EVOLVING THE STANDARDS FOR B CORP CERTIFICATION

As the climate crisis intensifies and societal inequality grows, the need to bring about systemic change is clear. We must advance the standards for B Corp Certification to meet the magnitude of the challenge ahead.

While significant improvements have been made to our certification standards since B Lab began in 2006 (they have been revised six times), the core aspects of the B Impact Assessment have remained consistent — including the fact that the certification is rooted in a company achieving an overall verified score of 80 through a flexible range of practices and attributes. This approach has been tremendously valuable and impactful in the first 15 years of this movement, yet it has also demonstrated its limitations and challenges. 

The new standards will provide clarity for companies, galvanizing the most impactful business actions and focusing on what really matters, meaningfully demonstrating the leadership role that B Corps and the B Corp movement play in the world.

The new standards comprise both baseline Foundation Requirements and Impact Topic Requirements:

• Foundational Requirements determine a company’s eligibility and scope for B Corp Certification

• Impact Topic Requirements measure company impact performance across seven key areas, addressing critical issues like Climate Action, Fair Work, and Purpose and Stakeholder Governance. 

These requirements are supported by overarching themes such as contextualisation mechanisms which determine how the standards are tailored to a company’s context to cater for size, location and any operational barriers to performance.

This new standards structure shifts away from the previous flexible scoring system, where companies needed to achieve an overall score of 80 on the B Impact Assessment, to a more holistic model requiring companies to meet explicit criteria tailored to their size, sector, and location across all Impact Topics.

Ultimately, the ambition of the new standards is not just to maintain the credibility of B Corp Certification but to strengthen its role as a tool for transforming the global economy. By evolving to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow, the standards aim to inspire and mobilize the B Corp community—and businesses everywhere—to create a more inclusive, regenerative, and resilient economic system.

In December 2020, B Lab announced a review of the performance requirements for B Corp Certification. This was initiated in response to community and stakeholder feedback regarding evolving conceptions of leadership in social and environmental performance.

From 26 September to 30 November 2022, we conducted the first consultation on the draft of the new B Corp standards, introducing specific performance requirements across 10 key topics. 

In May 2023, we shared the Preliminary Consultation Summary Report, providing an overview of the September-November 2022 preliminary consultation results and highlighting the potential ways that prevalent feedback could be addressed in the next draft of the standards for B Corp Certification.

The second consultation ran from 16 January 2024 through 26 March 2024. We identified and incorporated prevalent feedback from this consultation process in to the final version of the standards before publication. You can continue to familiarise yourself with the content of the latest draft standards here.

Learn more about the work happening behind the scenes at B Lab to implement the new standards in our latest blog.

For more information, please review these Frequently Asked Questions, as well as our previous announcements:

• Second Consultation Reveals How Community Feedback is Shaping the New Standards (24 September, 2024)

• Request for Proposals for Consultant with ESG/Sustainability and Financial Sector Expertise (4 June, 2024)

• B Lab Launches Public Consultation on the Standards for B Corp Certification (16 January 2024)

• Revisiting the proposed changes to the standards for B Corp Certification (27 October, 2023)

• Preliminary Consultation Suggests New B Corp Standards Are Ambitious yet Attainable (15 May, 2023)

• A call for feedback on the draft of the new standards for B Corp Certification (23 September 2022)

• Update on the Future of the B Corp Certification Performance Requirements (23 February 2022)

• B Corp Performance Requirements Review updates: B Lab expands Regional Standards Advisory Groups, launches next round of community engagement, and updated project timeline (15 September 2021) 

• Performance Requirements Review Update: Survey Results and Next Steps (21 April 2021)

• Call for Input on B Corp Certification Performance Requirements (2 December 2020)

Update on the timeline: A previous version of this page shared alternative timelines around the implementation of the new standards. B Lab continues to develop the rollout and transition timeline for the new standards, including improved digital experiences and certification processes.