‘A better approach to business’: B Corps believe their time has come

Everything has to start somewhere. For Britain’s fast-growing socially conscious B Corp movement, it was a flat in north London on a rainy day in 2012.
For the uninitiated, B Corps are businesses that promise to do good, not only for their shareholders but also for consumers, employees, local communities and the environment. They aim to make a profit, but try to be “decent” in the way they go about it.
Mary Portas, best known as television’s “Queen of Shops” and now an advocate for the movement, sets out the pitch: “Yes, you can have money, but you have to do [business] in this much more beautiful, intrinsically caring way of looking after society.”.
Gathered in the flat in 2012 were ten people, including Rosie Brown and her brother James Perry, both directors of Cook, the frozen meals retailer. Brown recalls that they were united by a desire to see a better approach to business, but were less clear on “how do we start a movement”. They decided to go for it. “It was phone call-by-phone call, business-by-business,” describing the slog to spread the word. Cook was the first big business to meet the required standards to be a UK B Corp. “We then persuaded a few people and it’s been growing ever since.”
On Tuesday, Brown walked into an almost full New Theatre in Oxford to take part in the largest gathering of B Corp-accredited companies in the world. In Britain there are more than 2,000, a number that has doubled in the past two years. Brown says she had to pause to take in the scene. “It was really inspiring. In 2012 and 2013 people thought we were mad. ‘Why would you tie yourself to this?’ We had to say it was because we really believe in the idea that business can be the greatest force for good. We were the nut jobs then; now there are 2,000 nut jobs. It’s brilliant. The culture is changing.”
B Corp-accredited companies look beyond the traditional focus on shareholder wealth creation. Dismissed by some as simply “virtue signalling” or “green washing”, the core of the community are deeply committed to change. Occasionally, companies are booted out when they are deemed not to meet the standards: in July four agencies owned by Havas, the French advertising group, suffered this fate for their work representing fossil-fuel companies, including Shell.
As with all movements, they want more people to come around to their way of thinking. On the stage at the event on Tuesday, speakers talked about showing politicians “what the next version of our economy could look like”. Clay Brown, co-lead executive of B Lab Global, the original American organisation behind the B Corp accreditation, says: “There are a lot of negative business practices happening in the world today. We experience them as consumers, see them in our communities, see them on the TV.
“What we believe is that by building a credible community of B Corps we will be able to influence, not just other businesses to be better, but influence policy, drive change to regulations and change the narrative and culture of what the purpose of business is in society.”
An impressive performance involving dancers, a narrator and a BMX rider, kicked off the event. If there was any doubt about the message for the day, this rammed it home: it explored the decay of trust in big brands and capitalism, the damage to the environment from single-use plastics, cuts in public spending, wealth inequality and a general sense of helplessness, all set against a backdrop of high-rise residential tower blocks reminiscent of Grenfell.
B Lab UK, home of the B Corp UK movement as well as a sister initiative championing a Better Business Act, describes itself as “a leader in economic systems change”. It wants to see Section 172 of the Companies Act amended so that company directors have to weigh up the interests of shareholders with their employees, customers, local communities and the environment when making business decisions. The idea, backed by around 3,000 companies, is that this rule would be the minimum expected of businesses, with B Corp accreditation the higher bar, showing what good really looks like.
Portas thinks the movement has momentum, particularly in Westminster. “The penny has started to drop. I feel that with the people who are in the Labour government at the moment there is real traction and a fundamental belief in it and that gives me hope. That said, we haven’t got there yet.”
As if to show that the message is being well received across the political spectrum, Greg Clark, the former Conservative business secretary and incoming chairman of the Warwick Innovation District, took to the stage in the afternoon. He outlined his own efforts while in government to encourage businesses to adopt his “good work” agenda, which he described as a “once-in-a-generation uplift in the way that they were required to deal with their staff”.
He admitted it “ran into the sand” in the last government. “There were multiple prime ministers and there wasn’t much of a majority. Now with a government with a clear manifesto and a strong majority, there is no excuse to not do these important, transformational things. If you come in with that remit, you mustn’t squander it. I would have loved to have had an uninterrupted five years with a majority to really embed these things. I hope the new government won’t be too reticent about making use of the opportunity that it has.”
Brown says Cook is in the process of reapplying for its B Corp status for a fifth time. Companies typically renew every three years. “One of the things why we do what we do is to inspire others, to show what is possible.”
With shoppers watching their pennies more than ever, does the B Corp logo still resonate with customers? “We certainly get a core of customers who are shopping with us because we are a B Corp, but they are not the majority,” Brown says. “It is also about ‘how do we help customers make better choices?’
“If we want to nudge customers towards less meat, for example, which is demonstrably better for the climate. We have been running meat-free May promotions, for example. We look at how we merchandise and promote a product, how we design it. We are looking at whether we can design a more sustainable lasagne, because we can. [The question is] can we get customers to buy it? There are some really interesting things afoot in the business in terms of how we help customers make better choices.”
But she is fully aware that there is a fine line between keeping customers happy and pushing them away because they don’t like how it tastes any more.
“That is the wisdom required. How do we find the courage to do what needs to be done and bring the customer with you on the journey. It is not an easy road and the last thing you want to do is upset your customers as they are the ones who keep you in business. But we know it is possible; we just have to find the courage and creativity to do it.”