Aspiring and new B Corps: how did you communicate the journey to certification?

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Hi B Corp community! I’m looking for for case studies of aspiring or new B Corps who have communicated their journey ahead of certification, in order to guide a digital agency I’m working with, who wants to talk publicly about their journey on their Impact page and blog (they hope to submit by the end of this year).

I would welcome any examples and also any feedback on how your comms were received by stakeholders. Thanks so much!

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Ki ora Beth - we used our eNews to clients and supporters to communicate ahead of Certification, with a very light touch. Feedback was positive and supportive.

While their are definite positives to transparency, I think it’s important to handle this carefully though because of both of risk of perceived greenwash and jeopardy - submitting is only the start of a big rollercoaster process and Certification is by no means guaranteed once the assessment gets underway. It’s also common for 6 to 9 months between submission and Certification.

If you or your client would like to talk more about this you can email me on kath.dewar@goodsense.co.nz
Best wishes Kath

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Kath raises a good point. You do definitely have to be careful in potentially triggering a greenwash allegation. We debated pre-certification messaging and ultimately decided against it. However, I don’t think that should dissuade businesses from doing it at all, you just have to be careful. The key question to ask yourself is ‘what claim are you making and what is the evidence to back it’? If you can answer that comfortably, I think it’s fine!

For anyone interested, I wrote a piece on how to potentially avoid greenwashing recently. It’s from a financial services perspective, but it’s applicable to any business really. Misadventures in greenwash - Zenith Investment Partners

Cheers
Dugald

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Thanks so much to you both. I really appreciate your insight and your openness to offering support and guidance. I’ll chat to my client and take it from there.

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Nice work Dugald! I’d add thinking through ‘who’ you are talking with - context matters - and ‘why’ are you making the claim - what do you hope to achieve from it.

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You are most welcome Beth - we’re all learning together :slight_smile:

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Yep, totally valid. Thanks Kath.