MoveWell - Our Journey to B-Corp Certification

We recently started our journey towards B-Corp certification, this is something that we knew we wanted be a part of from the outset.  So what is B-corp and why are we doing it?  A brief description of our journey so far and the reasons we want to be B-Corp certified follow…

In short, B-Corp certification means that a company is able to demonstrate high levels of both environmental and social performance.  We feel it offers some recognition of the painstaking hard-work we have put in, to do things right.  In addition, it offers help to identify and clarify the things we can do better.  We feel the B-corp network also offers opportunity for growth, both from customers recognising and valuing the B-corp status and from the network of like minded businesses that the B-corp network incorporates.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me explain a little bit more about the B-Corp movement and their mission to ‘Make Business a Force for Good’.   A quick glance at the homepage tells you this is a global network of close to 5000 businesses.   It defines itself as a ‘nonprofit network transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet’.  Within the growing network is a huge variety of companies, in terms of both what they do, and the size of the businesses.  The network includes everything from manufacturing to finance businesses, from start ups (like MoveWell) looking to do things well from the outset, too huge multinationals making changes in how they operate, the network encompasses them all.  The key factor, at least in my mind, is a recognition from all the parties involved that we need to operate in a better way for the environment and health of our planet and for the people involved.  This belief stems from my own personal experiences.  As a customer it’s hard to know the environmental and social impact of a product or business.  We (MoveWell) hope that obtaining B-Corp certification will help us to demonstrate to customers what we are all about, namely offering our customers better choice by reducing the environmental impact of rehab and fitness products and making sure the business we work with uphold the environmental and social standards we subscribe to as a future B-Corp. 

So, how are we actually going about getting certified?  To start our journey into certification we contacted the Future Leap sustainable Business Hub in Bristol.  They put us in touch with Andy at Business on Purpose who runs workshops to help aspiring B-corps like us to work their way through the B-Impact assessment.  The Process involves answering a series of questions about your company's practices and outputs across five categories: governance, workers, community, the environment, and customers.  The B-Impact assessment gives a score and helps identify room for improvement.  We are doing this as a part of a cohort of around 10 businesses working through the assessment with Andy's guidance.  As I write this, this is where we are presently.  The next step will be to submit our B-Impact assessment followed by an audit.  We are hoping to achieve B-corp Pending status which recognises amongst other things that we currently don't have a full year of accounts for audit.  Later down the line we will resubmit and complete another audit prior to hopefully gaining the full B-corp status.  However it doesn't stop there…once full certification is obtained, businesses recertify every three years to demonstrate ongoing commitment to the process and continued improvement. Sounds like something worth being involved in, at least we think so!

To keep up to date with our B-Corp mission you can subscribe to our mailing list here.  We will also post some updates on our progress via our instagram page. Why not follow us @movewell_uk or find out more about B-Corp here.