B Corp: Business as a Force for Good
Benefit Corporations (better known as “B Corps”) are businesses based on a new economic model: one that asks, “How do we use business as a tool for social change?”
At Hippie Snacks, we strongly feel that it’s our responsibility to leave the planet better than we found it, so we looked into various ways to assess ourselves and obtain a meaningful sustainability measurement. We found B Corp to be the best third-party certification process to measure our company on a triple bottom line (people, planet and prosperity), and one that holds its members to task on sustainability. In December 2011, we underwent the rigorous certification process and were awarded B Corp status. We are one of the founding members for B Corp certification in Canada. Read our full report here.
Being a B Corp means our success is measured not just with respect to dollars and cents, but also against a stringent set of standards covering our corporate governance and reporting, how we treat our employees and our community, and our environmental practices. But we’re not content to just talk about having achieved B Corp status. We’re constantly working to improve our scores and our impact on the planet.
This philosophy can make for some hard choices, but we feel it defines the type of business we are.