure, but I'm struggling for useful advice. You have someone I can contact and I've seen Tamara's got an answer in there. Yeah. Keegan. So there's a company, if you're. I'm presuming, is everyone from New Zealand on this call or is Lauren the only Aussie that's snuck in? We'll let you. Come on. You can come on over.

Yeah. There's a really cool company based in Auckland called Orchestra and they can. It's basically worker ownership packages in a box. You pay them some money, they make all that magic happen and away you go. Other than that, obviously, when Stephen Mo, organizer extraordinaire of this event, isn't busy organizing events, running podcasts and writing books, he is, in his spare time, a lawyer. He might also have some advice around, some options around that. But, yes, certainly we've done a bit of research on this because we've had a few clients not doing it immediately, but looking to the future as part of that sort of betterment plan. They've said, oh, yeah, this is something we're interested on. And, yeah, Orchestra is the best one that we found.

And you've got. Other than that, you've got controversial entries, questions up there as well. So look at that, we've got six minutes left. Any more questions? We're going to be bang on time. Look at that. All that chat from Erica beforehand about having to lock us down. Yeah.

Given the challenge. Don't go over time, said Erica.

Any more questions from the room?

We've got a couple more we can probably filibust to fill the last five minutes. Might as well.

When we were scheming on this, Lauren. Well, I say we. Lauren sent me a list of nine questions and I said, yeah, they sound great. And so Lauren did all. Did all the work for this, but I think there's. There's two questions here. The number six and seven that we had you know, why now? Why would you want to, you know, why is being a B corp now suddenly a thing? Yeah. What do you reckon, Lauren?

I think more than ever there's demand for it. And it's not just externally and appeasing consumers and our customers. It's also internally. It is a mechanism increasingly being used as people, you know, source and procure.

People are holding businesses where they spend eight plus hours a day.

You know, into account. They're holding them to account and they want to work for and they want to work with value aligned businesses.

So from, from that kind of standpoint, I think that's why now the other thing is, well, personally I think we should just do it.

And the other thing is, is that more and more policy and regulation is coming through and this is a way to just get ahead of the curve and prepare yourself for what is inevitably coming. Tim, what do you think?

Yeah, agree with all of that. You know.

Never. It never ceases to blow me away, the numbers of companies that we interact with and you, and you sit down and a couple of them, you kind of go, I think you're doing this for marketing. I kind of, that's my initial impression. And then you get in and you meet the CEO and they go, no, actually I'm all in on this. And we've already started changing the company to be better and we just want to go as far as we can, you know, with what we can do so that. Yeah, I'll go really metaphysical on this one. I love me a bit of Jungian psychology and Paul Jung talked about he was a psychotherapist or the original psychotherapist, him and Sigmund Freud. And he talked about how so we're currently under the age of Pisces, moving to the age of Aquarius. And he said that the, the transition to the age of Aquarius is when man and humanity reaches its true and highest level of consciousness. And I genuinely think that there's something in the water because we are seeing this massive transition of everyone just realizing that actually what I do does have a massive impact on everything and everyone else. And I just think, I think there is and I think Covid was a part of that. But I think there was a trend happening already where more and more people were actually feeling more deeply connected to everything around them. And I think that's something happening in the background, something in the water.

Yeah, definitely.

Any final questions? We've got shows said it'd be good to have support from government for companies to be certified. Yeah. So new Zealand trade and enterprise are all over B Corp. They totally understand the benefit, you know, for certain exporters. Like I say, if you're in food and beverage, health and beauty and you're exporting, you really, really, really should be having a good look at B Corp, just based on the data of the companies that are certifying in the regions you're probably exporting to. Yeah, I think that'd be fair to say. And yeah, the regional business partner network is another funding through mb, basically, so you can get help from people like me or Tamara with some co funding, possibly from a government entity. So interesting to see obviously election around the corner. I don't know whether, whether B Lab has been, I think talking to Andrew, the CEO, he sort of said you guys tend to stay out of lobbying too much. Maybe sort of more like quiet discussions in corridors of power.

We love a discussion.

But yeah, I will plug the NZT program business for good. They're on their eighth cohort just starting this month, which is amazing. It's the largest cohort I believe we've seen, so it's gaining momentum. There will be another cohort in the new year, so keep an eye out for NZTE business for good program.

Yeah, look at that. One minute spare mic drop. Yeah, yeah. And obviously, if you, if you want to talk B Corp, I'm sure Lauren's open to a chat. I'm always open to a chat. If you just. Yeah, if you want my info. Well, I'm sure I can put it in the chat. There we go.

Great. Erica, over to you.

Hilda, thank you so much, Lauren and Tim. And to show our appreciation, can we use our reactions in the chat and even body language. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was awesome. We will now transition into the next session if you are a.

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.