B Corp Certification
SouthCol is proud to be a member of a growing community of leaders in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.
“B Corp Certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency.”
B Corp Certification is granted by B Lab, an independent and globally recognized nonprofit organization. As a certified B Corp, SouthCol’s social and environmental performance is publicly available on the B Corp website.
As a means of continuous improvement and recertification, SouthCol must uphold established social and environmental standards and update its impact score every three years.
WHAT OUR SCORE MEANS TO YOU
Based on the B Impact Assessment, SouthCol Advisors earned an overall score of 93.6. The median score for ordinary businesses who complete the assessment is currently 50.9*. SouthCol’s score indicates that we act in the best interest of our stakeholders and can demonstrate adherence to global standards and best practices in:
Governance: Governance evaluates a company’s overall mission, engagement around its social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency. It evaluates the ability of a company to protect their mission and formally consider stakeholders in decision-making through their corporate structure (e.g. benefit corporation) or corporate governing documents.
Customers: Customers evaluates a company’s stewardship of its customers through the quality of its products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels. It recognizes products or services that are designed to address a particular social problem for or through its customers, such as health or educational products, arts & media products, serving underserved customers/clients, and services that improve the social impact of other businesses or organizations.
- There are more than 6,000 certified B Corps across 80 countries and 150 industries (as of January 2023).
- B Corps are 4.5 times more likely to use 100% renewable energy.
- +60% of B Corps tie executive leadership compensation to achieving specific social and environmental metrics.
- B Corps are twice as likely to have majority women management.
- More than 25% of B Corps are women-owned.
- 69% of B Corps offer bonuses or profit-sharing to non-executive workers.
- 100% of B Corps have stakeholder governance embedded in their corporate structure.
Environment: Environment evaluates a company’s overall environmental management practices as well as its impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity. This includes the direct impact of a company’s operations, supply chain, and distribution channels. It recognizes companies with environmentally innovative production processes and those that sell products or services that have a positive environmental impact.
Community: Community evaluates a company’s engagement with and impact on the communities in which it operates, hires from, and sources from. Topics include diversity, equity & inclusion, economic impact, civic engagement, charitable giving, and supply chain management. It recognizes business models that are designed to address specific community-oriented problems, such as poverty alleviation through fair trade sourcing or distribution via microenterprises, producer cooperative models, locally focused economic development, and formal charitable giving commitments.
Workers: Workers evaluates a company’s contributions to its employees’ financial security, health & safety, wellness, career development, and engagement & satisfaction. It recognizes business models designed to benefit workers, such as companies that are at least 40% owned by non-executive employees and those that have workforce development programs to support individuals with barriers to employment.
DID YOU KNOW?
For boards and investment committees, the benefit of working with a certified B Corporation is the knowledge that a firm has met B Lab’s stringent due diligence and audit processes and their score is transparent and publicly available on the B Corporation website.
Source: B Corp, B Lab 2021 Annual Report
*As of 2022