Becoming certified and beyond: with NOOR by Grant Blvd founder Dr. Kimberly McGlonn

Getting Down to Business hosts Lauren Everett and Denise Jones welcome Dr. Kimberly McGlonn, founder and CEO of NOOR by Grant Blvd, in the season’s final episode. NOOR by Grant Blvd is a sustainable luxury brand that has been making waves with its ethical production practices, its commitment to intersectional design, and its mission-driven business model.

NOOR has been a B Corp for four years and just went through recertification. Kimberly says that so much of what it means to be a B Corps had been in the DNA of her understanding of what a business could do since she founded her first company. “So B Corp just became a pathway for communicating to other people that I said what I said, and that I was going to do what I was going to do, and that I had receipts to support what we were building together,” she says.

 

B Corp and intersectionality

As a black woman, Kimberly notes, having “receipts” has been one way of entering into a qualitative conversation with a quantitative track record. And although she consciously built her business around intersectional design, she says that becoming involved in the B Corp movement has broadened her understanding of just how wide the “aspirational push” of a business can be. “I think in the beginning I thought a lot about wages, and how do we think about materiality,” she notes. “And in doing the assessment, my understanding of what I could also consider really opened up.”

In particular, the values of B Corps aligned with her own value of intersectionality. “In the assessment, you're thinking about governance, you’re thinking about what does our energy use look like?” she says.  “Those are all considerations that when you weave them together, they become a gumbo. And that is what I mean when I say intersectionality, and that's informed by a real sense of urgency that the problems that we have to figure out how to make some significant progress on, it's going to require that we don't choose one or the other, that we're going to have to pay attention and hold our arms out a little wider in terms of what we hold as central considerations.”

Importance of tangible certification

Kimberly says that attaining the B Corp certification has helped her as a business leader to signal her commitment to doing things ethically and sustainably: “One of the things that emerged over time was that it wasn't so much my own sense of achievement. . .but that I knew that what I was doing would supersede a standard and a wider set of considerations than even my own personal standard.”

The clarification for consumers of the business practices that go along with B Corps certification is also invaluable, she says. “I think in that way it's helpful for really, really discerning consumers that seeing the B Corp certification on a product or a label or a website, that it has value, and I want it to be aligned with that value add.”

Growth throughout her company was another benefit of the certification process. “I think what it created actually were more opportunities for me to work with my team around what we were actually driving,” Kimberly says. “While it was a teaching tool for me as a leader, I also work with our Director of Impact to make sure we have what we needed and that our documentation fit within the standards that were being required of us. The B Corps assessment also offers an opportunity for professional development within the company culture. The people who are submitting that [data] are then empowered to have new language and fresh eyes for thinking about what's happening within the company and the culture and the decision making. And that was really helpful.”

For more information about B Corp Certification and how to measure your company's impact, visit https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/programs-and-tools/b-impact-assessment/