We’re incredibly proud to have become a Certified B Corporation®. This certification is recognised globally as the highest standard for social corporate responsibility. B Corps are companies that formally commit to using the positive power of business to solve the world’s social and environmental problems.
We’ve always been led by strong values, to be better for people and the planet – and using our business as a force for good. Becoming a B Corp is a big step on our ongoing journey to make the world a safer place, put people’s health first and give everyone the choice to live free from nasty chemicals.
What is a B Corp?
We’ve joined more than 4,000 other Certified B Corporations worldwide. While we all differ in terms of size, industry and location, what we share is the goal to be financially sustainable, while tackling social, economic, and environmental issues.
As a B Corp, we’re independently verified by the B Lab to ensure that the way we do business positively affects workers, customers, suppliers, community members, governance and the environment. This gives us a clear framework for measuring our impacts in all areas and a pathway for continuous improvement.
To keep our certification, we’ll update our impact assessment every three years, set ambitious goals for improvement, and benchmark our progress over time. We’re not perfect. But we are continually innovating and evolving to be and do better. This process includes priorities to:
become an accredited Living Wage Employer, the amount needed to be an active citizen in society,
provide more circular solutions,
offer more products that carry the Environmental Choice New Zealand eco label,
enhance sustainability through water reuse in our manufacturing, and
reduce the carbon intensity of our operations and increase the use of renewables and offsets.
B Corp (short for Certified B Corporation) is the term used for any for-profit entity (i.e. a business) certified by the non-profit B Lab as voluntarily and verifiably meeting higher standards of transparency, accountability, and performance.
Why did ecostore become a B Corp?
We’ve always been led by strong values, to be better for people and the planet. Becoming a B Corp is our commitment to balance purpose and profit and use our business as a force for good. This gives us a formal framework for measuring our impacts in all areas (not just our strengths) and gives us a clear pathway for continuous improvement.
How hard is it to become a B Corp?
The certification process is rigorous and has taken us almost two years, and asking ourselves many challenging questions. About everything from who we bank with (and how responsible and transparent they are) to measuring how many of our employees in management positions identify as female, or from minority groups (69% and 30%+, by the way). Every answer has to be backed up by documented, verifiable proof. We realised a lot of things that – since we’ve grown from a small company – we’ve been doing informally. The journey towards certification has helped us formalise a lot of these elements (like implementing a Code of Conduct for our supply chain), and set clear, measurable goals for what we want to improve next.
What is your B Corp score?
Our score is 80.1. You can find out more about how we reached our score by checking out the ecostore B Impact Report.
Now that you are a B Corp, what’s next?
We know we’re not perfect, and are constantly on a journey to improve the way we do business and the difference we can make in the world. We’ve got lots of products and a complex global supply chain, which makes changing our systems quite challenging. But becoming a B Corp has galvanised our commitments to be better for people and the planet. We’ll keep working to increase our score, which will help us stay accountable, measure our impacts, and chart a course for continuous improvement.
Who are other B Corps?
Patagonia, Allbirds, Ben and Jerry’s, The Honest Company, Kiwibank, Bank Australia, Etsy, Seventh Generation, Warby Parker to name a few.
