Now that I’ve had a bit of time to sit with the new B Corp standards, I finally feel ready to reflect and I’d love to hear how others are feeling about them too. There are things I’ll genuinely miss about the current standards, especially:
🔹 The scoring system
I’ve always loved having a quantifiable way to measure how a business is improving its social and environmental impact. It’s been such a powerful motivator – a tangible nudge for businesses to keep stretching, keep experimenting, keep levelling up.
🔹 The depth and detail
The existing framework explores every nook and cranny of a business, which has made it incredibly accessible for organisations early in their sustainability journey. It has helped many embed better decision-making, strengthen worker practices, manage operations thoughtfully, build responsible supply chains, and interact with customers in regenerative ways. But I also recognise that the B Corp movement needed to evolve. It’s entering its next phase, one that requires maturity, clarity, and a consistent minimum standard for what it means to be a highly responsible business today.
Honestly? The areas B Corp has chosen as mandatory are exactly the things I’ve been encouraging my clients to prioritise for years – the foundations that truly embed responsibility into how a business operates:
✔️ Setting meaningful social & environmental KPIs and cascading them
✔️ Understanding the biggest social & environmental risks in your supply chain
✔️ Establishing baseline environmental data through GHG footprinting
✔️ Engaging regularly with staff, suppliers, and customers about your sustainability journey and how they can play a part
The landscape is shifting fast. Standards are shifting fast. Our understanding of what “good” looks like is shifting fast. And that’s why adaptability matters more than perfection. The businesses that will thrive are the ones willing to evolve with the movement, not cling to what used to feel comfortable.
Curious: I’d love to know how are you feeling about the new standards? Leave a comment below or connect with me on LinkedIn.