Pop the champagne, light the fireworks, it’s time to celebrate–Practical Insight is officially a certified B Corp! While Practical Insight has only existed for 16 months, I have come to know and appreciate the power of B Corp certification and the support of the B Corp community over several years as an employee at a B Corp and a volunteer B network leader. When I took the leap into entrepreneurship last spring there was no doubt that my company would become a certified B Corp.
Since I joined the B Corp community in 2018, I have heard from countless entrepreneurs that their company is too new or small to pursue certification. While this can be true in certain circumstances, using the framework of B Corp as a guide to shape the foundation of your business can actually support the long term success of your company. As someone who led the certification process for an established business with a dozen employees once upon a time, I also tell new mission-driven entrepreneurs that it may actually be easier to make the decisions, establish processes, and adopt policies when you’re starting out.
In the spirit of practical tips as well as some insight to reflect our name, here is how we tackled B Corp certification before reaching our second anniversary.
Prioritize Metrics & Establish Tracking Mechanisms
As we embarked on our certification journey, we used the B Impact Assessment as a guide to identify impact metrics that align with who we are as a company. Our most fundamental core value is connection, so we naturally started by diving into our community impact. For Practical Insight, community impact comes through volunteer hours, pro bono work for nonprofit and mission-driven organizations, and donations to our favorite charities. The charitable donations were easy to track through our accounting software, but (and we doubt we’re alone here) we had no process to track volunteer and pro bono hours. Being small and adaptive (another one of our values) made very simple the process of selecting a software tool that integrates with Google Calendar to make tracking this impact.
Next, we took a deep dive into our environmental impact. Another of our core values is stewardship, the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care. We consider ourselves stewards of the planet just as we are stewards of the client companies we support. The B Corp certification process allowed us to see that we could operate as a carbon neutral company, a level of environmental commitment I wasn’t sure we could achieve when we began the process. We took the time and effort to calculate our carbon footprint, which meant understanding and tracking all of the data points that go into Scopes 1, 2, & 3 greenhouse gas emissions. From the energy used by my home office to air travel and even packages sent and received, we gathered data and engaged support to calculate and negate our environmental footprint.
The final metric we focused on involved something vital to our identity and our work with mission-driven businesses. Our purpose is simple: to guide mission-driven companies to find their unique path to functionality and profitability so they can achieve their vision without burning out their team. Completing the B Impact Assessment brought to light the need to have quantifiable data on how many of our clients identified as mission-driven, how much of our revenue those clients represented, and the impact that our fractional leadership support, facilitation, and strategic planning work has on those companies. We created a simple intake form for new clients so they can self-identify appropriately (rather than us making assumptions), which allows for easy tracking of revenue from mission-driven companies including our fellow B Corps. A post-engagement survey provides us with important feedback on our services and the impact of our support to these growing companies.
Engaging Expert Support
We help the leadership teams of mission-driven businesses find clarity, alignment, and traction to achieve their world-changing vision. These companies seek us out because we have operational, strategic planning, facilitation, and coaching expertise coupled with a clear understanding of the additional complexity and challenges they face leading a business that prioritizes people, planet and profit. So while we can do our own strategic planning, for example, we are not experts in carbon emission calculations or the B Corp certification process. So, like our clients, we hired experts to help guide us.
We engaged Profitable Purpose Consulting (PPC) to help us work through the B Impact Assessment. Not only are they experts in the assessment and the certification process, but they are based just three hours away and have been part of the B Corp community as long as we have. As a professional services firm with an impressive commitment to community impact, they operate from a very similar framework around giving back as we do.
Like us, PPC doesn’t try to do what they aren’t experts in either. When we began exploring our environmental impact and the possibility of achieving carbon neutrality, PPC’s founder Nathan Stuck recommended We Are Neutral, a non-profit engaged in this work for over a decade, to calculate our carbon footprint and find certified offsets to allow us to reach our goals.
Not only did we gain guidance, information, and resources from engaging these experts but we were able to stay focused on supporting our clients and giving back to our community while working toward B Corp certification. Have I mentioned that we certified with a score of 104 and I took a completely unplugged vacation during the verification process? That wouldn’t have been the case if we had decided to go it alone.
And Now It’s Time To Celebrate!
Practical Insight is incredibly proud to join the 9,000+ B Corps around the world. From the very start, we were intentional around using our business as a force for good. The B Corp certification process has helped us know where we can have an even greater impact in the long run. We know that certifying early on has given us the foundation to grow our business while remaining true to our mission. Our most important metrics have been identified, are being tracked, and we are prepared to hold ourselves accountable to the goals we’ve set.
If you are considering B Corp certification or are a B Corp and want to know how to get the most out of your certification, check out our post: Unleash the Power of B Corp Certification