Frank Bold has recently become a certified B Corporation for its activities as a law firm. This new status reflects the firm’s general policy of combining its business activities with socially valuable objectives.
The B Corporation label is a certification process demonstrating that a company adheres to the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability. It also shows that a company is dedicated to using the power of markets to solve social and environmental problems.
B Corps are part of a growing movement that aims at redefining success in business, so that it is not limited to making profit but extends to creating benefit for the society and the planet. It thus goes a step further than the numerous initiatives targetting the avoidance or limitation of social and environmental adverse impacts.
B Corporation certification is supervised by B Lab, a non-profit organisation that serves the expanding global movement of people ‘using business as a force of good’. Certification is granted to companies that pass B Lab’s Impact Assessment, which includes detailed and standardised impact assessment indicators, as well as a customised platform for measuring those impacts. Companies must also meet the legal requirements for accountability set by B Lab. These requirements depend on the company’s state of incorporation and corporate structure.
The median score for businesses completing the B Impact Assessment is 55 points. To be certified, businesses must earn a verified score of 80 points. For the year 2016, Frank Bold earned 96 points for its commercial activities. Frank Bold has a unique hybrid structure that brings together (1) a Certified B Corp law firm that services primarily commercial clients that meet ethical guidelines set by the organisation, and (2) a non-profit section that benefits from funding from Frank Bold’s business activities, charitable foundations and other entities in order to fulfill its mission. Frank Bold as a whole shares the purpose of creating public benefit by solving social and environmental problems.
Today, more than 1,700 corporations are Certified B Corps, coming from 42 countries and covering over 120 industries. This includes several world-wide known brands such as Ben & Jerry’s (a subsidiary of global consumer product giant Unilever), and Patagonia, as well as publicly traded companies, such as the e-commerce site Etsy, cosmetics maker Natura, and Triodos bank.
By becoming a B Corp, Frank Bold has entered a leading business community, which proves its ability to do business by directly serving social and environmental interests.
Further information is avaialble on the official B-Corporation website: http://www.bcorporation.net.
***
Text edited by Sandrine Brachotte
After 18 hours of negotiations, the European Parliament, Council of the EU and European Commission reached a political agreement this morning on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The decision was preceded by a four-year long legislative process at European level and builds on national laws in France and Germany.
In the context of the last phase of the negotiations on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), Frank Bold initiated a multistakeholder statement together with the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) and Shift.
Today, the European Parliament successfully fended off efforts to reject the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), a key legislative piece to ensure the effective application of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the transitioning efforts in the context of the Green Deal. A majority of 359 Members of the Parliament voted against a motion to reject the ESRS and its replacement with an emptied and diluted piece of legislation.
