BR-ND People is B Corp re-certified again!
Hooray, we did it once again!
BR-ND People again passed the bar; it’s June 2021, and we got our B Corp points renewed. We solidified our position in a global movement of businesses accelerating a global culture shift to redefine success.
B Corp? A sect, a religious movement? No worries, it’s only about business as a force for good.
As far back as 2014, we got in touch with B Lab for the first time. In those days, we visited several events in the Netherlands, looked around, met with movers & shakers, tasted the mood and asked ourselves if this was a thing for us. From the very start, we were hooked by the B Corp beliefs of interdependence and the idea of business as a force for something better and bigger than profit alone. We found out that the B Corp ideas are in sync with those of our own. But I have to admit that joining an ‘American’ movement with idealistic belief systems and rituals felt initially a bit scary. The idea that soon we would have to stand on a stage with fellow B Corpers, holding hands while chanting gospels about interdependence, peace and happiness scared the shit out of me.
Nevertheless, we gave it a go in 2016 and took up the BIA, the assessment to start our first certification process. Soon we discovered this was serious stuff and something not to think of lightly. Client work came from the right, and we had to let go. It was simply too tough, too many details, too much work.
In 2017, we got in touch with Huub Waterval, CEO of a then recently certified B Corp now called Nextview, and Jeroen Schaling, Nextview’s marketing director at the time. They selected us for a full rebranding and business integration job. That gave us the final nudge and inspiration not to give up and go on with the full certification. After an intensive job at the end of 2017, we got certified as a B Corp for the very first time.
Rise of purpose-driven business and brands.
The world has evolved a lot since then. Awareness about the downside of the linear economy as we know it, such as climate change and the destruction of our living planet, has never been higher. And also the realisation that prosperity is unfairly shared is broadly recognized in the Western World. Turbo capitalism and its foul effects on people and the planet are nowadays common topics. Many people, political parties and also large corporations are making efforts to do something about it.
During the last 3 years of our B Corp status, we have even seen global giants such as Unilever (T2, Ben & Jerry’s, Seventh Generation, Sir Kensington’s, Mãe Terra, Sundial, Olly Nutrition, Pukka Herbs), Danone, Coca-Cola’s (Innocent), Natura and Illy café join the movement and many others are lining up to be certified. By 2021, over 4000 companies have reached B Corp status worldwide, of which about 100 in The Netherlands.
Being an active member of this community, we have made many new friends, and fully try to live up to the promise of the interdependence of businesses sharing the same belief system. More than ever are we inspired to make coalitions, activate ecosystems, and cooperate with like-minded organisations to jointly create a more sustainable world. Together it can be done.
In 2019, we started preparing for our recertification, and we were aiming for an even better score this time. With the support of Alice Muurlink, our trained B Leader, we set up an improvement plan with much smaller and some larger initiatives to be an even better B Corp. Every quarter we had to report our progress to Alice and make some fun while doing so. End of 2020 we had to be recertified and as an experienced B Corp, we thought it would be a piece of cake. How could we have been so naive?
I will not go into detail about how laborious the recertification process was, but we’ve been thoroughly assessed. Claiming sustainable behaviour is not enough, you have to prove it. And we did. Really relieved this is behind us now and that we are free of such an analysis for the 3 years ahead. We can now again start improving our sustainability efforts even further, as we did in the last 3 years. We improved our performance in most aspects of the BIA, although this does not clearly materialize in the overall score. A new category of "worker" was activated, which affects the overall average weighting of the score. Enough about the score. What matters is that we are recertified again, that our team is fully aware of the responsibilities we have as a B Corp and that we are willing and prepared to accelerate with our clients to a regenerative, circular and more just world in the post corona era ahead of us.
