This is an archived blog from when I ran Conscious Public Relations Inc. from 2008-2018. Excuse the potential outdated-ness!
Documenting my B Corp journey
Tuesday March 10, I re-took the B Corp Assessment and came out with 46 / 200 points, which was 4 more than when I took it last year.
The great thing about the assessment is that there is a section called “Improve Your Impact” that lists all the areas in which I received an incomplete or low score so that I could see the areas in which I would need to build up my points. When reviewing this section, I realized I could build an additional 10 points just by answering the questions more accurately. So now I am at 56.
I listed all of the Easy and Medium tasks, and came up with ONLY nine areas that I would need to complete in order to get a score above 80, which is the minimum you need to apply for B Corp certification. Nine is under a dozen – under 10! It’s totally doable!
These are the things I would need to do:
1. Determine communication channels for independent contractors (not sure exactly what this means, but I must dig further).
2. Review social and environmental performance annually to ensure we are meeting our objectives in these areas.
3. Implement a chemical reduction method (again, not sure what this means for a home office, but will dig further).
4. Have a corporate mission statement with a social or environmental commitment.
5. Monitor, record, and report our energy and water usage.
6. Report the % of profits or sales going to charity (joining 1% For the Planet will do this).
7. Report our community service and pro-bono time.
8. Produce a public-facing report on our mission-related performance.
9. Have a written policy giving preferences to suppliers owned by women or individuals from underdeveloped populations.
Some of these are related and so I can group them together, and others will require some digging and research, but if I tried hard enough, I might be able to get this all done in a few weeks. Wish me luck!
