CT becomes a Certified B CorporationTM
CT is proud to have joined a global community of businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental impact
PEOPLE & CULTURE
Greg Campbell
Partner, Campbell Tickell
Issue 68 | October 2023
When Campbell Tickell reviewed what it meant to be a Certified B CorporationTM, we quickly concluded that the description fitted us – making it natural that we would seek certification. Now, after two years of hard work, we have made it, and we became a Certified B CorporationTM this August.
What is a B CorpTM?
The term stands for ‘Benefit Corporation’. It is a sustainability certification for commercial businesses that strive to make social and environmental priorities an integral part of their operations. It is a recognition that, while staying financially healthy is as important as for any other business, a company recognises that it has wider responsibilities at the same time – to people, communities and the planet – and must not compromise those sustainability goals.
While CT is a commercial business, making a positive impact on society has been central to the company’s mission and values from day one. Our mission is to support our clients’ excellence in governance, resilience, performance, and compliance. This enables the better delivery of clients’ social objectives for the people, communities, and organisations they serve.
Underlining the company’s commitment to use business as a force for goodTM, certification aligns with our belief that our operations should bring benefit not just to shareholders, but to all stakeholders: a belief shared by many of the public sector, non-profit and charitable organisations CT supports.
Accreditation is not easily achieved
While we believed that our approach aligned with B CorpTM principles, we had to demonstrate this. It meant answering 161 questions, setting out how we operate in five categories: governance, workers, community, environment, and customers.
In the process, we had to go through a lot of tidying up of our policies and practices and our record-keeping, to enable us to demonstrate clearly how our operations work in practice.
Assessment of B CorpTM applications is undertaken by the B LabTM organisation. In order to achieve certification, an applicant company must score a minimum verified score of 80 points. The median score for businesses completing the B impact assessment is 50.9. CT scored 107.5 at our first effort.
Maintaining B CorpTM certification
A company must go through a reaccreditation process every three years. And you can lose certification, as happened recently to a well-known brewing company whose employment practices were called into question by a large number of former employees.
Meanwhile, CT is in good company. The B CorpTM community comprises 7,132 companies around the world, including 1,500 in the UK. It includes such names as The Guardian, Body Shop, Ben & Jerry’s, Pieminister, Cotopaxi, ACS (Advanced Clothing Solutions), Y.O.U Underwear, teapigs, Audley Travel, and EQ Investors. Certified B CorporationTM organisations in the social housing arena include Social Invest and Centrus.
Commenting on achieving certification, James Tickell, partner, noted:
“I think Campbell Tickell’s values clearly aligned with B CorpTM certification before we’d even heard of the term. It’s great now to have the recognition for our amazing team that certification brings, after a truly rigorous verification process”.
Ceri Victory-Rowe, director, said of the certification process:
“We found going through the process itself very valuable – it made us revisit how we do things, and thoroughly test whether we truly reflect our values in how we work. It was rewarding to realise all over again what a committed and ethical bunch of people we work with at CT. And on a more practical level, the process prompted us to do some housekeeping, updating documents and so on – so we know our house is in even better order going forwards.”
“It’s great now to have the recognition for our amazing team that certification brings, after a truly rigorous verification process.”
