BUSINESS AS A FORCE FOR GOOD
- vimbaifaith
- Apr 15, 2021
- 5 min read
In my previous articles, I have written about social enterprises and social entrepreneurship. Today, I am focusing on what are called B Corp organisations.
The global business community is being challenged by millennial's’ who want to change the world. As a result there is need to shift the way of doing business and how management in business think. While the older generations want more profit, millennial's are shifting their business goal to social impact. According to the Global Shapers Annual survey http://www.shaperssurvey2017.org/ , 40% of young people think impact on society is one of the most important criteria when considering a career opportunity. An article from the World Economic Forum indicated that members of the Generation Y- 80000 across 30 countries as they become more pro-business want “business as a force for positive change” https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html . The Deloitte survey indicates an increase in the number of millennials with an ambition other than making money. The survey found that Millennials believe business must impact society vis-à-vis issues including “education, skills, and training, economic stability, cyber security, health care and disease prevention, unemployment, and climate change,”
So if the younger generations who are the leaders, employers, employees and consumers of tomorrow have that mind set, it is prudent to say, the survival of business which does not pivot to address these concerns in the coming future is not very rosy.
In a bid to balance profit and social and environmental impact, the concept of BCorps was formed. These organisations have a mandate to meet both impact goals and financial goals. As such their strategies are inclusive of both the financial and the impact goals. It is a tall order and there is need to have proper guidelines on measuring the impact and what one can consider as the impact indicators. As the world is working towards the achievement of the SDGs, it only makes sense to have these as the guiding principles in deriving the impact goals in an organisation. The (SDGs), Sustainable Development Goals, are 17 Global Goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 to be achieved by the year 2030. As the destination for our world in 2030, the SDGs are a unique opportunity for all sectors to rally around a common global agenda to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy a shared and durable prosperity.
In order to help organisations in aligning their goals to meet both the financials and the impact, an organisation B Lab was formed. Its focus is to certify and engage business to improve impact. If assessed by B Lab and an organisation meets certain criteria it becomes a Certified B Corporation. B Corps meet the highest standards of accountability, transparency and Social and Environmental performance. According to the Blab Africa website https://b-labafrica.net/about-b-lab/ , there are 3800+ certified BCorps, across 150 industries in 74 countries. All moving towards one unifying goal of Sustainable Development. B Lab is working towards shifting the cultural narrative that has been in existence to date. Profit and impact have not been known to move hand in hand. Increasing profits in an organisation has always been known to compromise on either the social or the environmental impact of an organisation. This is what B Lab is working towards changing. Make organisations realise that the opposite can actually be true if done in a correct way. Pushing for good in an organisation may actually lead to the survival of a company hence broadcasting business as a force for good. It encourages entrepreneurs to redefine business success not just as the profit they make towards shareholders but in the overall impact they have on all their stakeholders. There is great relevance in Organisational leaders to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, community, and environment.
In essence B Lab is there to help organisations in coming up with Impact Business Models. Models which help an organisation create impact and profit at the same time without doing anything extra. Instead of having our usual concept of CSR (Coperate Social Responsibility), which is done by cooperates on a once off basis, from my point of view, not really very helpful at times, I see it as though it is giving someone fish to eat instead of teaching them how to fish so that they are self-sufficient: The concept of Impact Business Models however, creates purpose every day.
More than 100,000 companies manage their impact with the https://b-labafrica.net/b-impact-assessment B Impact Assessment and the SDG Action Manager https://b-labafrica.net/sdg-action-manager tools which have been created to help businesses, investors and institutions manage their impact. These tools help organisations to measure their impact and also manage it. In that way, the impact goals are measurable and there are people accountable for their achievement in any business or institution. These tools are free online tools and very helpful, so if you are interested in learning more about how you can do good as an organisation, take time to go through the B Lab website as well as the tools. Impact Assessment /Evaluation provides information about the impacts produced by an intervention - positive and negative, intended and unintended, direct and indirect. It is essential to be able to assess the impact of the interventions that an organisation decides to carry out in a community as a lack of assessment might result in no accountability of the impact goals set.
The SDG Action Manager is a collaborative tool between the UN Global Compact and B Lab. As they have a shared mission of having Business as a force for Good, the two organisations came up with a tool so that organisations can help track their performance towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
The SDG Action Manager is a web based impact management solution to enable businesses to take action on Sustainable Development Goals through 2030. It brings together B Labs Impact Assessment, the ten principals of the UN Global Compact and the Sustainable Development Goals to enable meaningful business action through self-assessment, benchmarking and improvement. This tool is free and confidential and available in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
“Moving forward, collaboration with business-and the key CEOs in the world-is crucial when it comes to fighting climate change: but also to meet sustainable development goals, eradicate all extreme poverty by 2010, and we are not on track on this.” H.E Antonio Guterres United Nations Secretary General
The B Impact Assessment tool is used to measure a company’s impact on its workers, community, environment and customers while the SDG Action Manager is used to help business take action directly towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This difference is essential as the B Impact assessment is the one that leads to being a B Corp certified organisation as the information provided in the tool goes under evaluation and verification. When an organisation has reached a required level of scoring after improvements recommended after evaluation and proof has been submitted for verification then they can be certified. However, the SDG Action manager is an internal use tool for an organisation. No one can verify the information that the organisation puts in the tool hence it is a tool to be used by people of integrity. The tool helps the organisation track their own performance and if their policies and procedures actually lead to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
I hope this article has helped shed light to a lot of entrepreneurs. You may not want to be B Corp certified however, it may help your organisation to realise the need for being a force for good. Implementing certain policies in your organisation to help in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and having an impact purpose other than profit only can ensure longevity of your business, loyalty for your brand, sustainability and can also reduce your carbon footprint or help in other ways to prevent climate change.
Let us not ignore the statistics and the big hand writing on the wall. When the millennial's and the Z Generation speak, we need to listen because without them backing us in the future, there definitely will be no future for our business.
Till next time……
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