The B Corp Movement

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You're listening to another episode of the Green Element Podcast. I'm your host, Will Richardson. This is a bit different from our usual episodes. In this episode, you'll be listening to a few stories and lessons from a few of the B Corp certified companies that we have had the pleasure of interviewing over this series. If you don't know about the B Corp movement, the B Corp movement is a way for you to understand your impact on society and everything around you using consistent methodology. It is really exciting to grow a business with not only your colleagues but also your clients, and suppliers believing in what you are doing. I am eternally grateful to our clients that are sticking by us and have stuck by us and ensuring that we can spread a message that business can be a force for good. With clients like Grant Thornton, Regent's University London, and Interpublic Group, we could not be more excited about the future. We, along with the rest of the B Corps, and I might add, as you have found out on our podcast, many other business are really starting to buck the trends. We live in this world together. Here at Green Elements, we too are proud to be a B Corp certified company. So first, we have Catherine Ferrand of Ossa Organic. She shares their excitement of being a B Corp.

At the moment, definitely our supply chain, I would say. We have just been very proud to be announced as a B Corp Best for the World honoree in the environment category.

Amazing.

So what does that mean? That means that we are one of only 2, I think you are the other one.

Yes, that's right.

One of only 2 B Corps in the UK who have an environmental sector or that meets a certain criteria in the environmental space that is sustainable, that is exceptionally high quality, and that is set up with care for the environment in mind. So we are very proud that at the moment, where possible, Our supply chain is run on renewable energy. We have a biomass boiler, so once we've boiled our bones for up to 24 hours, we return them to the grid to create further energy. The organic farm that Oss is produced on has solar panels on the roof across the entirety of the farm, and where possible, based on, on the UK's environment, we run on renewable energy. We also upcycle bones, which means that most bones in the UK, before bone broth made a resurgence, used to be incinerated, which meant they were a waste product and farms were having to pay once these bones had been butchered to burn them, incinerate them, and get rid of them effectively. So we now collect the bones so long as they meet our criteria. We are Soil Association and Organic Farmers and Growers certified. So if we have bones that are grown Grass-fed to organic standards and from animals that are well cared for without hormones or antibiotics. We will collect those and they used to be free, funny enough, Will, but they're not anymore. So we'll pay for them and we will bring them back to the farm and create bone broth from them and return them back to the birds. So we're very proud of that. And I think building a business with a sustainable supply chain is our real superpower.

Brilliant. Brilliant.

So can you tell us about how you engage your staff, suppliers, customers?

With your mission and purpose.

Someone asked me yesterday, actually, whether it became impossible to do business or create a bottom line or profit from something that was related to your mission if you would change your mission or change what you were selling. And I was like, well, Ossa is built on a mission, which is to reeducate people, as I said, about the power of restorative foods, enable people to nourish and heal their bodies by incorporating Ossa into their daily lives. And we try. And only work with suppliers that get that. So our story is very closely linked with our choice of suppliers at the moment. As I said, they have to meet our criteria, which makes us possible to call ourselves organic and makes it also possible for us to supply into supermarkets. So I would say that we would change relationships before we thought of compromising our mission. We work together with our suppliers to reduce waste. We work together with our suppliers to promote the use of renewable energy. We encourage our suppliers to look at the B Corp credentials and help raise themselves up to that level. We encourage, and I do myself personally, and I know you do as well, we're like-minded in that way. Anyone I speak to, I'm like, you should become a B Corp. So that's suppliers included. We visit our suppliers and look at the way that they're doing things and the way that they're thinking, etc., etc. Are they looking at just profit or triple bottom line, like people, planet, and profit? And we engage with like-minded people, and I think that's really what makes the world go round. It's about working with people that get it.

So that was Ossa Organic, where they produce naturally organic bone broth. Now, if you are thinking about how you can make your organization and teams more sustainable, here is what Himani Taylor of DoNation has to say. They've been helping companies become more sustainable by helping employees become more sustainable with their pledging platform. Is there any advice—

I mean, you've, you've obviously seen quite a lot of companies now. become, or try to become, and become environmental and do things. Have you seen any campaigns and stuff that you've gone, wow, that's absolutely amazing, that's really, really, really pushed the way forward? I know I'm slightly putting you on the spot here.

I mean, I see I see a lot. I do see a lot of a load of different companies and how they talk about sustainability. From where I come from, it's always the internal-facing side. It's the engagement side and how do they get their wider employee base excited by and acting on sustainability. And to me, the wow factor there that really differentiates the campaigns that are super successful from those that to be honest, in a lot of cases, talk about doing it, talk about doing it, talk about it, and never quite have the time to actually get on and do it, which happens all too often, is the ability to get green champions, people who kind of let go of sustainability sometimes, to people who, for whom it's not in their job remit, and giving some agency to often quite young junior people who really care. They might be in the sales team, they might be an engineer, they might be in the finance team, but they've got a real passion for the environment and for our planet. And sure, they're not going to be the people necessarily to do the bigger jobs that a sustainability team is tasked with, like sorting out the supply chain and changing the energy suppliers and installing more efficient equipment and all of that. That's not— that's not their speciality, but what those people are really well placed to do is get their colleagues on board and engage people. And for us, yeah, the really successful campaigns are when sustainability managers maybe give the, yeah, sure, let's— okay, we'll sign off and let you go ahead with this donation or this pledge campaign, but you, the environmental champions, run with it. And letting them, giving them the agency and the tools to do that can be amazing. And it can open so many more doors for the environmental team. So an example, actually, of an outcome of that, within Network Rail, we were talking about earlier, they ran a campaign, all of their employees making their pledges. One of those employees was one of the directors. And he pledged to use reusable water bottles. And in doing that, you know, he's then more alert and aware of the water bottle use. And he goes to one of their sites on the track and sees stacks of water bottles. And they're giving out hundreds of thousands a day to employees, or a week. He's like, this is ludicrous. Why are we doing this? We need to change this. And so he went then to the environment manager and said, look, we need to change this. I'm making a pledge. We're going to get rid of plastic water bottles with our team. That's something she'd been wanting to do for ages, but yeah, you know, hadn't had the authority to do. So it can unlock doors, just getting people bought in on a personal level.

Yeah, I guess it's just opening eyes, isn't it? When you look— when, say, I go into a company, people go, so what kind of skills have you got? And I don't think. But all we— all I do know is anyone that kind of does what we do, you know, for a living, as in you and I and Green Element, is we just kind of look at things with environmental eyes. So rather than be specialists, we automatically— like the example you've just given, he automatically walked in and went, oh, why are we using all these water bottles?

Yeah. I'd not noticed them before, but with that, yeah, those lenses on.

Yeah.

That's cool.

So if you want—

if our listeners want to get started and understand how to be more sustainable, what would you, um, what would you suggest that they do, um, with your hat of DoNation on? Obviously join DoNation.

Obviously, I mean, go to wearedonation.com and create a campaign. But it depends where they're coming from and what stage of the journey they're at. I mean, I think the B Corp— you and I are both— well, DoNation and Green Element are both B Corps. And I'm a huge advocate of that and the environment. Even if you don't think as a company you can become a B Corp right away, going through the assessment, which is free, perhaps just starting off with the environmental section, if that's what you're interested in improving, going through those assessment questions will be a great way to highlight What you are and aren't doing.

We have Adam Hutley of Red Ink share what they are doing making the stationery business more sustainable.

Okay, so I suppose Red Ink is just an office supplies reseller in its kind of raw state. I founded the company in 2008 and it was based on just 3 basic principles that I think we needed addressing in more detail. So obviously one was cost. That's really important. You know, we have to be competitive. There's sort of no getting away from the price conversation anymore.

Yeah.

But it was how we dealt with that. We had to be transparent and look at cost in an intelligent way rather than more of a sort of cloak-and-dagger style traditional with our industry. So that was really important. There was sort of these 3 basic principles that we just thought, if we can look at this and apply common sense to it, we can probably do a lot better. So impact was our second point. And by impact, I meant really environmental impact. We're in a logistics industry, although we sell office supplies and print. We have a lot, a lot to do with impact. And we wanted to add value to our customers. And we felt that having more knowledge and being experts in the environmental sort of processes, we could actually assist customers. So not just being a sort of, you know, we sell stationery, end of. We became more consultative around that area as well. So our goal is to reduce our environmental impact and also to reduce that of our customers in this tiny sector that we're in.

we deal with.

And finally, it was to reduce human effort. So, you know, we get people are busy, we get office supplies is far from heady or top of the list of anyone's agenda. So we had to make a business model that worked for the customer, which meant that they had to— they could get in, get it done, and get out. You know, it's about 100% fulfillment logistics being spot on, and as many things as we could just to make this really, really easy for them. So they were the 3 basic principles that the company was founded on, really.

And so if you could offer one piece of advice to our listeners which could help them with their purpose, what would that be?

Well, I suppose really doing the impact assessment for the B Corp, because, you know, that is— that opens up a whole new world of information that perhaps we didn't know existed before. we did it, and I would imagine there's a lot of businesses, certainly SMEs, that have no idea about how they should do policies, you know, equality and diversity, and how you look at your carbon footprint. You know, it's so in-depth, and I think if nothing else, even if they don't become a B Corp, if they look through that assessment, it will open their eyes to see really what more they need to be doing and how much really needs to be done as running a small business.

We also have Tom Greenwood of Wholegrain Digital share his big learning from attending a B Corp So is there any advice or learning that you'd like to share with everyone listening to this podcast?

Yeah, I think, I think one of the things for me this year that I'm thinking about a lot, and actually came from this year's Reboot Retreat, was this sort of idea of looking beyond the horizon. I think, I think we can all be very sort of blinkered in our day-to-day work, that we've got our goals and we know what our business is trying to achieve, and And it's very much like we just need to get there. But actually, whether we're talking about sustainability or talking about life or business in general, I think there's a real value to trying to stop ourselves every now and then and saying, okay, well, that might be my goal for the next year or 2 years or whatever it is, but what's beyond that? What might be 10 years ahead of that? And you don't have to plan it. necessarily, but just having that thought process of what is it. And I think in the context of sustainability right now, I think we're at a critical time in history where we really all need to be doing this because we are sort of— we are fast running out of time on climate change. And I think when we're all head down focusing on the next quarter or the next 12 months or whatever in our businesses, we lose sight of the big picture. And the big picture is that we need to be reducing emissions a lot faster than we are. And I think when you only look at the next 12 months or the next 6 months, you can think you're doing really well. But when you look 10 years ahead and you think, oh crikey, we need to be, you know, let's say 10 years ahead, we need to be sort of zero carbon by then. Then suddenly it sort of changes something in your mind where you're thinking, well, all right, let's Let's just take a step back and really brainstorm. Like, could we do things radically different? And I think that's the thing, is when you look beyond the horizon, you, you're sort of forcing yourself uncomfortably to try and actually tear up, tear up your own plans and actually think, well, could we come up with completely new ideas? Could we do things completely differently? And I'm not saying that you I'm not saying that's easy, and I'm not saying that those ideas are easy to implement, but I think at least going through that exercise means that you're sort of on that journey of trying to get to the real goal, which is a genuinely sustainable— not just a genuinely sustainable business, but be a part of a genuinely sustainable society, rather than just focusing on your own short-term goals, which might be fantastic, but— But don't necessarily lead to where we all need to be in 10, 20 years' time.

Absolutely.

Brilliant. That was Tom Greenwood, and they're a WordPress sustainable web design agency. It's a fascinating time to be running a business. You've got so much stuff that's going on in the world. You don't really have the chance to sit back and watch. You want to be a part of it. You want to embrace the future. You've just listened to some fantastic individuals And by no means are they the best. And that's no disrespect to them. But there are so many fantastic individuals and we've been interviewing a number of them on our podcast. They're all striving for a better future. We are all striving. And it's just really exciting to be a part of it and to be able to be called a B Corp. Okay, so that's it from this episode of the Green Element Podcast. I'm Will Richardson. See you on the next episode! Thank you!