Originally published at: https://bcorporation.com.au/blog/future-focused-tidying-up-and-unmaking-stuff-heres-four-new-b-corps/
These four freshly Certified B Corporations reside in completely different industries. But, within the context of their fields, they share a curious and creative nature, continuously considering “how could we make this even better?”.
Tidy Up is turning other people’s trash into treasure.
Capability Group are helping teams thrive in times of change.
Decent Packaging is thinking outside the box.
And Devotion Digital is creating captivating digital experiences.
Join us in welcoming these new B Corps.
Image: Tidy Up
Trash to treasure with Tidy Up
Tidy Up is a family-owned, WA-based rubbish removal and recycling business that has been servicing the Perth community for over 45 years.
When they look in the back of their trucks, they don’t see trash, they see an opportunity to cycle goods and materials back into the community. Tidy Up do this through thoughtful recycling, upcycling, and donation programs. As they put it, “landfill is the absolute last resort”.
Each year Tidy Up donates a wide variety of treasures, such as medical equipment, play equipment, and scrap metal. Last financial year alone they diverted 4,671 cubic metres of materials from landfill. A credit to their transparency, they also publish the quantity of materials they were unable to recycle, upcycle or donate.
The Tidy Up team are also proud participants in The Push Up Challenge, annually raising thousands of dollars (and doing thousands of push-ups) to support Lifeline WA.
“Our mission is to help create a world without waste by employing and empowering capable people and matching them with modern, purpose-built trucks and equipment. This gives the ability to transport and manage material in a highly sustainable manner.”
“Tidy Up does all this without providing a container or bin, our teams load directly into the trucks, enabling them to effectively source separate material so it can be regenerated, reused or recycled.”
“The Tidy Up business model feeds directly into our local, circular economy by diverting material from landfill and putting it back into the community, or ensuring it is recycled in the most effective manner.”
— Tidy Up
Image: Tidy Up
Tidy Up envision a future where waste is brought to the foreground of business considerations and boardroom conversations.
“We would like to see an industry-specific limit to the amount of material a business can send to landfill annually.”
— Tidy Up
Changing for good with Capability Group
Capability Group Limited (CGL) is an organisation development and change management consultancy firm with offices across New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore. With a human-centred approach, the Group support individuals, teams, and businesses to thrive in times of change by incorporating behavioural psychology, learning design, and technology.
“Our solutions not only transform individuals, teams, and organisational performance, but they generate a ripple effect, causing the connections and capabilities developed by individuals on our programmes or using our solutions to flow through into their families and communities.”
— Capability Group
Image: Capability Group
Collaborating across a diverse range of projects, from fostering female engagement in football to the delivery of engaging online learning to tens of thousands of retail staff, it’s clear that no two days are the same in the Capability ecosystem.
“[Our greatest impact comes from] our collaborative work with clients to create learning and development opportunities for individuals from minority and lower socio-economic groups who may not typically have access to such initiatives.”
— Capability Group
For CGL, the certification journey helped to identify opportunities to go above and beyond in supporting their employee’s mental, social, financial, education, and physical well-being.
“We’ve now got resources and programmes in place that will have enduring benefits for both Capability Group . . . and team members, extending beyond our B Corp Certification.”
— Capability Group
Video: Capability Group
Working in the consultancy field, CGL are used to touring the inner workings of organisations with an analytical eye. They share that working towards certification was a chance to look inward and examine their own operations.
“We used the assessment not just as a certification tool but as a roadmap for continuous improvement, to turn the lens on ourselves and consider what we’ve learned as a business and what we need to do to develop and improve. It forced us to analyse our business and ask some tough questions like ‘What gaps are there in what we do and how we do it?’ and ‘What’s working and more importantly, what’s not working?’”
— Capability Group
“Everyone that works for us is really passionate about the purpose that underpins our business. They want to make a difference; they want to have a positive social impact. They really care about the environment so this process was all about ensuring that both Added Insight, [Capability’s talent assessment arm] and Capability Group are designed to deliver on that promise and go on an improvement journey.”
— Capability Group
Thinking outside the box with Decent Packaging
From humble beginnings in his parent’s garage, Tony founded Decent Packaging (then Innocent Packaging) with the sole goal of ‘unmaking’ the infamous single-use coffee cup. Today, Decent Packaging produce containers, straws, napkins and more, all from sustainably grown, plant-based, non-toxic materials.
Image: Decent Packaging
Decent Packaging works closely with local composting programs, is Toitū net carbon zero certified, and provides a nifty online carbon calculator to help their clients communicate impact to the wider public.
On a community level, you’ll find Decent Packaging collaborating with I AM HOPE and Everybody Eats, as well as donating a range of packaging throughout the year to local initiatives. Plus, they’ve adopted a 4-day work week in the Decent Packaging offices – sounds beyond decent to us!
“Here at decent packaging, we simplify sustainability. We use sustainably sourced materials like sugarcane and cornstarch, which we turn into coffee cups, napkins, plates, bowls, cutlery, you name it. All of our packaging is 100% compostable, and, disposed of correctly, will be broken back down into nutrient-rich compost, used for fertilising crops like sugarcane and cornstarch. The essential concept at the heart of decent packaging is this: everything we make, we can unmake. Because we want to leave this world a little better than we found it and help you do the same.”
— Decent Packaging
Image: Decent Packaging
Looking beyond packaging to business more broadly, Decent Packaging explains that they would like to see an authentic emphasis on circularity become the norm.
“So many products are created without a second thought as to what happens at the end of their life, and all too often they’re going straight to landfill or worse, into our beautiful natural environment like the oceans. By creating a Circular Economy, it means we’re reducing the amount of rubbish being sent to landfill and reducing the energy output that’s required to break it all down.”
“By transitioning from a linear use-to-dispose model to a circular approach, businesses can reduce their environmental impact and save our finite resources. It’s a way for everyone to contribute to a better tomorrow, today.”
— Decent Packaging
Talking transparency with Devotion Digital
Devotion Digital is an independent digital agency based in Sydney. Their future-focused approach combines technical knowledge, creative thinking, and AI to build engaging digital experiences that help strengthen connections between businesses and their community.
“Our passionate team of Devotees deliver real business value through digital strategy, user experience design, development, and digital marketing services to a diverse range of clients across industries and markets, locally and internationally.”
“As a business, we have always been passionate about our social and environmental responsibilities. We’ve constantly strived to be better corporate citizens and do the right thing for our people and the planet. Yet, while we knew we were on the track, it wasn’t until we progressed down the path of B Corp Certification that we were able to formally gauge our progress and determine our genuine level of effectiveness.”
— Devotion Digital
Image: Devotion Digital
Devotion shared that involving the whole team in the BIA process made the experience all the more valuable and rewarding. Reflecting upon their B Corp journey, Devotion outlined a number of policies that the BIA process helped them to formalise and strengthen, including:
- Equality, diversity, inclusion policy,
- Environment and sustainability policy,
- Prioritising local suppliers policy,
- And Work-life balance policy including recharge days, mental health support, free group training sessions, team-based initiatives, and volunteer leave.
“Something we’ve become passionate about is being transparent about our operations with the whole team. The more the team understand, the more they become personally invested, and if the overarching motivation is positive, then amazing results happen.”
“We’ve been lucky to have a team that’s embraced the B Corp process. We’ve kept them involved throughout and sought feedback when necessary. So, I guess the simple answer to what we’d like to become the norm, is openness and transparency in the workplace.”
— Devotion Digital
Image: Devotion Digital
Devotion’s advice to future B Corps is to have patience; Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor is anyone’s BIA! Creating a to-do list, executing items methodically, and documenting along the way helped them keep the project ticking along.
“The process is rigorous (for a reason). We’re not a huge organisation, and as such, the changes that we needed to make took time. Our advice would be to accept this and roll with it. There’s a lot that needs to be done, and it can’t be completed overnight. We ran through the Impact Assessment once, made detailed lists of improvements we’d need to make, and then systematically executed them. We essentially ran it like an internal project, with all the relevant checks and balances.”
“One key piece of advice though, would be to ensure you document all your supporting information as you go. There’s no point in answering the assessment and then having to find all the supporting material again retrospectively!”
— Devotion Digital
A big thank you to Tidy Up, Capability Group, Decent Packaging and Devotion Digital for taking the time to share their journeys with us. Visit the Blog to discover more newly certified B Corps, or the Directory to explore all local Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand-based B Corps.