Outdoor clothing giant Patagonia has partnered with a number of US academic institutions to produce three guides aimed at showing businesses the benefits of pursuing B Corp certification.
Companies that are B Corporation certified meet the highest standard of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community, and the environment.
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The three guides are sponsored by Patagonia in partnership with, variously, the Yale Center for Business and the Environment, the Yale Environmental Law Association, and Vermont Law School and Caprock. The guides are part manifesto for the B movement and part users’ guides for three separate constituencies: entrepreneurs deciding whether and when to go B; impact investors seeking a new speciality; and legislators in states and nations that have yet to pass a benefit corporation law.
The guides are: ‘An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Certified B Corporations and Benefit Corporations’; ‘Just Good Business: An Investor’s Guide to B Corps’; and a ‘Legislative Guide to Benefit Corporations.’
“Our company is proud to be part of the growing movement of Certified B Corporations,” Patagonia says. “These companies practice ‘stakeholder capitalism’: They identify their most deeply held social and environmental values, then abide by them, honouring their responsibilities to their employees, customers, suppliers and communities—as well as to the financial health of their investors.
In the six years since Patagonia became a B Corp, the company says it has seen the movement broaden across nations and industries and deepen in purpose.
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By GlobalData“We have seen a new generation of entrepreneurs eager to go B at the outset, so that they communicate their significant values to investors, employees, customers, suppliers and communities right from the beginning. This also turns out to be a smart financial move, according to major consultancies, who find that B Corp start-ups have a higher survival rate than new businesses as a whole.
“In our time of sustained environmental and social crisis, no business can afford to ignore the effects of its products and operations.”
Click here to view the guides.
