B Lab Europe
Become A B Corp

How to become a B Corp?

Certified B Corporations are part of the global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economic system.

Who can certify?

B Corp Certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. Certifying as a B Corp means joining a global community of over 7,000 businesses and leaders with a shared belief that business can be a benefit for the world and for the people who live in it. 

Assessed and verified by B Lab, B Corps commit to meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.  In order to achieve certification, a company must:

  • Complete the assessment

    Demonstrate high social and environmental performance by achieving a B Impact Assessment score of 80 or above and passing our risk review. Multinational corporations must also meet baseline requirement standards.

  • Meet the legal requirements

    Make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders, and achieve benefit corporation status if available in their jurisdiction.

  • Verification & Transparency

    Exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance measured against B Lab’s standards to be publicly available on their B Corp profile on B Lab’s website. To maintain certification, B Corps update their BIA and are required to verify their updated score every three years.

What Certification Approach should my company be on?

The B Corp Certification process is divided into three main generalized approaches that help target the services needed by the company, per that company’s size, structure, risk profile, and other factors. B Lab operates sole discretion in determining a company’s certification approach.

Standard Approach to becoming a B Corp

Your company’s pathway to becoming a Certified B Corporation will vary depending on a few factors. Revenue and company size are typical criteria to guide companies to their Approach to certification. In some cases, companies might undergo a different approach based on factors such as sector, industry, scoring, and ownership structure.

The following steps are related to the Standard Approach to certification.

Specific Pathways

Complex Structures

In order to take different complexities into account, B Lab Europe uses a discovery and scoping process to analyze a company’s legal and operational structure. This process determines how complex companies should complete the BIA.

Large Companies

With big business increasingly aiming to become B Corps, B Lab has created a Large Enterprise Approach to ensure the pathway for such companies is clear, credible and comprehensive.

B Movement Builders

B Movement Builders is a program for multinational companies to come together to lead global systems change alongside and in support of the B Corp community, building a new narrative about the purpose of business.

Pending B

Many start-ups want a way to signal to stakeholders that they are on track to certifying as a B Corp. Pending B Corp status helps those early-stage companies to make that commitment.

How long does it take to get certified?

  Demand for B Corp Certification is high and there are currently wait periods to enter each stage of the review process. There are several factors that contribute to the timeline of certification, including which track the company is on, whether or not they have concluded their scoping prior to submission, your response time to queries and documentation requests, whether your score drops below 80 points and the current backlog in the certification pipeline during that time period influencing B Lab analysts’ capacity and availability.

 

  • Certification

    B Lab Europe has been working on improvements to the certification process to reduce wait times, making it more efficient, sustainable and scalable while maintaining its integrity. Companies that have certified more recently may experience shorter wait times to those that certified three years ago.

  • Size & Complexity

    The length of the certification and verification process — from beginning the B Impact Assessment to fulfilling the legal accountability requirement to finishing with announcing your B Corp Certification to the world — varies based on a company’s size and complexity.

A journey of continuous improvement

B Corp Certification is holistic, not exclusively focused on a single social or environmental issue. And the process to achieve and maintain certification is rigorous and requires engaging teams and departments across your company. Taking company size and profile into account, verification involves documentation of your company’s business model and information about your operations, structure, and various work processes, as well as review of potential public complaints and possible site visits. Recertification confirms these standards continue to be met on an ongoing basis. 

Need help?

Struggling to complete the B Impact Assessment on your own? Know where your gaps are and need help to improve impact? B Lab Europe and our local teams can support your company on the journey to certification. We highly recommend to attend free BIA webinars organized in English by B Lab Europe’s certification team and in different languages from our local teams. 

Reach out to certification@bcorporation.eu for any questions. 

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