B Labs and Benefit Corporations: An interview with Deborah Hirsh

This Innovation: B Corporation is helping envision a new sector of the economy where corporations create benefit for all social stakeholders rather than just shareholders. Promoting notions of interdependence, agency and responsibility through collective action and accountability. An interview with Deborah Hirsh from B Labs about Benefit (B) Corporations. Excerpts:

• “What is socially responsible? What is environmentally responsible? How do we tell whether a business is just marketing themselves as green or sustainable versus: let's see how they're really doing - and actually have a score.”
• “The GIIRS rating system is ... a further development of our current B Impact Ratings system, and it's being developed for the global impact investing community.”
• “We have  a number of partnerships with business products and services that offer incredible discounts to b corporations because they want to reward and incent [environmentally responsible] companies and help them grow.”

What are Certified B Corporations? Certified B Corporations are a new type of corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.  B Corps are unlike traditional businesses because they:

• Meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards;
• Meet higher legal accountability standards;
• Build business constituency for good business

Why B Corps Matter » Meet the Founding B Corporations »

What are the Benefits of Becoming a Certified B Corporation? There are two main reasons companies have become Certified B Corporations; some join the community in order to leverage the influence of their business beyond their industry or geography, and some do so because it just makes good business sense. Learn more about B Corp as an act of leadership. Learn more about the business case for becoming a B Corp.

How to Become a B Corporation? To become a B Corporation, you have to do three things: 1. Take and pass the B Impact Ratings System.  This sets a benchmark for social and environmental impact for good companies. 2. Adopt the B Corporation Legal Framework to bake the mission of the company into its legal DNA. 3. Sign a Term Sheet that makes your certification official. Want help?  Go to http://www.bcorporation.net/become or email us at thelab@bcorporation.net. (source: www.bcorporation.net/about)