B Corp
B Corps are said to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.
B Corp Certification is granted by the non-profit B Lab to businesses which say they meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
B Corp aim to be to business what Fair Trade is to chocolate and coffee.
However, it’s important to note that it’s less easy to offer accreditation for ethics on something as broad as ‘business’. Whilst B-Corp certification does mean a company has to set their governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders, it has a relatively low bar of 80/200 for entry.
This means a company could score very badly in certain areas e.g. ‘The Environment’ but still manage to get a score of 80 for performing well in areas such as ‘Governance’.
For this reason, whilst B-Corp is certainly doing some good in ensuring companies have to act positively in some areas to gain accreditation, other ethical markers which hone in on more specific details such as Fairtrade and Organic can often give a better indication of a company’s ethics.