All things B Corp

Nowadays, more and more companies are becoming B Corporations, but what exactly is a B Corp?

EO Melbourne recently held a virtual masterclass about B Corp certification. Andrew Davies, CEO of B Lab Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, joined the masterclass as one of the resource speakers and spoke in detail about their organisation, B Lab, and about becoming a B Corp.

“Our vision, as an organisation, is for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economic system for all people on the planet,” Andrew Davies said.

“B Lab is the organisation behind the B Corp Certification or the B Corporations. We started in the US in 2007 and in this part of the world in 2013. We operate as a global network so each B Lab organisation is an independent entity and we look after Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. We’re best known for certifying B Corps or B Corporations,” he further explained.

EO Melbourne Members Rob Roy Rankin, Director at Rankin Business Lawyers, Andrew MacKinnon, Cofounder and CEO of SOON Future Studies, and Hayden Brass, Founder and Managing Director of Zea, whose businesses are already B Corps, shared their experience in going through the B Corp certification process as well as the multiple benefits they gained by becoming B Corp certified.

Andrew Davies also expounded on what entails becoming a B Corp. “They’re businesses that meet very high standards of social and environmental performance. They measure and manage their impact on the environment and community. They work as the suppliers and business partners and they adopt governance models that hold themselves to account for that impact. To be a B Corp, you have to be certified by B Lab. Effectively, it’s about having your performance across these standards verified by our team for what is a pretty rigorous process.”

B Corp is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. In order to achieve certification, a company must:

• Demonstrate high social and environmental performance by achieving a B Impact Assessment score of 80 or above and passing B Lab’s risk review. Multinational corporations must also meet baseline requirement standards.

• Make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders, and achieve benefit corporation status if available in their jurisdiction.

• Exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance measured against B Lab’s standards to be publicly available on their B Corp profile on B Lab’s website.  

Through this virtual event, participants were able to learn a lot of information about B Corp Certification and understand the process, as well as appreciate the benefits that this certification could bring to their businesses based on the testimonials of the panellists.

How about you, have you considered becoming a B Corp? Let us know your thoughts through the comments section below.

Futurist Sarah Owen talked about “Future Forecast 2024” to EO Melbourne

How will young people think and behave in 2024? 

Trend forecaster and futurist Sarah Owen, Co-founder & Global Futures Director at SOON Future Studies, recently shared how SOON Future Studies has uncovered “the global drivers of change as well as 30 emerging trends that will help drive business decisions over the next few years.”

SOON is a futures think tank focused on human insights. Hosted at The Taboo Group, office of EO Melbourne Member Andrew Mackinnon, the "Future Forecast 2024" EO x SOON Event with Sarah Owen was attended by EO Melbourne Members, Strategic Alliance Partners and members of the SLP Forum. 

At this event, Sarah, also a social scientist with a background in studying youth culture and social media, revealed that “In 2024, a social, political, and environmental tipping point will drive people to drastically reform and rewire their world. From reinventing the notion of work and challenging the current growth narrative to reshape societal norms and developing entirely new digital realities, this report outlines the emerging mindsets and movements unfolding in the next few years.”

She pointed out that “We live in a liquid society; a period in time where the concepts of identity and individuality are becoming more and more elastic.”

Sarah then gave an overview of the different Drivers of Change and possible News Headlines in 2024. She also talked in detail about the various Key Trends, such as Life Wellbeing, Meta-worlds, Age of Awareness, Reworking Work, Revenge Travel, Retail Revival and the Post-Growth Paradigm, illustrating the emerging trends for each.

The insights shared and discussed allowed the participants to better understand how Gen Z and Millennials would approach work, travel, food, gaming and shopping in the future. It then gave the members ideas on how they can align their businesses with the emerging trends taking into consideration the various drivers of change.

Participants say that “the content was great” and “it is so diverse and eye-opening” that they hope for “more future events because this was incredibly inspiring.”  An EO Melbourne member who came to the event shared that he got at least eight good take-outs from the session.

Leadership teams from various sectors now look at futures studies with interest as these studies provide them with tools for dealing with uncertainties, building resilience among their teams, and mapping out the future of their businesses or organisations.