Innovation

I had the pleasure of speaking with Andy Fyfe, who joined B Lab ten years ago and is now the organization’s Growth Catalyst. After graduating from college he backpacked for a year or so from Belize down to Chile. His experience and background as an entrepreneur, starting small businesses in South America, and working in microfinance, help to inform Fyfe’s genuine appreciation for local communities. Throughout his travels, he has been inspired by micro-entrepreneurs and the impacts of small businesses, “Whether they’re selling flowers on the corner shop, or opening a bodega, they’re really thinking about how the impact can turn into a better livelihood for their kids or their aunts and uncles”, Andy explains, and he was drawn to the idea of local living economies and how to revitalize these communities. He sees this as the kind of environment that B Lab is working to cultivate on a global level.

Returning to San Francisco he learned about what B Lab was trying to achieve. With a healthy dose of skepticism due to the power of greenwashing and cause marketing of big businesses and their authentic interest in getting behind issues that related to SDG topics, Andy began working for the organization. Big business has always been inclined to utilize their capital to put large sums of money behind creating marketing stories that will put them in a positive light. B Lab is creating a certification to differentiate “good companies from just good marketing”, says Fyfe, and holding them accountable to the negative impacts capitalism has on people and the planet. B Lab applies metrics to their initiatives and holds the organization accountable to them.

As the certifier of B Corps, B Lab itself works to embody the values they hope to instill in their clients. They will be the first to admit, it is not an easy bar to reach, but it is a crucial one to continuously strive for.

Andy Fyfe, B Lab Growth Catalyst

Inspiration

B Lab was founded in 2006 just outside of Philadelphia, by Jay Coen Gilbert and Bart Houlahan, who started the AND1 basketball brand, as well as their friend, Andrew Kassoy, who had been previously involved in private equity.

As Fyfe explains it, “The inspiration for the organization was recognizing that the private sector of business is the most powerful white man-made force on the planet and the impacts of the power of that force were really crippling our communities and are warming the planet.”

While Jay and Bart were at And1 they worked to run the business ethically. After selling the company they thought about how to support other entrepreneurs to do the right thing. They saw a problem: when companies go through transitions, – IPO, post-sale, changing hands – the journey of success does not keep up with the companies, and they can lose sight of integrity and their original mission.

The trio of entrepreneurs considered how to keep an organization continuously aligned with its mission and preserve the integrity of the company. They came together and developed the idea of a certification that exceeds specific aspects of the business, and instead is a company-level certification. To accomplish this, B Lab would go state by state to change the legal rules of the game, beginning with 10 companies in the Bay Area.

Overall impact

It takes competence and courage to stand up for what you believe in to show a positive way forward. And this is what B Lab represents.

During my conversation with Fyfe, he conveys that social and environmental responsibilities need to be normative, institutionalized, and required. You can’t manage what you don’t measure, and it’s not enough for people to demand that companies care. Companies need to promote pay equity, develop regenerative environmental practices, and embody social responsibility. Without these metrics in place, companies will continue to make up their own “rules to the game”.

B Lab implores reluctant organizations to begin the conversation around ESG issues by taking smalls steps that can have a big impact, such as by disclosing the diversity of the people in power – the board, leadership team, c suite – having an organization own that and show it’s important makes an impact, even (especially) if they’re not as proud. This will encourage organizations to address what they can do in a community or industry to change what the picture should look like and open up those conversations.

Certifications can take up to 12 months. For companies eager to move towards becoming a B Corporation, they can begin by making amendments to their legal structure to hold themselves accountable to people and the planet. B Labs will provide the language for legal amendments that companies can use, and this can be done immediately!

When asked about the greatest impacts that B Lab has made on sustainability topics, Fyfe recognizes that there are case studies that would reflect the good work they have done, but when it comes down to it, he says, “B Lab hasn’t done enough”. Fyfe says there’s always a need for “Lived experience to help advise: What stories should be told? What questions should we be asking ourselves?” B Lab continues to develop new tools for consumers and businesses, such as the Climate justice playbook, released March of 2021.

“When we recognize the intersection of climate and justice equity,” Fyfe says, “what’s important is two things: bringing in those with lived experience to inform the questions we’re asking ourselves and … how do we make it accessible to all companies?”

Business benefit

The growth of the B Corp community has been exciting, it now spans over 150 industries across 70 counties, totaling over 70,000 companies! B Lab’s brilliant model was timely. It began in 2006 and was in full swing by the recession of 2008. During the recession, Certified B Corps were 63% more resilient than other companies within their industry. The world will likely confront more instances that will upend our economic system and the viability of businesses, but for B Corps the rigor and quality of standards are in place to promote the sustainability of businesses.

As a result of the strict standards, peers in the community can trust each other based on knowing they had a common experience. The private sector is stepping up by addressing issues that were traditionally thought of as the role of nonprofits. This has led to working within the context of globalization, and “harnessing the accessibility of globalization”, as Fyfe puts it.

In addition to the opportunity to benefit from the resources within their network of fellow B Corps, there is a sense of comradery and a community that is generated. When the company Roshan – a telecom company in Afghanistan whose purpose is to get women in the workforce – was a target of a terrorist attack, B Corps came together to raise money and sent support to the affected families. Other instances of the B Corp community stepping up have been during the ongoing fires in the Western United States. Fyfe has been inspired by “the community of peers during times of challenge”. There is a role of business beyond shareholder returns, and this is explicitly seen in the community B Lab has worked to create through their certifications.

Social and environmental benefit

When Fyfe started 10 years ago, 15 or so employees were working at B Lab. Since then, they have grown substantially. A fundamental component of what makes B Lab successful is that it attracts individuals with diverse experiences, a deep appreciation for the natural world, and knowledge on how to move the needle on sustainable issues.

Each employee embodies what it means to be a responsible citizen. This allows folks to show up to work fully, with the guiding principle that “we take our work, not ourselves seriously”. This allows for humility and imperfections while working towards developing solutions and purpose-driven standards for good business, an area that has not been pioneered long enough to decisively know the impacts of certain good-intentioned initiatives. This idea is summed up when Fyfe says, “we fail forward”, encouraging experimentation and appreciating the iterative process, and being nimble.

Finally, it is important to recognize this unique innovation of B Lab, as there are no major organizations implementing business standards quite as they do. The organization is excited to have competition, as Fyfe summed up, “competition is good” and that it’s useful to have “someone else [right] next to you with some more durable shoes. [B Labs] could definitely use some allies and competition within this work … and hold our feet to the flame.”

Interview

Andy Fyfe, Growth Catalyst