Australian B Corps Make Best for the World List

B Corps’ 2016 Best for the World Honorees list has recognised 28 Australian and New Zealand businesses for their significant social and environmental impact.

The honorees are B Corps that have earned an overall score in the top 10 per cent of all certified B Corps in their impact assessment.

B Lab Australia and New Zealand executive director Alicia Darvall, who represented Australia at the first world event, told Pro Bono Australia News it was “wonderful” to see the Australian B Corp community recognised.    

“It’s really exciting for us that [we have] more than 147 B Corps and the fact that… more than 10 per cent, of the Australian B Corps are represented as Best for the World shows that we not only have a really solid community, but we have incredibly impactful businesses that make up the community as well,” Darvall said.

“There are a number of B Corps that have been on the list for two years in a row, including Three Sista’s, B Cubed Management, Pangolin Associates, and then there are whole new groups which is really exciting, including Global Leadership Foundation, which is our highest scored Australian B Corp [139 out of 200], and Community Sector Banking, Republica Organic and others.”

Darvall said the diversity in the Australian honorees was exciting.

“It’s as diverse as the B Corps themselves, so there are banks, there are builders, there are two travel agents, there’s a marketing company,” she said.

“Three Sista’s provides crisis accommodation for Indigenous people in Far North Queensland and Sendle was represented, which is a carbon-neutral courier company based out of New South Wales.

“They were as diverse as the B Corp community, and one of the joys of the B Corp certification is that it allows us to look deeper into companies we work with all the time and work out whether they’re walking the talk, not just greenwashing.

“The B Corps hold themselves up to a greater level of transparency around their workers, their governance, the environment and the community. But there’s no one specific sector that is more represented in the community.”

Energy for the People was one of the Australian B Corps recognised in the environmental category, with an impact score of 86 out of 200.

Director Tosh Szatow told Pro Bono Australia News it was an honour to be recognised.

“B Corp is obviously bringing together organisations around the world that are raising the bar on environmental and social dimensions of running enterprises and running businesses,” Szatow said.

“So to be on that list is a huge honour, it means we’re up there with the best organisations in the world on environmental performance, which is pretty cool.”

He said Energy for the People became a B Corp to formalise their vision into their business practices.

“We wanted to have an extra layer of diligence in how we manage our social and environmental performance as a business,” he said.

“We’re really passionate about business being a positive force for change in the world, and B Corp was the obvious choice for us to provide that additional rigour.

“The B Corp movement really gives businesses and other organisations a method for being a constructive part of solving those big environmental and social challenges.”