When I get asked about how to become a B Corp, I consider that the answer is not as simple as it seems.
Becoming a B Corp is about transforming how you do business, not about checking off boxes. While 60% of companies may fail in their attempts at certification, the challenge isn’t just in the paperwork: it’s in the deeper work of building and running a purpose-driven organization.
It requires more soul-searching and more work than most people realize. As the saying goes, if it were easy, everyone would do it.
To help you navigate this transformative journey successfully, I’ve broken down the process to address both the strategic and tactical elements of certification.
This is not the standard list of the steps that you need to go through to get certified (if that’s all that you’re looking for, B Lab provides a pretty good overview here).
Rather, this looks at not just how to become a B Corp, but rather how to set yourself up for a successful B Corp journey for the long-term:
- Build your foundation for B Corp Certification
- Prepare your assessment & complete verification
- Commit to continuous improvement
Build Your Foundation for B Corp Certification
Just as you wouldn’t climb a mountain without planning your trip, your B Corp journey requires careful preparation and the right support structures.
Consider your Why
There are many benefits to becoming a B Corp. Which of them resonates for you?
Most purpose-driven companies are motivated to become B Corps because it aligns with their values and they want to be part of a movement of companies that are using business as a force for good.
Whatever your reason may be for wanting to certify your company as a B Corp, it’s important to have a clear and compelling reason. Simply put, the certification is a lot of work if your heart isn’t it.
Understand the Commitment
Becoming a B Corp requires thinking through what your company does on a deep level. This is not just about implementing a few social and environmental practices and then considering yourself done.
There is a risk to embarking on and attaining B Corp certification if it’s not at the core of what you do. This was a theme that came up in a discussion about B Corp certification for agencies: how far are companies willing to go to live out their B Corp values of taking care of all stakeholders and advancing climate solutions? Would a company be willing to give up clients in the fossil fuel industry? How does a company take care of employees when facing layoffs?
There are no easy answers, but – to paraphrase Rilke – it is the questions themselves that are important and meaningful.
Gain Active Support from Leadership
To be effective, leadership commitment must go beyond simple approval to active engagement.
When executives champion B Corp certification as a strategic priority, we see faster progress and more meaningful organizational change.
And, as with any strategic priority, this means regular involvement in key decisions and allocation of necessary resources.
It’s not enough to say that B Corp Certification is important and then not provide the resources to effectively integrate social and environmental impact into a company’s overall strategy and operations. Not only does that send contradictory messages that can undermine a company’s effectiveness in moving forward with B Corp, but it also hobbles those efforts before they can come to fruition.
Establish Internal Capacity
Reviewing what you do as a company to see how you compare to established best practices and then making improvements takes time and effort.
Approach it as you would any significant strategic initiative: just as you wouldn’t expect to redo your your website without ensuring that you have internal capacity to carry through with the necessary work, so you shouldn’t consider that B Corp certification is possible without having internal capacity.
Your success and timeline depends heavily on the resources you can dedicate to the process. Companies that assign dedicated staff and maintain consistent momentum typically move faster than those that expect it to be completed by team members who don’t have dedicated time to work on it.
Identify a B Keeper
Every successful B Corp journey needs a dedicated project manager, known as the B Keeper. This person serves as the central coordinator, maintaining momentum and ensuring consistent progress.
An effective B Keeper should have strong project management skills, understand your company’s operations deeply, and have sufficient time allocated to manage the certification process.
They should also have access to key decision makers. Many of the B Corp standards require strategic and operational changes that one employee is generally not able to do on their own.
Set up a Cross-Functional B Team
B Corp certification touches every aspect of your business, making a cross-functional team essential.
Your B Team should include representatives from key departments like Human Resources, Finance, Operations, and Marketing. This diverse group brings valuable perspectives and helps embed B Corp practices throughout your organization.
Unless your company is a solo operation or operating with just one or two employees, a B Team is critical.
Prepare Your Assessment & Complete Verification
Once your company is clear about why it wants to become a B Corp, has active and committed engagement from the leadership team, has identified a B Keeper and a cross-functional B Team, and ensured that it has sufficient capacity to take on a significant strategic initiative, then you’ll have taken concrete steps to set yourself up for success.
The path to B Corp certification follows a clear sequence of steps, though the journey looks different for each company. Understanding this process helps you set realistic expectations and allocate resources effectively.
Take a First Pass
Your first step is to complete the B Impact Assessment (BIA), a comprehensive evaluation tool that examines your company’s impact across five key areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers. Companies need to score at least 80 points out of 200 to qualify for certification.
Think of it as a comprehensive health check for your business – one that examines how your company creates value for all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
The assessment isn’t just a scoring tool; it’s a roadmap for building a better business. Each question represents an opportunity to examine your practices and identify areas for improvement. Many companies discover valuable insights about their operations during this phase, even before implementing changes.
Conduct a Gap Analysis
The distance between your current practices and B Corp standards indicates how much work lies ahead and what you need to do to meet the B Corp requirements.
Some companies already operate like B Corps and mainly need to document existing practices. Their gap between existing practices and B Corp practices may be minimal.
Others may find that the gap is quite large. The company may need to make significant changes, such as increasing employee wages or measuring its carbon footprint, to meet the standards.
In either case, understanding this distance between where you are and where you want to be is an important stage in the process.
If you would like assistance with this process, a Readiness Assessment may help.
Identify Improvements
In all the years that I’ve been involved with the B Corp community and supporting companies in becoming B Corps, I have yet to meet a company that does not find some way to improve as it goes through the B Corp certification process.
This is where the B Corp certification supports organizational learning.
Once you see your baseline of where you stand in relation to the performance requirements, you can then develop a plan to make improvements. What are the changes that you’ll need to make? How will you go about making them? What resources will be needed? What will the timeline be? These are all key questions to consider.
Implement Changes
This is the most important part of the entire process: it’s where a company actually makes changes to how it operates. It changes what it does on a day-to-day basis to integrate better social and environmental practices.
The company is growing, in many cases moving beyond the comfort zone of practices that it already knew how to do and instead entering into new areas.
Note that one common change that needs to be made is to meet a legal requirement, which stipulates that a company is committed to considering all stakeholders, including the environment, in its business decisions.
Gather Documentation
The documentation requirements represent one of the biggest challenges related to B Corp certification.
You’ll need to provide documentation when you go through the Verification process. Common documentation includes:
- Company P&L
- HR policies and employee handbooks
- Community service records
- Governance documents
- Impact measurement data
This isn’t about creating paperwork – it’s about demonstrating the real impact your company is making. For many companies, the process of establishing documentation systems represents a significant step in the company’s evolution. As a client once told me, “It’s making us grow up as a business.”
Complete Verification with B Lab
B Corp certification is meaningful for many reasons, including the requirement to verify everything that you claim your company is doing.
Simply put, B Corp certification isn’t awarded for good intentions or aspirations – it’s awarded to companies that can demonstrate what they’ve actually done.
The BIA is a self-assessment, so your answers need to be verified by an analyst at B Lab. This is a fairly lengthy process that can take several months, but once you’re done and an analyst can verify that you meet the performance standards, your company will be a Certified B Corp!
Commit to Continuous Improvement
As many people have noted, B Corp certification marks the beginning, not the end, of the process. Once you’ve gone through the certification process, how will you build on it to make your company even better?
Maintain Your Momentum
One of the biggest mistakes that I see companies make is to lose their momentum after they get certified.
It’s understandable – after going through a yearlong process, it’s natural to want to take a break. Taking time to rest and celebrate is important so be sure to do that!
However, don’t let 1 month of rest turn into 12 months of neglect. B Corp certification requires continued attention to the practices that you’ve implemented. That carbon footprint assessment? That wasn’t just a one-time exercise to check off a box. It’s an annual practice that needs to be maintained.
Keep your B Team engaged, track the initiatives that need to be maintained, set new goals, and continue to make positive changes in your business.
Many businesses find that an external thought and accountability partner is quite helpful in staying on top of their impact practices. Contact us about our Impact Maintenance program for ongoing assistance with this.
Level Up
Continuous improvement is built into the certification process.
For starters, B Corp certification is valid for 3 years. This means that it’s not a one-and-done certification. Just because a company met the standards for its initial certification doesn’t mean that it will meet it again when it’s time to recertify, so staying on top of positive impactful practices is important.
Second, the standards themselves are updated regularly to keep up with best practices and new emerging standards. In fact, new standards will soon be released that will drive even greater impact.
Lastly, under the new standards, companies will be required to report annually on how they’re doing in terms of their impactful practices, so ongoing attention to your impact work will be required.
Engage with the Community
One of the biggest benefits that you have as a B Corp is the community.
Here’s what you’ve gained:
- Potential clients (for B2B companies) and customers (for B2C companies)
- Potential partners to help you introduce new products/services and reach new markets
- Peers who share resources and engage in ongoing network opportunities
- Mentors and advisors who willing share their knowledge and hard-earned learnings
- People who will stand in solidarity with you as you push against the mainstream of business-as-usual
Will this happen automatically? Not at all.
People do business with who they know, though, and by joining the B Corp community, you will have ample opportunities to get to know people and have them get to know you. You’ll also find curated opportunities, such as B Lab’s “Let’s Collab” events that are specifically designed to facilitate community-building and collaboration.
Taking the Next Step
Becoming a B Corp is a transformative journey that goes beyond certification. It’s about joining a community of businesses committed to creating positive impact while building more resilient, purposeful companies.
Remember, every B Corp started exactly where you are now: with the decision to use business as a force for good and then taking steps to move forward with the certification process.
Fill out the form below to start your B Corp journey!