Thinking of becoming a B Corp? Here's how we did it.

Thinking about becoming B Corp certified? It's definitely a journey and here's our little journey.

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BCorp Mindy

Are you an impact-driven business with the values to match?

If so, certifying as a B Corp might be something that’s on your to-do list.

So, as a business that’s just gone through it, think of us as your friendly guide and guinea pig. Settle in as we share some tips on how to get through the rigorous certification process and still come out smiling.

Let your vision guide you 

Our vision has always been to help conscious businesses grow. Every business decision we make comes back to that. Whether that’s through improving a client’s bottom line or our own impact on the planet.

Our ‘why’ has been the foundation of our business.  It’s inevitably what led us to becoming a certified B Corp.

Read more about our ‘why’ behind getting certified here.

Brush up on B Corp fundamentals

If you’re considering certifying as a B Corp there’s a high chance you already know about the global movement towards a more inclusive and sustainable economy. B Lab, the organisation behind B Corp, are one of our clients and we’ve learned so much from them.

The decision making part of getting certified was pretty straightforward for us, but if you work for an organisation and are keen to suggest they consider B Corp status, then B Lab have some super helpful resources for you.

To start you off, there’s a pre-prepared presentation for you to talk your company through as well as a list of FAQs.

There’s a wealth of tools to help you on your certification journey available on the B Corp website:   a free online course, workshops, case studies and bookings for one-on-one consultations.

Sink your teeth into the Business Impact Assessment (BIA)

The BIA is the heart of the whole B Corp certification. When you start moving through it, it works to get a baseline of where you’re at as a business through a points system for each area.  It then guides you through the process of verifying and improving your score. You need 80 points to certify.

Okay, real talk, the BIA was no joke... It took us around 200 hours to get through it, including many back and forths, lots of gathering information, making changes and resubmitting.

It’s a process! It was well worth it for us, but brace yourself.

Everyone’s business is different, and there’s no one-size-fits all when it comes to this process, but here is a breakdown of what worked for us.

1. Prioritise

We took a quick pass at the BIA and organised the requirements into four groups:  easy, medium, hard and long-term. Our spreadsheet looked like this. It  gave us a place to start, and for us, made it way less overwhelming.

2. Change stuff

There are a couple of ways to do this: you can make business changes as you go or wait until the end and do them all at once. We decided to change things as we worked our way through, like switching to an ethical bank, adding a social mission and commitment to initiatives to our constitution, classifying our suppliers according to their contributions to the UNSDGs, publishing an annual report,  and outlining how we tracked our energy and water usage.

3. Call on B Lab

We checked in with the team at B Lab, who gave us feedback on how we were progressing. Their guidance was seriously helpful. They’re available to everyone going through the process, and there are a bunch of ways to connect with them.

We attended their half-day bootcamp, during which they helped us review our approach. Over the next 3-4 months we continued to make a bunch of conscious changes to the way we were running the business.

When we were almost ready to submit we booked in for a 1:1 session with Mindy at B Lab  to give us peace of mind. And, once again, there were a bunch more changes to make! We may have mentioned earlier... it’s a process 😅

4. Design to Give

As part of our certification we made the decision to donate 5% of our revenue to Greening Australia. Not everyone is in a position to do this bit, and it’s not a dealbreaker, but we were, and after much deliberation, we decided it was the right thing for us. Once we did that we were ready to submit.

And then we waited.

5. Verify, Refine, Improve

And so began the verifying process with an auditor from the global B Corp Standards Review Team. For us, the time we spent in the B Lab workshops and 1:1 consults was invaluable.

Yes, we were asked to upload more documentation, but the B Lab team helped us ensure there were no huge holes in our BIA.

This can be the longest step, depending on the size of your business, but it's also where you're given the opportunity to improve your application and really make it sing!

And then we got certified. Yay.

It was a surreal moment when we got the email. We were completely overwhelmed, also Bec was completely in labour, so we put a pin in it and got back to the business of baby birthing.

A few days later we were able to take it in. We’d done it 🎉 We signed the Declaration of Interdependence and paid our certification fees. Once the admin was taken care of, our very own profile was published on the B Corp directory and it was time to start telling the networks.

We're pumped to join a community using business as a force for good. In three years we’ll need to recertify, but the process won’t be nearly as full on. But for now it’s onto the task of living up to the title, and being a truly conscious business.

Learn more about the 5 small changes we made (like choosing suppliers and policy making), and the 5 big changes we made (like a giving model).

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22 Bricks
ABCH
ATEC
Abundant Water
Anantaya Jewellery
B Lab ANZ
BZE
Bank Australia
Chaulk
Client Fabric
Clockwork Films
Common Ground
Compass Studio
Cyclion
Dog & Bone
Evee
Farm My School
Gewürzhaus
Goodtel
Green Collar
Hagens Organics
Hey Doodle
Jasper Coffee
Jaunt
KOSI
KingPump
LVLY
Lumen
MIIROKO
MK Local Foods
Marnie Hawson
Merry People
No Lights No Lycra
North West Guadalcanal Association (NWGA)
OBG
One Small Step
Parliament of Victoria
Peninsula Hot Springs
Portable
Possible
Prisma Legal
ReCo
Shadowboxer
Strongim Bisnis
Studio Schools Australia
Thankyou
The Sociable Weaver
Time
WIRE
Whole Kids
iDE
No items found.
22 Bricks
ABCH
ATEC
Abundant Water
Anantaya Jewellery
B Lab ANZ
BZE
Bank Australia
Chaulk
Client Fabric
Clockwork Films
Common Ground
Compass Studio
Cyclion
Dog & Bone
Evee
Farm My School
Gewürzhaus
Goodtel
Green Collar
Hagens Organics
Hey Doodle
Jasper Coffee
Jaunt
KOSI
KingPump
LVLY
Lumen
MIIROKO
MK Local Foods
Marnie Hawson
Merry People
No Lights No Lycra
North West Guadalcanal Association (NWGA)
OBG
One Small Step
Parliament of Victoria
Peninsula Hot Springs
Portable
Possible
Prisma Legal
ReCo
Shadowboxer
Strongim Bisnis
Studio Schools Australia
Thankyou
The Sociable Weaver
Time
WIRE
Whole Kids
iDE

No items found.
No items found.
22 Bricks
ABCH
ATEC
Abundant Water
Anantaya Jewellery
B Lab ANZ
BZE
Bank Australia
Chaulk
Client Fabric
Clockwork Films
Common Ground
Compass Studio
Cyclion
Dog & Bone
Evee
Farm My School
Gewürzhaus
Goodtel
Green Collar
Hagens Organics
Hey Doodle
Jasper Coffee
Jaunt
KOSI
KingPump
LVLY
Lumen
MIIROKO
MK Local Foods
Marnie Hawson
Merry People
No Lights No Lycra
North West Guadalcanal Association (NWGA)
OBG
One Small Step
Parliament of Victoria
Peninsula Hot Springs
Portable
Possible
Prisma Legal
ReCo
Shadowboxer
Strongim Bisnis
Studio Schools Australia
Thankyou
The Sociable Weaver
Time
WIRE
Whole Kids
iDE

Targets

Results

Clients | Help conscious business grow

No destructive clients. Revenue breakdown: 15% Good, 60% Great, 25% Amazing (Here’s what the classifications mean)

🟢
  • No destructive clients.
  • Revenue breakdown: 10% Good, 66% Great, 25% Amazing

Client survey metrics

  • 3 /5 value for money
  • 8 / 10 likely to recommend
🟢
  • 3.4 / 5 value for money
  • 8.8 / 10 likely to recommend

Maintain current revenue

🟠
  • Revenue down 16% YoY

Team | Be the best versions of us

  • All staff spend 70%+ of their time on clients
🟢
  • Spent 71% of our time on clients (over by only 76 hours).
  • Regular, honest check-ins about how we feel
🟢
  • Stand ups, development sessions, watercooler chats, impact updates and more.
  • Targeted and clear personal growth, if we are better our clients will be
🟢
  • Lots of on-the-tools growth, structured learning through weekly Lunch ‘n Learns and Intro to Programming at RMIT.
  • Improve and increase capability across team
🟢
  • Elevated our tool nerd level. See here.
  • Expanding output skills: Market research, Web design, strategy & development, video editing, and automation strategy.
  • 9 day fortnights, with option for 4 day weeks
🟠
  • 40% work 9 day fortnights, 40% part-time hours, 20% standard working hours.

Community | Lift the communities we’re part of

  • Protest and boycott important issues (Australia Day, Melbourne Cup)
🟢
  • Buy with intention from local and discriminated groups
🟢
  • We continue to be intentional about our suppliers as outlined in our policy and report the details in the Community chapter of our report. We took it one step further this year with a public call to pledge to audit suppliers in this campaign www.supplier-impact.com
  • Invest $20k in impact businesses plus $20k of 100% pro bono time
🟠
  • We delivered some pro bono time but dropped the ball and had no official measurements in place. We also did not invest $20k in impact businesses because of the reduced revenue with Becky on maternity leave.
  • Sarah personally donated her photography equipment valued at around $7,500 to empower a content and brand producer in the Solomon Islands.
  • Have a RAP, engaged stakeholders and implemented more change
🔴
  • Due to competing priorities and limited time (no lack in desire) we de-prioritised our Reconciliation Action Plan as we want to do it meaningfully and have the capacity to follow through. However, we took a few first steps outlined here.

Environment | Crank up the action on climate and environment

  • Be climate positive at work and at home
🟠
  • We don’t track our CO2 emissions, rather we take a much more general and high emissions view. However, this year, we didn’t donate to the environment (see above) so we can’t say we countered our CO2.
  • Donate 5% to the environment
🔴
  • We fell short here, we didn't make the donation. More details here.
  • Re-use, recycle and manage dangerous waste
🟢
  • We continue to implement our hazardous waste policy and are on a continuous learning and improvement journey.
  • We repair damaged hardware and minimise purchasing of new equipment.
  • Personally we're all Facebook Marketplace fans.
  • Advocate for climate change / inspire sustainable living
🟢

Governance | Operate fairly and squarely as an impact business

  • Maintain current ownership and governance
🟢
  • Harvey is 100% owned by the Smallchua Family Trust and Rebecca Smallchua is our sole Director.
  • Share templates, documents, insight into business for good
🟠
  • We haven’t actively done this publicly, but when people have asked, we have shared. And we’re sharing a series of things as part of this impact report.
  • Re-use, recycle and manage dangerous waste
🟢
  • We continue to implement our hazardous waste policy and are on a continuous learning and improvement journey.
  • We repair damaged hardware and minimise purchasing of new equipment.
  • Personally we're all Facebook Marketplace fans.
  • Maintain B Corp score from 134.1 with workers included
🟢
  • We applied for our B Corp re-certification at the end of this financial year and are pleased to report we achieved the same score (to the decimal point). Wild!
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