Scenes from B Corp businesses (counterclockwise at left): Roberta
MacDonald, senior vice president of marketing of Cabot Creamery
Cooperative; “digestion tanks,” part of a closed-loop system that
generates power and reduces waste; Cindy VandenBosch of New
York City’s Turnstile Tours; Amanda Rinderle and Jonas Clark of
shirt maker Tuckerman & Co., at its New England factory.
Turnstile Tours celebrates family-owned, mom-and-pop food vendors that
contribute to the local economy. “We seek
to help visitors and New Yorkers gain an
appreciation for the contributions street
vendors make to the culinary, cultural and
economic life of the city,” VandenBosch
adds, “and the people who take our tours
are more likely to patronize street vendors and support the livelihoods of working-class and immigrant families in New
York City.” C
Steven Van Yoder is a marketing strategist
and author of Get Slightly Famous.
Intuit and Salesforce, and network and
share ideas at yearly member retreats.
Vermont-based Cabot Creamery Cooperative is well known for its award-winning
cheeses and dairy products. Perhaps just
as well known is its commitment to social
and environmental sustainability. For
decades, Cabot has taken steps to reduce
its environmental footprint, give back to
the community and return 100 percent
of profits to its farmer owners. To further improve its sustainability programs,
Cabot became a certified B Corp in 2012.
Cabot, a Costco supplier, quickly saw
that B Corp certification enhanced its
“triple bottom line” approach of pursuing financial, social and environmental
goals, and that the certification process
generated ideas for new programs, such
as Real Farm Power, a closed-loop system
that generates enough electricity from
waste generated by Cabot’s cows to power
its butter production and led to Cabot winning the 2016 U.S. Dairy Sustainability
Award for Outstanding Dairy Processing
and Manufacturing Sustainability.
“B Corp certification has delivered
value beyond our expectations,” says
Cabot CEO Ed Townley. “Certification
encouraged more ‘whole systems think-
ing’ around our social and environmen-
tal programs, cut operating costs and
helped boost customer loyalty by further
anchoring our reputation as a sustainabil-
ity-minded company.”
Tuckerman & Co. in New Haven, Con-
necticut, became a B Corp in 2014 when it
launched its organic cotton shirt company.
“We wanted to make B Corp values and
practices part of our DNA,” says co-founder
and Costco member Jonas Clark. “The cer-
tification process helped us learn and apply
best practices from leading B Corps and
forge a partnership with our customers
around common human concerns.”
Solving local challenges
Some local and state governments see
B Corps as a way to help solve local challenges. Twenty-six states and the District
of Columbia have passed B Corp legislation, which provides a legal structure to
enable companies to embed nonfinancial
goals for society, workers and the environment into their corporate mission.
In 2015, New York City encouraged local
companies to compete in its Best for NYC
Challenge (bestfor.nyc), a multiyear campaign to encourage city businesses to boost
positive environmental impact, create
higher-quality jobs and improve quality of
life in the city.
Costco member Cindy VandenBosch,
founder and president of Turnstile Tours
in New York City, took part in the Best
for NYC Challenge. The company partners with local nonprofits, including the
Street Vendor Project, and showcases
the cultural and economic contribution
of street food vendors in New York City.
VandenBosch says, “We became a benefit
corporation in 2012, and one of our goals
was ensuring that our tours support local
economic development.”
HOW TO BECOME A
CERTIFIED B CORP
B CORP certification is conferred by the
nonprofit B Lab on companies with high
verified performance when it comes to
positive impact.
The first step in becoming a certified
B Corp is taking the B Corp Impact
Assessment, which assesses the overall impact of the company on its stakeholders. The assessment varies
depending on the company’s size (
number of employees), sector and location
of primary operation. Completing the
assessment typically takes two to four
hours, and B Lab encourages using best
estimates the first time around. Once
the company has completed the
assessment, it receives a B Impact
Report that contains an overall score.
To be certified as a B Corporation, a
company must:
• Complete the free online B Impact
Assessment.
• Verify answers with supporting
documentation.
• Make its score transparent on
BCorporation.net.
• Pay a certification fee that is
based on revenue.
Benefit corporations must fulfill legal
requirements that build stakeholder
consideration into the company governance (this varies based on corporate
structure and location). To maintain the
certification, a company must go
through this process every two years,
and 10 percent are selected for certification evaluation each year, which may
involve an on-site visit from B Lab
staff.—SVY
EMILY
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