A total of 120 companies worldwide were recognized on Tuesday for “creating the most positive overall social and environmental impact” by the nonprofit B Lab with the release of the fourth annual ‘B Corp Best for the World’ list.
The list honors businesses that earned an overall score in the top 10 percent of more than 1,200 Certified B Corporations from over 120 industries on the B Impact Assessment, a comprehensive assessment of a company's impact on its workers, community and the environment. Honorees were recognized among micro, small and mid-sized businesses around the globe. This year’s list grew by nearly a third over last year’s 92 honorees, reflecting the notable increase in B Corps sprouting up globally.
Some of this year’s honorees include Echale a Tu Casa, a social housing production company in Mexico; Oliberte, a Canadian premium leather goods company that sustainably sources its materials from and manufactures in Africa to create pathways out of poverty; and California’s Beneficial State Bank, a triple-bottom line community development financial institution and provider of the B Corp Credit Card.
The ‘Best for the World’ companies come from 49 different industries such as manufacturing, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and finance. More than a third (37 percent) of honorees are based outside the US, with companies operating in emerging markets such as Afghanistan, Korea and Brazil.
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B Lab says its ‘Best for the World List’ sets the gold standard for high impact companies and demonstrates that any type of company can use business as a force for good. For example, it helped inspire the Best for NYC campaign, the first municipal public-private impact partnership in the world to support businesses to create more high quality jobs and improve the quality of life in local neighborhoods, all while strengthening their bottom-line.
B Lab also simultaneously released separate lists recognizing the companies ‘Best for the Environment’ (environmental impact), ‘Best for Community’ (community impact), and ‘Best for Workers’ (employee impact).
Each honored company is a Certified B Corporation, meaning they use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems and have met high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency. Today there are over 1,200 Certified B Corps, across 121 industries and 38 countries. Ben & Jerry’s, for example, is a B Corp. Late last year, Vermont-based Green Mountain Power (GMP) become the first utility in the world to become a B Corp.
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Founder & Principal Consultant, Hower Impact
Mike Hower is the founder of Hower Impact — a boutique consultancy delivering best-in-class strategic communication advisory and support for corporate sustainability, ESG and climate tech.
Published Apr 15, 2015 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST