The number of B Corps globally has doubled in the last two years. But as Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand’s B Corp community gathers for the first time since 2017, the question on everyone’s mind is: what comes next?
This week some 300 people from across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand assembled on Bunurong Country (specifically the RACV Resort in Cape Schanck, Victoria), to connect, learn, think, meditate, laugh, cry, bushwalk, hug, play and plan together at B Corp Assembly 2024. The two-day event was the first national convening of Australia’s largest do-gooding business community in seven years (the last one scuppered by the pandemic).
The world has changed a lot in seven years. We’ve lived through a once-in-a-generation global pandemic, witnessed radical shifts in citizen participation when it comes to environmental and social justice issues, endured a failed referendum, and been shocked by the barbarity of conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine and beyond. On the climate front, last year was the hottest year ever recorded and the first two months of 2024 are on track to be warmer still. Existential dread, once an underground phenomenon, is going mainstream.
Thankfully a new wave of we-better-f*cking-do-something-about-it-ism is also going mainstream. In the last two years alone, the number of B Corps – organisations that have been certified as operating with high ethical and environmental standards – has doubled from 4,000 to 8,000 globally. There are now B Corps in 96 countries, across 160 industries, employing over 750,000 people. In Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, 680 B Corps are currently contributing roughly $20 billion (!!!) to the economy.
Once a community of outliers and pioneers, B Corp is now a movement: one with capital, clout and the potential to collectively influence seismic shifts in the way we live and work.
But with rapid growth comes growing pains, and B Lab (the organisation that issues B Corp certifications), has had its fair share. From stories of B Corps working with fossil fuel organisations to B Corp CEOs and founders mistreating their staff, the legitimacy of the B Corp certification has not gone unquestioned. And nor should it – the organisation issuing a certification that represents high standards of social and environmental responsibility should be held to high standards of social and environmental responsibility, too.
And so here is B Corp Assembly – 48 hours of big ideas crammed inside not-big-enough time slots, of connection and community and co-creation, of hand-shaking and ideological risk-taking – to find a way to move forward, together, and build The New Thing.
“We are here to ask, what can we do next? What can we do together that might accelerate change?” said B Lab Australia and New Zealand CEO Andrew Davies during his opening address. “We’re confident the next two days will have some answers for you, but the people you meet and the relationships that you build will take you much further.”
With regards to ‘what’s next’, Assembly was a timely opportunity for B Lab to talk about and road-test the rigorous new B Corp standards, which will be dropping at some point in 2025/26. “We have to change what it means to be a B Corp so we can continue to be leaders in this world,” said B Lab Global’s interim lead executive, Clay Brown, during the ‘Evolving the B Corp movement’ session. “This is a multi-year effort, but it’s also a multi-generational practice – we’re trying to change the economic system, it takes time, it takes a lot of collaboration, and it takes a lot of listening.”
The hope is that these new standards ensure the movement is “ready for the challenges of today and of the future” – and in turn answer the questions posed by the recent rounds of public scrutiny. It seems the evolving standards will separate the organisations hell-bent on harnessing business as a force for good from those doing the minimum simply because it’s good for business.
Another pertinent theme of Assembly was the question of how B Corp sits alongside Indigenous organisations, for whom the notions of reciprocity, sustainability, supporting community and ‘doing good’ is a foundational philosophy, not an optional or measurable add-on (one session was titled ‘Why Māori Businesses Don’t Need B Corp’). “It’s not uncommon to see Māori businesses with 100-year business plans,” said Michele Wilson, co-founder and CEO of NZ-based period care B Corp Awwa, in conversation with Clothing the Gaps CEO Laura Thompson. “We do this because our children and our grandchildren are at the core of why we do business – not profits.”
“Blak businesses do things differently,” added Laura a little later. “B Corp just helps us explain why.”
Talks and workshops over the two days covered a gamut of progressive issues and ideas: from the difference between climate action and climate justice (led by the brilliant Georgia Griffiths, director of impact at Seed Mob) to the importance of emotional health for leaders, the issues with ‘woke capitalism’, the benefits of employee ownership, designing for circularity, inclusion for neurodiversity, redesigning the fashion sector and more.
Systems change was also a consistent, intentional thread throughout, with multiple sessions designed to get attendees thinking less about their work in isolation and more about their work as part of a whole, and how they might collaborate with other organisations to deepen their impact and even influence policy.
In the ‘Radical Systems Collaboration’ session, Rebecca Scott, co-founder and CEO of social enterprise STREAT explained how she joined forces with a number of other organisations in her supply chain during the pandemic to offer food relief and plug critical gaps in the food system.
“It took the pandemic for us to get our shit together and start to collaborate,” said Rebecca. “But when the city started to open again and life started to return to normal, we didn’t want to go back to working the way we had.” In the years since, Rebecca and STREAT have collaborated with a foundational group of 30 enterprises on over 30 individual projects.
This idea around the need to shift narratives towards deep collaboration was echoed elsewhere too. “I think of shows like Alone or Survivor, that perpetuate this idea that we’re all on our own – survival of the fittest,” said filmmaker Damon Gameau in his keynote, ‘How the Stories We Tell Shape the Future’. “What if that show was called Survivors, and was about a group of people that had to f*cking work together to grow food and live?”
There was plenty of big wisdom in the micro, fleeting, fractured conversations and almost-conversations between the formal sessions too. Veterinarians, CEOs, farmers, accountants, architects, filmmakers, fashion designers, bankers, producers, copywriters, project managers, founders, philanthropists, artists and more, all with their unique theories of change and approaches to impact, happy to compare notes, offer advice and lend an empathetic ear – together.
“We have a saying, he waka eke noa – we’re all in this together,” said Eileen Bowden from Miraka, New Zealand’s second-largest Māori-owned export business in the closing moments of Assembly. “If we can come together and think in that space, I really think B Corp is going to fly.”
These ‘purpose-driven’ business events run the risk of becoming parades of average founders and CEOs talking about the average ‘good’ work they’re doing to rapturous, unquestioning applause. That wasn’t the case at the Assembly. Instead, there seemed to be a deeply held understanding that B Corp, as a movement, needs to shift gears to meet the demands of this moment – with the programming specifically designed to kill any sense of complacency attendees might have had.
There are certainly more questions than answers, but this community seems to have the courage, capacity and compassion to seek those answers together. And that’s a pretty strong foundation for a better and more equitable economic system, if you ask me.
Oliver Pelling is the founder and managing director of Good&Proper.
