Kristy O’Leary Co-Founder and Chief Strategist Officer:

Thank you so much everyone for coming today and joining the decade team to review, B labs, latest draft, version seven of the new standard.

And so we're going to dive right in. Of course, again, welcome new friends, old friends. Some of you we know really well, some of you, we're just getting to know some of you are new to us entirely. But we are glad that you are here with us.

We're all here because we believe in the B Corp movement, we believe that the standard is important. And we are in one way or another invested in the success of the B Corp movement.

B Corp is a few things. It is an impact assessment to help us measure business impact. It is a third-party standard to help us verify that impact and it is a social movement.

At Decade, we've been movement builders for about four years, we opened our doors, January 1 2020. I have been working with the standard on various versions, since around 2011. So big believer, now the standard is changing. And the path to certification and how we might use it is changing. And so before I get into those changes, I would just like to remind everybody, we have a theory of change. This is the pyramid of impact. Our purpose as an organization is to help companies move up this pyramid. One of our primary tools to do that has been the B impact assessment. And so we're deeply committed to the success of the standard. We’re also deeply committed to ensuring that we all move towards an adjusted inclusive economy where all people get a fair shake, and we leave the world better than we found it.

So as we step into this, the session today, we want to remind you about our code. Some people call them values, we call them our code.

Perfect is the enemy of good we try to keep this in mind as we explore the new standard. And all of the other versions of the standard.

Goodbye ego, egos aren't really helpful in moving us towards you know a better world. Yes, and we are beyond focusing on Regeneration, we are also generative. You know, we're aiming to be that organization, that safe space for companies to consider what outrageous solutions to complex problems might look like.

The standard really helps us activate for, don't be afraid of the shadows. It creates the kind of the space and the safety, we need to unpack things that maybe we don't understand even about ourselves in a way that is a constructive change making is delightful. We believe change making is for all of your stakeholders, your team. And because it's the most important decade in human history, we need to move really fast. So time is of the essence.

So our agenda today, we're going to cover quite a lot of information in a short period of time, we're going to do our best to be as concise as possible. We're going to cover a background, what is happening right now with the assessment and B Lab.

We're going to talk through some of the changes from the first draft of the new standard to this existing draft that we have in front of us. Michelle is going to take us on kind of a journey through the structural pieces of what's changing.

And Mairin is going to take us on a little journey through some examples of the performance requirements and how those are taking shape.

We're going to share our feedback some of our thoughts and feedback on what is working what maybe isn't working because it is a public consultation. So every one of you gets to have your say.

We will provide you with further documentation. And after this session to help you deliver succinct and useful feedback to B Lab.

And then finally, you know, we can be myopic about the standard and about the certification. And so we just want to explore kind of outside the certification, how we use this tool and why it's important and maybe a little bit of a reframe on the tool itself.

So let's get into the background. B Lab is evolving the standard, they're moving from version six to version seven. The goals of this new standard being that they want to provide more clarity for companies that are using the assessment and that are achieving the third party certification. They want to galvanize impactful, the most impactful businesses, and they want to focus on create space for folks to focus on what matters in their business, while also performing in areas that maybe they weren't necessarily considering so much under previous versions of the standard.

And they want to demonstrate the leadership in the B Corp movement and ensure that there's no kind of green washers in our midst. The process started in 2020. For those of you that were really activated in B Corp and 2020, there was a little bug going around and 2020. And it sent everybody home. And we all had to go think about our lives. And what we were kind of in business to do. The racial justice uprising in 2020, also really kind of was a driving force in moving B Lab towards creating a new standard.

There is a bunch of material in there. But we do have the opportunity to provide feedback on this, the feedback period ends March 26. And so, we are hoping you will do that. As with many things B Corp, we're not 100% sure when the standard will finally kind of be released, but the latest information shared with the public is that it will be in 2025. We're not sure exactly when it will be in 2025. But we still we have some time.

The changes from the first public consultation. In the first draft of the standard, we found that it wasn't necessarily right sized, the standard felt a little bit like there was almost too much consistency across size of company. So they've focused on right sized t a little bit better, or a lot better. In this draft. They've incorporated some kind of equity and flexibility mechanisms that are still being worked out. But it's important to know that those are on the horizon and they're working on them. And that is specifically likely to help companies that have strong impact business models that need to perform and kind of in different areas in one way or another or improve performance.

This proposed standard is a huge transition from how impact has been recognized and the previous six versions of the standard performance is recognized a differentiated very differently, which Michelle will share. And the section on the foundation requirements is quite different and much clearer on eligibility requirements to pursue full certification.

So our guiding perspective, we hope that you can bring to the conversation today. And as we move through this, all of this content are threefold.

The perspective we would like for you to bring is you know, based on your company size, location capacity, available resources, are these standards reasonably accessible to you.

Second, do the standards best reflect the goals for creating version seven, which are those providing clarity, galvanizing impact businesses, focusing on what matters and meaningfully demonstrating impact within the movement and really kind of ensuring that we remain a movement that is meaningful and important.

And then what feedback is important for B Lab to incorporate? What are the changes that you think are what are the kind of gaps maybe that you see? Because we know we're kind of down the rabbit hole and we are experts in this we have done our best to pull together a lot of as you pull things together in as useful a format as possible.

The new Standard is around 800 pages. So we did our best. And finally, a disclaimer again, because we did our best. And we are just a small team. And this is a, you know, there's a bunch of really smart people building the standard for the last two years, and we had a couple of months to review it and put our feelings together. We want to create a little space for imperfection. The information provided today is our thoughts and our observations these are not directly from B Lab. So if we have misinterpreted things, we've done the best we could also, again, we have, because it is a huge volume of content.

And this, the changes to the standard are so deep, we really kind of reviewed the standard looking at all sectors. But companies within this this kind of band of small, medium and large. What we're sharing today doesn't necessarily reflect the kind of micro and sole proprietors or extra large and extra extra large businesses, we stayed in our zone of genius, and where we operate.

So with that, I'm going to pass it over to Michelle. Michelle is going to take us on a journey.

Michelle Austin, Impact Manager:

Thank you Kristy, so I'm just going to jump right into doing our overview of the changes between version six and version seven.

Right off the bat, one of the most clear differences between version six and version seven is how certification happens based on performance.

So in the current version, version six, we like to tell our clients or in our community, you can choose your path to the summit, the summit being 80 points required for certification.

But how a company gets to 80 points can range so they can have strengths in certain impact areas and weaknesses and others. As long as you it adds up to 80 in the end.

There are currently five impact areas, governance, workers, community, environment, and customers. You must reach 80 points to certify or recertification in the current standard, all you have to do is get those 80 points.

What we're seeing in the proposed new version, version seven is a switch from choose your path to the summit to minimum requirements across all impact areas. So everyone has to meet all the different categories, nine different impact areas.

So we're expanding from five impact areas to nine, which are represented on this wheel.

And a company must meet all of those requirements. There is an opportunity for companies to exceed the requirement and that would be reflected in these green bars, but you must either meet or exceed. Upon recertification, instead of just meeting that same expectation. Again, there is an additional requirement that you must show improvement.

So you must set goals and show progress towards those goals upon recertification.

Those are the overarching differences between version six and version seven. Other than that, the overarching requirements between version six and version seven stay more or less the same.

So in version six, there are five key requirements first being eligibility. So a company must be for profit, they must have completed a fiscal year, they must be in a noncontroversial industry. That eligibility requirement is still applied in version seven no changes.  

The second is a legal requirement, you must either change your articles of incorporation or better change your corporate status to be a benefit corporation. That same requirement still applies in version seven no changes there.

Next, next is the risk assessment in version six. This shows up in the disclosure questionnaire the very last section of the assessment. That risk assessment is still applied in version seven with no real changes proposed requirement.  

And then in version six there is the transparency requirements. So saying your score has to be publicly available, you'd have a website that shows your score in the each different area and this is still applicable in version seven.

The only real difference is that a lot of these eligibility requirements in the current framework are kind of verified at the end of the process, you complete the assessment, you submit it, and then B LAB would ask you to confirm that you meet the requirements. In version seven, they're putting that at the forefront, to say let's make sure you meet all these requirements. And then you complete the performance aspect. And so they're just kind of switching around the order.

When we get into impact business models and how they're recognized this is where things get a little bit trickier. There's three kinds of aspects to it, the first being impact business models would provide flexibility in how you approach the performance requirement, you would be able to potentially demonstrate equivalency to some of the requirements. And the last would-be public recognition.

For those of you who need a little bit of a reminder, impact business models show up in these kind of different categories. In the assessment, most companies tend to have kind of one to three in the B Corp community.

And I just want to dive a little bit deeper into this flexibility feature of impact business models. So in version seven, what they're proposing is for companies that have an IBM or an impact business model, if you're performing a certain percentage, better than other B Corps in an impact business model, you'd kind of be slotted into a tear.  

So if you have an IBM that 75% better than either B Corps in that same impact business model, you'd be in tier one. If it's 50%, stronger, you'd be in tier two, etc. Those percentages are tiers that you might be able to opt into would allow a certain degree of flexibility. So if you're in tier one, you'd be exempt from 15% of the total sub requirements in the new standard. This is a very complicated aspect of the assessment, that's not totally fleshed out. But that's how it would apply. It would allow us some flexibility to say, because I have this IBM, I don't necessarily need to meet this requirement, because my IBM kind of replaces that. In this case. So the flexing that ability mechanism is one feature of how IBM is are going to be recognized in version seven.

The other aspect to it is public recognition. So they're thinking about introducing badge systems to represent how a company performs in an impact business model. Maybe it's showing up just a small degree in your revenue.

So you're in a developing stage, or it's a huge part of your business.

So you're a leader.

And they're thinking of representing it either through this tree growth symbol or through this colour coding system. And they're asking the community, which one do people prefer? This is kind of what it would look like.

This being version seven, this being current state of how performance would be reflected on a company's public profile. So currently, we have when you look up a company who's a B Corp, you have their score centred here, and you have their impact business models listed down below. In version seven, you would see which impact areas the company is meeting and which areas they're exceeding in. And then you would see which impact business models they're in and what degree that that business is performing in those impact business models.

So that's a quick run through of kind of the big features around framework and structure of the differences between version six and version seven. I'm now going to pass it over to Mairin to go through the specific performance requirements.

Mairin Shields-Brown, Impact Consultant:

Thanks, Michelle. To Michelle's point on the performance requirements this is another area that is quite complex and there is a very large volume of material to get through.

And so today I'm going to go through the new performance requirements proposed in version seven out of relatively high level, I will say that the law is clear that there are many kinds of cross cutting themes and overlaps within these different sub requests or the performance requirement areas in the impact topics.

And so I'll be reviewing the purpose of each impact topic, which is really clearly stated in the resource for the draft standards, but also, kind of our take in decades words, as well. And so just getting right into it.

The first impact topic here is purpose and stakeholder governance. And so there is the impact area governance in version six. So this one is it's fairly similar. And according to B Lab, one of the core aspects of becoming a B Corp, the theory of change of B Lab is the legal requirements and the change in the company's government structure to require the consideration of all stakeholders in its decision making. And so for some jurisdictions, that legal change is available, or some it's not. And so this impact topic of purpose and stakeholder governance really looks to cover all other aspects of companies creating governance structures to fulfill goals that are related to considering impacts on all stakeholders.

And so within this impact topic, there's kind of five different sub requirement areas here.

And I will just say, for each of the nine new impact topics, depending on the size and sector of your company, the amount of these different sub requirement areas that you have, and the questions that need them.

So for example, in PSD one, there is even further questions like PSD 1.1 1.2, there is some variety and not depending on the size and sector of your company. And so in the interest of time today won't be going through each one of those, but just wanted to mention that as an overall theme.

 The next impact topic is workplace culture.

And so the purpose here is really the fact that workers priorities and issues vary depending on the context, making it important that workers can advocate for their own specific interests.

And this is what makes workplace dialogue and the act of seeking comprehensive worker feedback really, really critical.

And so companies should actively be doing that, in terms of having that vital ingredient for creating a positive workplace culture.

Essentially, that's what this impact topic looks to cover is this workplace culture referring to the attitudes, beliefs and values within a workplace that influence many aspects of worker experience.

Next, we have fair wages, and so affording a decent standard of living for oneself and or your family is absolutely a human right. It is also an enabling right meaning that it helps fulfill other human rights, such as the right to housing or education, and other areas.

And so, there are multiple paths to ensuring wages are sufficient. For example, in some companies, wages can be negotiated by workers. So collective bargaining, or wages can be based on research on what a family or individual may need, for example, a living wage, so individual or family living wage.

The new version seven B Corp standards do create space for both of those approaches, recognizing not only their individual value, but their combined strength. And so in fair wages, there will be requirements. With that being said some space and flexibility, but more requirements that are specifically focused on paying workers a living wage, or a collectively bargained wage. So that's fair wages.

Moving on. version seven does have a specific impact topic on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.

The purpose here, historic and ongoing systems that sustain and exhaust exacerbate inequality among systemically disadvantaged groups create the need for companies to have specific and intentional plans to adopt principles of JEDI within their own organizations and value chains.  

And so having a specific JEDI impact topic does complement other topics and ensures that the actions of B Corps are channeled to positively impact these systemically underrepresented and disadvantaged groups.

There is a number of differences here depending on the size and worker count of your company of how many implementation actions are kind of necessary or recommended. But that's the high level of JEDI impact topic.

Moving on version seven does also have a specific kind of human rights focused impact topic.

Currently in version six supply chain is embedded in the community impact area. And so this is a big difference in version sevens that human rights and due diligence and remediation requirements are really pulled out into their own highlighted impact topic here.

This enables companies to be able to take action and prevent and mitigate negative impacts in their value chain, and their own workforce, starting with the most severe impacts, really looking at public commitments, doing a saliency assessment.

And again, a lot of these are based on the size and sector of your company to. So that's the high level on human rights.

Very quickly, we did just want to show, there's a lot of words, a lot of data on this slide, we wanted to show the breakdown of what the insides of these impact topics look like.

And so under each kind of, for human rights, it's HR, but you know, HR one, there is 1.1 1.2, under HR two, there's 2.1 2.2, and so forth.

These will vary, like I mentioned on the size of your company.

And so just to provide some context for folks, if you're a small company, in an impact topic, like human rights, you will be subject to less scrutiny and rigor than for example, a larger enterprise.

So medium, large, extra large, extra, extra large.

They just want to show this high level of the structure of what the assessment looks like on the inside. And all of you, of course, very encouraged to go into the draft standard yourself and explore and provide your feedback as well.

So just moving on here into our next impact topic, we have climate action.

And so here, purpose of this is that, as Kristy was mentioning, before recent years has been the warmest on record, there have been crazy things happening on our planet.

And so in order to kind of limit global warming to 1.5, or two degrees Celsius above pre industrial lover levels, the B Corp movement is really looking to kind of align that with requirements specifically for the corpse in version seven.

And so this is kind of the purpose of the climate action impact area.

Requirements here will vary on size and sector of companies.

But really just looking here to encourage the courts to step up their efforts, as we can't afford any more delays when it comes to this climate action, environmental stewardship and circularity.

So this one is really focused on the fact that with climate change, there is, of course, increased kind of water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and a really urgent need to adopt more circular in nature positive business models.

So companies can kind of demonstrate that environmental stewardship by ensuring that their impact stays within environmental thresholds of our planet and by promoting resilient natural systems where resources are recycled, extraction of virgin resources is limited to an absolute minimum.

We're businesses, people and the world can really thrive without exploitation unnecessarily of natural ecosystems. So quite a lot of sub requirements here, environmental stewardship and circularity are based on size and sector, but there is some increased rigour here when it comes to looking at those some of those circular pieces.

Last few topics here, so government affairs and collective action. This one is relatively kind of new in terms of what was asked previously in version six related to this topic. According to B Lab, using business as a force for good really requires acting beyond one's own enterprise in order to have broader systemic impact.

And so, while the credibility of these actions is nonetheless rooted in leadership and action within your own company or your own enterprise, it's also really necessary for companies to embrace the role of influencing supporting collective solutions that address social and environmental topics more broadly and systematically regardless of the chosen topic to lead on.

And so this is what this government affairs and collective action impact topic looks at.

Very Lastly, there is an impact topic called complimentary impact topics.

And so the purpose here is that while taking action on core impact topics sets a specific level of impact management commitment for all companies.

The impact of a business is extensive and includes other topics and potential practices.

So it's essential that companies identify broader impacts of their business and continuously strive to understand and improve upon them over time in their particular context.

The complementary impact topics section really is there guarantee that companies are identifying, measuring, learning and improving on their most important components of business impact beyond all the other eight core impact topics.

That was a very quick rundown of the nine performance requirements. Thanks all for bearing with me in that quick rundown.

But again, very much encourage all of you to go into the draft standard, all the content we just reviewed, is publicly available and is there for, for you to explore.

Michelle Austin, Impact Manager:

Now we’re going to speak to Decade’s General Feedback on the latest draft standards proposed for version 7.

•       Performance Requirement: The introduction of mandatory performance standards under each of the nine impact topics will make it more rigorous for companies to certify as they can no longer pick and choose areas of impact to be strong / weak in.

•       Scoring: It’s not clear how B Lab will measure performance and whether this scoring framework will be made public.

•       Flexibility Mechanism – Decade is pleased to see that Impact Business Models were better recognized and integrated into the new standards than they were in the previous draft of the new standards, however it is still unclear as to what kinds of flexibility this mechanism will offer companies.

•       Improvement requirement – While Decade is also pleased to see that impact improvement will now be an element of the new standards, we are concerned that improvement across too many impact areas will be over-burdensome to companies. In addition, we are curious to know if B Lab has a threshold that they consider a company to be performing “good enough” where impact improvement is no longer required.

•       Reporting Timelines: In the current version of B Corp standards, there are three reporting periods that are used (last 12 months, current state, and the last completed fiscal year). In the new drafted standards, the reporting period is almost exclusively “last fiscal year”. This will make it difficult for companies to pursue certification in the middle/end of a fiscal year. But it will also make the reporting less confusing because we are all on one timeline + good for Impact Reporting!!

•       Impact Business Models (IBMs): The measurement of IBMs is unclear. It seems in this draft that companies will be benchmarked against existing B Corps to determine the maturity of IBM, rather than comparing IBMs to conventional business models. (Materiality vs. Better than B Corps) We feel that this methodology does not fairly reflect the good impact B Corps are making. This proposed standard also does not recognize when a business has multiple IBMs, diluting its impact in a single IBM – in other words, it only rewards businesses that perform strongly in few IBMs and does not reward businesses that perform well in many IBMs.

•       User-Experience: If you’ve tried to review the standards yourself, you know how easy it is to get overwhelmed with all the information. Our hope is that when these standards are formalized, the assessment platform is a lot more user-friendly!

•       Eurocentric – Western / Resource-Heavy Requirements: Many of the requirements require businesses to provide third-party assessments, research, or certifications to validate their impact. While these tools are credible ways of measuring impact, they can also be expensive. In addition, these tools commonly reflect methodologies and perspectives of western science and therefore the B Impact Assessment risks under-valuing or excluding other ways of identifying and measuring impact.

•       Academic Approach: Decade finds that many of the new requirements are rooted in academic frameworks for measuring sustainability. While considering these frameworks is crucial for understanding how B Corps align with planetary boundaries and climate change projections, using them exclusively can create an assessment that is inaccessible for businesses that lack capacity, resources, and impact literacy. To make version 7 more accessible, we’d like to encourage B Lab to review the assessment from an entrepreneurial perspective and make changes to the standards accordingly.

•       Right sizing: We are delighted to see that the draft standards show good distinctions in requirements for companies based on their size, location, and industry. This is addressing a common critique of the current standards whereby companies felt the B Impact Assessment was too generalized, causing an unfair advantage or disadvantage for particular businesses.

•       Clarity for meeting requirements: Each sub-requirement that a company must meet is accompanied by helpful explanatory paragraphs and resources. This address a common critique of the current standards whereby it can be unclear what the performance requirements are to satisfy certain points in the assessment.

•       Standards Encourage Ongoing Impact Management: In the current version of the B Impact Assessment, businesses must only maintain 80 points every three years in order to stay certified. In the new draft standards, companies are going to have to show ongoing impact management and progress against targets. We believe that this will lead to businesses better integrating their impact strategy into their overall business strategy.

•       More Context Specific Requirements: In the current assessment, it is very US-focused in terms of some of the questions asked or how points are attributed. This creates some advantages and some disadvantages for Canadian businesses that over-inflate/unfairly diminish B Corp scores. In the new drafted standards, there is more specificity based on the locations of businesses.

•       Climate Action + Collective Action: are their own sections! Not embedded in Community / Environment

Now I’ll hand it back to our fearless leader, Kristy who will close out with some final remarks in terms of the road ahead and how we can support you in this journey to version 7.

Kristy O’Leary, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer:

 Where does this leave us? This is almost like a completely new standard, but I also think sometimes we can be a bit myopic about the certification and it’s really important to understand certification is a journey. The impact assessment is an incredible impact and design management tool or blueprint. It’s useful for us to go to ground a bit and consider how useful this tool can be if we expand our understanding of what we are going to do with it.

 We think it fuels this elegant tool of impact, this awareness of measurement leading to design and refinement, leading to performance and insight. We think that is what is going to deliver long-term shared value for businesses, for community, for the environment, for all your stakeholders.

We think each revolution that we are seeing in this new standard, focusing on impact improvement, not only should we be improving impact we should be adjusting and refining processes and engaging our teams, building culture around this and really sharpening purpose around this as we go.

We can get bogged down on the standards and these changes but ultimately the only tool of its kind that can help us build businesses that are capable of building a better world. Creating that map, intentionally using the assessment can really allow companies to build this incredible road maps to not only improve their performance but to actually create the economy we would all love to see.

Like Joan Baez says the antidote to despair is action, so beyond the certification this is an incredible action platform, and for all those folks that are dinosaurs out there that think impact work is for hippies the data that this tool produces is really second to none.

The data that comes out of version 7 is going to be even deeper and it’s going to help companies build and manage strategic plans, business plans, and really effectively intentionally move towards those long-term goals. It’s going to help and is already doing so improving products, and producing annual impact reports, and what every brand should be is a documentary brand, really understanding impact creation and that shared value creation. Become artists and scientists in how we create and tell stories of impact based on what we are creating.

A few things that are worry of mentioning is that this is an example of what was developed to move them through the first part of the cycle getting through to submission for certification. Most of these things were not done before, so whether a company wants to get certified or not, this tool to build better processes, policies, and pulling out the analytics so that we can better manage companies. The mind really nailed in what this platform can deliver in terms of value.

Then if we move into this heart space, the soul of our business/the purpose of our businesses, this platform creates incredible value if we use it intentionally. It can help us design purpose and really understand those measurements (are we delivering what we think we are delivering?). There is often a misalignment here in businesses.

What is our theory of change, as every. Business wants to say they are saving the world but you’re not. You’re creating interventions that are driving change, so what do those actually look like?

We believe this platform, this framework used intentionally is an incredible tool for culture development and education (impact literacy within companies), so that every single member of a company can see impact and where it lives in that company to see the opportunities.

 The platform offers so much impact data and also guidance on transparency and how you share that. Ultimately, we are in a love affair with B Corp as it is apart of our daily lives here at Decade, and we also believe that beyond the certification it offers incredible value as a management tool to companies. We think if you are a certified B Corp don’t be shaken by the new standard, once we see. The completed standard in 2025, it is going to help us all evolve and be even better and live into our greatness. Used intentionally it is going to help us engage our teams in a deeply meaningful way. It’s our complex world and so why can’t our work be therapy. That story sharing and inspiration is really important.

If you are certified, stay strong, you’ve got this, and if you are not certified I would say start right away, start now and don’t wait until version 7. It’s likely going to be more challenging and so moving through the process now and creating that space for yourself to move into the version 7 at least a three year period and we hear maybe six year cycle this is probably a great thing to do.

Finally, before we end we really want you to help us improve the standard and impact the standard, this s our moment we can do this. Feedback is open until March 26th, and after this session we will be putting this recording online as well as the extended presentation deck with more thorough guidance on the performance requirements, and on potential feedback.

 We know our job is to make really complicated things as simple as possible, so we did our best to review the 800 pages, and there are still a lot of unknowns, but it seems like we are moving towards something that might actually exceed expectations, we hope.  

Thank you for your attention and time today.