The B Corp Diaries - Entry 1: We're doing it!

Hello World,

We’ve started the process of becoming a certified B Corp at Optix. It’s such an in-depth and complex process, I thought it might be nice to keep a diary and let everyone know where we’re at, and what we’re learning etc.

If you don’t know, B Corp is a certification given by B Lab whose mission is “to transform the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.” By measuring a company’s impact in this way, we can all make conscious choices to work alongside, and buy from, companies who care.

The process is so comprehensive, it can take up to two years to certify! What’s really cool though, is how the assessment itself works. We’ve signed up, and now have access to our impact assessment portal which details all the questions in helpful sections, such as Environment, Workers, and Governance. Every section shows how your score tracks against your industry and country benchmark, as you’re filling out the answers, and shows you what the max points could be for each question. With this part of the process being completely free to join, even if you weren’t planning to certify, you could use the self-assessment as an indicator for potential changes within your business.

Our first two sections to tackle have been Workers and Environment. To gather all the info, it took around 4 to 5 hours, and then we’ve spent about the same time working on ways to improve our scores. A couple of examples of the kinds of things we’ve been able to work on:

·      Additional welfare benefits for part time employees at 3 months of service rather than 6

·      Joining the Living Wage charter to pledge that all full-time staff will earn above living wage, not just minimum wage

·      Creating benchmarks to report against for attrition rate

·      Discussing ways to encourage environmental stewardship when working at home, not just in the office

·      Uploaded our NetZero commitment pledge to our website (previously an internal doc)

·      Allocate a project to Senior Leadership Team to develop policy to encourage internal promotions and hiring, and improve the Employee Review/Satisfaction processes

Have you been through this process and if so what are your top tips? Are you thinking about it or what’s holding you back? Let me know 😊 

See you soon!

Becky