Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Patagonia. Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods.
What do these three companies have in common? They’ve earned "B Corp" status, a new certification for sustainable businesses. It’s similar to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification for structures.
If you start looking for it, you might notice the B Corp logo: the letter "B" in inside a circle.
Obtaining certification is voluntary.
To qualify, the company must meet certain standards for social and environmental performance.
Certification fees range from $500 to $25,000, depending on annual sales. Transparency is also required.
So why is this important, and why should businesses go through the extra effort and expense?
"The word ‘sustainability’ really gets overused," said Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods CEO Jeff Dunster. "When we started this business, it was a simple premise: We wanted to see if we could prove we could make a forest more valuable as a forest than being cut down and put in somebody’s warehouse."
Hawaiian Legacy, which was certified in June, is a koa plantation north of Hilo on the slopes of Mauna Kea. The plantation offers tours and puts most of its trees in a legacy tree program based on sponsorships, while about 25 percent is sold to investors.
Dunster said going through the B Corp certification process was rigorous and took many months to accomplish.
"You definitely have to walk the walk," he said.
So far, more than 800 companies around the globe have joined the movement.
As sustainability becomes more of a buzzword, it’s also getting difficult to discern who’s really "green" and who’s greenwashing.
A lot of companies seem to believe that featuring an image of nature, whether it be flowers or a leaf, is enough to make them green.
The words "natural" and "eco" are popular marketing terms but often appear on packaging without any backing when you examine the actual list of ingredients.
The B Lab is a nonprofit group based in Delaware with an independent board of directors that issues the B Corp certification. The standards are governed by an independent Standards Advisory Council.
The B Corporation Declaration states, "That we must be the change we seek in the world; That all business ought to be conducted as if people and place mattered; That, through their products, practices and profits, business should aspire to do no harm and benefit all; To do so requires that we act with the understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations."
To maintain the status, B Corp companies must be recertified every two years, and 10 percent are randomly selected for on-site reviews.
There is no tax advantage to being a B Corp, just a bragging right.
Other companies in Hawaii that have obtained B Corp status include KYA Design Group, Deep Ecology, Bedrock Media Inc., Grower’s Secret and Smart Sustainability Consulting.
Visit bcorporation.net to learn more.
Nina Wu writes about environmental issues. Reach her at nwu@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter @ecotraveler.
