Why do Certified B Corporations matter in Canada?
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Certified B Corporations and announced the presence of the official Canadian B Corporation Hub at the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing. Shortly afterwards, I had the opportunity to attend the B Corp Champions Retreat in Pennsylvania. As I looked around the conference room, I was inspired by how these individual entrepreneurs would be the pioneers for this new sector economy. I was also quite aware of the Canadian B Corp presence and found myself wondering (amongst others) why there weren’t many more.
At the time of this post, there are over 465 Certified B Corporations in North America with $2.3 Billion in revenues. However, the amount of Canadian corporations certified is only around 25. We know there are plenty of great Canadian companies using the power of business to solve social and environmental problems, but just haven’t gone through the process of being certified.
So the question remains: Why do Certified B Corporations matter in Canada?
1. It’s time to recognize
Despite the Canadian stereotype of preferring to deflect praise from ourselves, we need to recognize all the amazing things that are being done in this country. Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have been identified as leaders in the social finance space and it is time we take our place alongside them. We can do this by showcasing our growing movement of many great Canadian businesses with social/environmental missions like Me to We and Bullfrog Power. There are likely many more we don’t know about.
The B Corp status fuels growth through positive attention by communicating to customers and investors alike: “If you care about impact, you should be doing business here”. Having more customers and investors leads to more revenue and capital, which leads to more growth, which then leads to many more social enterprises.
During the retreat, many of the attendees mentioned that the B Corporation values were very “Canadian” and assumed a significant portion of Certified B Corporations would come out of Canada. Now that’s a stereotype worth fulfilling!
2. Local community is how we grow
Even in our age of hyper-connectivity, it is still difficult for local like-minded organizations, that are moving against the grain, to find each other. The B Corp community provides access to networks and fosters new relationships, which are vital to the success of any business. More importantly, such relationships add value through knowledge sharing and spur each other to aim higher. Jodi Lastman, GM, Accounts of Hypenotic, the values-driven communications and design firm, and also one of the founding Canadian B Corp Members wrote about her experience with Good Foot Delivery and described it this way:
“When you connect with others who share your values (a community) you strengthen your values and make it more likely that you’ll continue to act on them in the future.”
This comment reinforces the importance of a local B Corp community in helping individual businesses fulfill their missions and stay on course.
3. Synergy is king
Synergy. Arguably the most overused business cliche besides “thinking outside the box”, this term has yet to meet its equal. The concept that a collective is greater than the sum of all its parts may seem obvious, but curiously, not everyone seems to embrace it. While each individual social purpose business is already making an impact on its own, we need to work together in order to make systematic impact and change.
We are talking about advancing public policy for social change, which B Lab (the nonprofit that provides B Corp certification) champions in the United States. Already, 6 states have passed Benefit Corporation legislation; a new class of corporations that are beyond maximizing shareholder value and are required to “create a material positive impact on society and the environment”. A change in legislation not only lays the groundwork for tax reform, but also initiates a shift in public thinking.
Last year, Adam Spence wrote about his epic journey to understand the importance of the Benefit Corporation Legislation.
It was the collective presence of the Certified B Corps in the United States that helped move the policies into the forefront of the political agenda. Canada currently does not have such legislation, so we have a unique opportunity to make history and change how Canadians view traditional corporations.
To achieve this, we will require a unified movement, a critical mass of Certified B Corps, in order to show that we mean business (pardon the bad pun).
To find out more, check out www.bcorporation.net or email me at jsou@marsdd.com.
