This summer, Progeny became B Corp Certified, following a rigorous and lengthy assessment process. This makes us one of a small but growing number of B Corp UK wealth management companies, who are verified as meeting high and improving standards of social and environmental impact.

It’s fair to say that we’ve learned a lot since we first considered embarking on the B Corp journey. The gift of hindsight is a wonderful thing as they say, and there are certainly things that we could have approached or done differently.

For any advisory firms who are currently contemplating B Corp certification, here are some of our key lessons learned from pre, during and post-assessment.

Pre-assessment

The biggest challenge pre-assessment is to try and understand the scope of the B Corp certification process. Partially this is because no two firm’s journeys are exactly the same and sector, structure, size and business areas, amongst many other things, will all have an impact on the certification journey. It’s also related to the fact that the assessment process is so all encompassing that it can be hard to create a comprehensive picture from the large suite of various support materials.

The key recommendation here is to speak to some fellow firms within the B Corp network. The B Lab website (the not-for-profit who deliver B Corp) has a comprehensive directory of certified firms and our experience has been that it’s a very open and welcoming community, who are more than happy to share experiences and best practice. First hand insight into the assessment process also helps to bring clarity to the wealth of resources and guides that B-Lab provide.

For larger and more complex organisations, it may also be beneficial to invest in specialist third party support, who have expertise and experience in undergoing the assessment process.

During assessment

The initial B-Impact assessment process is actually free to undertake and completing a first pass of this will give you a good indication of the potential workload ahead, as well as where increased focus is needed. For context, the median total score for non B Corp businesses is quoted as being at around 50.9, compared with the 80-plus point milestone required to submit your application for the formal assessment process.

The initial challenge that presents itself is the question of how well you know your business. You need to be able to map which element of the business supports which area of the impact assessment and there will also be numerous areas of overlap.

It’s definitely a measure of your housekeeping, as the process is heavily reliant on being able to evidence what you are saying and knowing where you can easily obtain that evidence from. The B-Impact assessment is highly data-dependent but supported intuitively by the impact assessment portal, used by B-Lab to capture and manage assessment responses.

You have to be prepared to invest both time and resource, as well as commit to opening all areas of the business up for scrutiny. It certainly requires the appointment of a project team, with expertise from across different areas of the business.

Another key learning for us was our expectation of B Lab themselves. B Corp is a movement that has grown exponentially across the globe and queries can naturally take some time to be answered, which can further lengthen the process.

Post-assessment

Once you have become B Corp certified, it doesn’t take long for the realisation to dawn that now the real work actually starts! One of the key characteristics of B Corp, and what sets it apart from many other certifications, is the commitment to continuous improvement, with recertification required every three years. Be proud of your achievement, but don’t rest on your laurels.

The first step is to build understanding amongst all your stakeholders, with an obvious focus on your employees, as it moves from a project-driven piece of work to being embedded within the fabric of the business. In hindsight, we would probably have benefitted from beginning the awareness and adoption process earlier while we were still going through the assessment process.

A good move here is to assemble a working group to help keep things moving forward. We call ours B-Keepers, who are individuals that are particularly passionate about making a difference, both within our business and externally, by driving the engagement with the B Corp values across the wider industry.

Larger firms may also consider employing dedicated resource, along the lines of a Head of Sustainability or Change, to lead the B Corp re-certification process, or upskilling existing talent to take over this type of role.

Overall, being a larger and more complex firm undoubtedly makes the certification process more challenging, and it’s no surprise that out of over just 2,000 B Corp firms currently certified in the UK, three-quarters of them have under 50 employees. I would definitely advise firms to establish B Corp values and look to attain certification as early in their growth journey as possible, so processes and governance are embedded, and then grow within the re-certification process.

In summary, B Corp certification is not something to be undertaken lightly. It’s painful at times and requires a large amount of commitment and resource to achieve. The clarity and business transparency attained by going through the process is, however, invaluable, as well as the validation in knowing that you are on the path to meaningful change and a step ahead of any environmental policy or regulation that may be introduced in the future.

Craig Cuthbert is head of change at Progeny, a B Corp Certified company