We had our team year-end gathering last night at my house, a chance to get together (in person!) with our team, past & present from 2020, our Board, and our incredible interns. It was special to be able to meet and enjoy some downtime in what has been an intense year of disruption and activity. Many in our extended global network don’t have this opportunity right now, and we’re thinking of them.
I am incredibly proud of what we’ve all achieved this year through challenging times, both within B Lab and through the efforts of the B Corp community volunteering their time (huge shout-out to the Board, our Sponsors and Partners and B Local leaders in particular). Rather than provide list of achievements (I started one but was scared of inevitably forgetting someone or something and feeling mortified for weeks) - I hunted around for a few numbers and shared them with the team last night. I thought you might like to see some of them too.
So here we go…
As of this week in our region we have:
- 315 Certified B Corporations
- 63 new B Corps certified this year (including our first $1bn+ - Synlait in NZ)
- 176 companies in reviews
- 7,740 BIA accounts
- 174 new submissions in 2020, a record year
The total revenue of B Corps in our region is now at A$5.26bn - and of this, A$2.1bn is from our 2020 cohort - which represents 40% of the total. Quite extraordinary! Whilst we’re pleased to see more bigger, complex businesses taking on certification, we remain a diverse community of big and small, urban and regional, multi-sector and with every business model you can think of - all united in using the power and resources of business as a force for good.
We’ve launched B Consultants, seeing 19 participants in our first cohort. These new B Consultants will help drive more businesses to measure and manage their impact using our tools. A huge shift in our direction and our team has worked incredibly hard on this, all done remotely. Special thanks for those 19 new B Consultants who dived in the deep-end with us.
Our pipeline has never been better nurtured with carefully crafted campaigns, delivered by the B Lab team who do not miss a beat in ensuring all our BIA users are given every chance of success:
- 4,305 of our BIA users are signed up and just starting their journey
- 1,485 are engaged, completing the questions
- 912 are committed, scoring well and close to being ready to submit
This year we’ve sent 91,457 emails sent in different campaigns. No, they haven’t all gone to your inbox and yes, we’re getting smarter at segmenting our many audiences to deliver relevant content at the right time!
We’ve reached 5,672 Instagram followers (and 3,545 on Facebook) plus many more on LinkedIn. We’ve shared your stories wherever possible, knowing they are the best way to explain the what/why/how of the B Corp movement.
Our small (and mighty) team has managed to send each other a staggering 57,286 Slack messages, up from 10,197 just 2 years ago! No wonder we’re tired.
As much as I love some good numbers, there is something we’d really like to know, and we’re working on this: the number of people impacted by our work, and the nature of the changes we’re seeing. This is important, because it’s also your work. We are changing the economic system from within, using the collective power of 315 businesses backed by incredible people across Australia and New Zealand. There are another 3,406 B Corps worldwide, sharing this mission. You are part of a great team!
So we go into 2021 confident of pushing further for change, improving the outcomes for people and planet through the collective energy and commitment of our whole B Corp community. Thanks for doing the hard things you need to do to become (and remain) a B Corp. Thanks for supporting our team in the myriad ways you do, and have a great festive season and (hopefully) time with friends and family.
Onwards, in community
Andrew & the B Lab team