B Corp Services

Certification is measured on the verified practices and policies of a company over the past year and therefore, only for-profit businesses which have been operating (namely having at least one individual who has been contributing 35+ hours per week to the company) for at least twelve months can become a B Corp.

Newer businesses and startups without a year’s trading history may, however, still apply for B Corp Pending status before transitioning to a fully-fledged B Corp after a year. Sole traders can certify as a B Corp but are not eligible for Pending B Corp status, whereas charities, public bodies, majority state-owned entities and non-profit organisations are not eligible for B Corp certification at all.

There are additional eligibility requirements for large multinational companies with a revenue of over £100 Million, and subsidiaries who may be certified separately if they are able to demonstrate that they are operationally distinct from their parent company.

Consisting of approximately 200 questions, the B Impact Assessment (BIA) seeks to verify a company's social and environmental performance by examining a company's impact across five categories, namely governance, workers, community, the environment and customers.

Companies must demonstrate a high social and environmental performance in these impact areas by achieving a score of 80 or above, passing B Lab’s risk review and responding to the B Corp disclosure questionnaire. The questionnaire involves a series of “Yes-No” questions, thereby allowing the company to ‘confidentially disclose any sensitive industries, practices, fines or sanctions related to it or its partnerships’ to B Labs. The process can involve providing additional documentation, further background checks, attending interviews with B Labs and facilitating onsite visits from B Labs.

The B Corp legal requirement is a fundamental element of certification and requires the company to alter their corporate governance structure and amend their constitutional documents to legally bind them to their promise to make a material positive impact on society and the environment.

The legal changes must be completed prior to certification for companies with 0-49 full-time employees, but companies with 50+ full-time employees are granted additional time to complete the change depending on its legal structure. For example, limited companies have up to a year after certification to complete the change and Limited Liability Partnerships have ninety days.

Our B Corp lawyers can help your company earn the full “mission lock” points available on this question, by ensuring that the legal requirement is correctly implemented during the B Corp certification process.

As well as adopting the necessary legal changes, companies must also sign the B Corp Declaration of Interdependence, a legally binding mission statement which affirms their commitment to considering the interests of all stakeholders.

Companies wishing to be certified must exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance, their overall BIA score, and their individual category scores to be published on the B Labs website. Public companies and their subsidiaries have extra transparency requirements however, and must publish their entire BIA online with any particularly sensitive information redacted.

There is an initial registration fee of £250 plus VAT for submitting your business for certification and a one-off fee of £500 plus VAT to register for Pending B Corp status. There is also an annual fee based on the firm’s total revenue in the last twelve months which ranges from £1,000 (based on annual revenues of £0-£149,000) to £50,000 (£750 Million -£1 Billion). The BIA must be updated every three years in order to retain the B Corp certification and the price of re-certification also depends on the company’s annual turnover.

The length of B Lab’s BIA review process varies based on the company's size and complexity. B Labs estimate that small to medium-sized businesses will take approximately 6-8 months from start to certification, and large multinationals, companies with many related entities, or companies operating in controversial industries should expect a longer verification process.