The B Corp standard is a certification system that is building in popularity, especially in the USA and Europe. It is a system to score the wider sustainability of any business, using a questionnaire and audit process to evaluate a business. It is more thorough in its approach than some of the external scoring systems used to evaluate listed companies for investment purposes. It looks at factors such as governance, people, community, environmental, social and commercial practices. The summary premise is that the company must consider wider stakeholders in its business practices, rather than merely short-term profits. Many would argue that is quite a good base to secure long term profits in any case.

A fee is payable which is affordable and scales with the size of business, and any size company can apply. For a large company the biggest hurdle might be adapting a complex business to achieve compliance and reporting standards. For a much smaller business the biggest problem is the time it takes to prepare policies and reporting systems to secure compliance. B Corp do not publish policy documents, detailed standards or management systems which you can simply subscribe to. You have to answer an online questionnaire, which might then prompt you to consider what administrative procedures you might need to adopt.

If you can achieve the standard, and any size business can do it with help, then it could be a highly regarded standard to help guide your business and demonstrate your integrity and competence to your B2B and B2C customers.