Last week, I moderated a discussion between a group of entrepreneurs from throughout Asia (Malaysia, China, Singapore, Philippines, etc.) and Chris Marquis, Cornell Business School professor, author of Better Business: How the B Corp Movement is Remaking Capitalism, and one of today’s leading authorities on social business.
Chris is known for engaging with businesses and strategists on how they can be more sustainable and act as leaders in social innovation. Becoming a certified B Corporation is a rigorous process in which companies design and reform their strategies to meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. The B Corp movement is not only a path toward becoming more conscious of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns, it’s also gaining widespread appeal to customers, prospective employees, and investors.
We can summarize the 90-minute dialogue from last week’s discussion into six points. These are six reasons you should consider becoming a B Corp:
- You need a 360-degree view of your business. If your company is like most, today your metrics give you a sense of how you are performing on the financial side and, to a lesser extent, your employee engagement. But the B Corp assessment tool gives you tested, refined metrics around the other areas that increasingly matter as much or more: your environmental impact, fair employment, social impact, etc.
- You want to benchmark yourself globally. Not just against people in your immediate market, but against companies in your industry; not just against financial results but also against the other sets of metrics that matter (see point 1).
- You will deliver better results. It will be easier to track and retain employees, acquire customers, and access capital from the growing number of public and private impact investors.
- You will future-proof your business. We all know it’s coming. The sustainability of your business will increasingly depend on the sustainability of your business model in the world.
- You will connect with a global network of B Corps. These connections can become partners, distribution channels, and suppliers.
- And finally … it’s the right thing to do.
To learn more about Chris and the B Corp movement, listen to our recent interview on the Outthinker podcast.
