We worked on this for a good 15 months looking at everything we did top down and bottom up until we felt we had made significant improvements.
We then reassessed our impact. We took another step back and went again, looking in further detail at various aspects and fine-tuning various aspects, documenting what we would like to do to further improve in areas where we had scored lowest. We reviewed our legal requirements and made amends to our Articles of Association which legally enshrined our desire for our business to be a force for good.
It was a lot of work but hugely worthwhile and, 18 months after our initial assessment, we felt we were ready to move to the next step. We submitted our application for review. And then we waited.
Some months later, our application was reviewed, and the hard work really started. We needed to submit evidence of key areas of process and policy to evidence that what we said we were doing was genuinely being done and we had to respond to significant requests for further information to support what we were doing and what we intended to do next to further improve on our impact.
This included interviews and assessments. Some days it was like “Dragons Den meets the FCA meets the Apprentice”. Sometimes daunting, but always fun.
Nearly two years after starting our journey we were awarded B Corp certification in December 2022.
The whole process took around 20 months from start to finish and whilst I joke that I work 48 hour days and 10 day weeks the reality is that the amount of time dedicated to it was not dissimilar to the amount required for study for a couple of exams : around 200 additional ‘man hours’ and this was found by people who wanted to find it.
People who were dedicated to us achieving B Corp status and who, like me, like to see things done properly. It’s worth it. You just know that the outcome is going to be that you’ll be a better business so just crack on.
What next?
Like being a Chartered Financial Planning firm, B Corp doesn’t start and stop with being awarded the “badge”. It’s like FCA regulation with a requirement to continuously look inwardly at all aspects of our business to see what improvements can be made to make everything better for everyone.
We have set our own internal goals and targets for the future, such as continued improvement and an increase in the active support we can deliver to our community including education to our stakeholders, a review of our use of consumables and materials and how we can reduce the impact we have on the environment.
