4 things I wish I knew before starting the B Corp process

By Lottie Dalziel

We’re so proud to be a certified B Corp business, for us it is international, independent recognition that what we operate with purpose and our number one priority is the protection and preservation of the planet. It took us over 12 months to reach the pending certification stage and wasn’t an easy process which is why I’d like to share a couple of our learnings with those who are looking into it or halfway through, here are four things I wish we’d known before starting.

1. I wish I started earlier

It took three years for Banish to be “ready” in my eye for B Corp certification but with the tools that are provided we could have cut down our assessment period of nine months significantly. The B Impact Assessment Tool is free for any company, reflecting back I would look into it now so when making supply chain decisions, policy changes and hiring staff you could keep the assessment in mind. This would have saved a lot of doubling up that we did especially in the area of governance. My advice: create a login and start snooping around now even if you only see it in the far distant future.

2. Write everything down

As a small business it is easy to fall into the trap of having everything in your mind or assumed. This process was lengthy as we had to create handbooks, ethical codes of practice and so much more from scratch which was a great outcome for us but took so much longer than we anticipated because we didn’t already have those heavy corporate documents ready and written like I imagine larger corporations would.

3. Power in numbers

We worked together with Frankie + Jet and Little Wildling Co throughout the process who were also at around the same business stage as us. It was invaluable to have another business to hold you accountable but also to help share knowledge and understand some of the areas in more depth. Doing this process alone would have been monstrous but together it wasn’t so bad.

4. Prioritise time

This is something honestly I wish I was better at, I think having a weekly strict B-Corp session would have propelled our progress throughout this process. Even if it was just 2 hours a week it would have given us a much needed boost and would have saved a lot of late nights and early mornings.

I am by no means an expert at the B Corp process but these points would have really helped make our B Corp process a whole lot easier.