What is a Certified B Corporation?

The business community has seen a shift in recent years, with many companies using business as a tool for social and environmental change. These businesses are leveraging their work to build healthy, equitable, and regenerative communities as part of a trend reflected in movements and certifications like the B Corporation.

The basic definition of a B Corporation or certified B Corp is a for-profit company that uses its business as a force for social and environmental good. This may include, for example, an ice cream company that uses its flavors to create awareness of critical social issues. Or a toilet paper company that donates 50 percent of their profits toward clean water and toilets for everyone.

Every B Corp company considers the impact of its business decisions on not just shareholder value, but on all stakeholders across the value chain.

Each certified B Corp has completed a multi-question, robust assessment of their social and environmental performance as an organization, and supplied documentation to validate their answers on the assessment.

The assessment is then audited for high levels of accountability and transparency by the oversight organization, B Lab. 

Becoming a Certified B Corporation is a rigorous, multi-step process designed to ensure companies meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

It looks at seven different areas of a company:

There are also foundational requirements that ensure companies meet B Lab’s fundamental eligibility before they progress to the Impact Topic requirements.

Here’s how the journey unfolds:

The evaluation process begins when a company registers in the B Impact platform and completes its Assessment Setup.

Next, the company reviews B Lab’s Foundation Requirements—baseline standards of eligibility—and B Lab confirms the company qualifies to move forward.

Together, the company and B Lab define the certification scope, defining which legal entities and brands are included and where the B Corp logo may be used.

The company then conducts a comprehensive Self-Assessment against the B Lab Standards (currently Version 2.1) within the B Impact platform.

After submission, B Lab assigns an independent assurance provider to oversee the audit and verification process.

The assurance provider conducts a structured audit (onsite or remote) to validate the company’s performance and documentation.

Following the audit, the company receives a detailed report outlining any nonconformities. Major issues must be resolved before certification can be granted; minor ones can be addressed in the next cycle.

Once all requirements are met, B Lab issues the B Corp certificate, which is valid for five years.

Certified companies undergo periodic audits throughout the certification cycle, with frequency determined by their size and sector, ensuring continued alignment with evolving standards.

There are several benefits to becoming a certified B Corporation. Here are the top five benefits that are touted most often.

Choosing to be a B Corp allows you to pursue broader management goals. Running a traditional for-profit business, your investors expect you to focus solely on shareholder value. That can make you a servant to your profitability.

With a B Corp, your investors, employees, and customers know from the get-go that your goals are much larger than simply turning a profit. This gives you greater latitude to manage your business as you desire, focusing on producing the most meaningful results for your business’s mission.

Financial metrics are important, but they only tell a short-term story about an organization’s profitability. Non-financial metrics tell a much richer account of a business’s overall health and grant you a longer view of the broad range of risks facing an organization. Economists and business experts now see that the top five risks within many companies are Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) concerns.

Certification can help you identify and mitigate these risks. Frameworks like B Corp certification allow a business owner to benchmark and measure a host of non-financial metrics that have been typically hard to measure in the past.

B Corps are attracting top talent, especially among employees who seek purpose in their careers. Certification helps promote and validate an employee-centric culture, which engages great candidates because of the company’s reputation as a great place to work.

Instead of staffing your business with individuals looking for a paycheck, you can attract and retain employees whose values align with your purpose. Companies with engaged workforces are more profitable and twice as likely to succeed as businesses with less-engaged teams.

When you become a B Corp, you can’t just claim to be sustainable or socially conscious — you must prove it. The certification process requires you to demonstrate, through rigorous documentation, how you create tangible benefits for people and the environment. This means consumers and other businesses can trust that companies with B Corp status aren’t just claiming to benefit their community. They’re walking the walk.

Recent surveys show that a large majority of consumers are willing to pay more for environmentally and socially responsible products: for example, a 2024 PwC survey found around 80–85% of consumers are willing to pay a premium — on average about 9.7% more — for sustainably produced or sourced goods.

The demand by conscious consumers is already having an economic impact on the sales of consumer goods, as products with an element of sustainability have been.

When writing this article, there are 10,00+ companies in 100+ countries and 160+ different industries, all operating with a unifying goal of using business as a force for good. Here is a list of some commonly used consumer brands and professional services firms:

Consumer Brands

Professional Service Firms

There is more than likely a B Corp for anything you need. I highly recommend consulting the B Corp Directory anytime you want to purchase.

For a list of the currently certified companies and their B Impact Report, visit BCorporation.net and click the “Find a B Corp link” at the top of the page.

Contact our team of B Corp consultants to learn more about certification.

Original Published Date Mar 17, 2022