B Corporations: Mixing Business and Positive Social Impact

For the last few weeks I've been following the media coverage of B-corporations.  Benefit Corporations, or B-Corps, are hailed as the new darlings of the social business sector, an entity that blurs the line between nonprofits and businesses.  They tout themselves as "triple bottom line" defenders, guaranteeing in their corporate blueprint to maximize not only profit, but also social good through caring for the environment as well as employees and other shareholders.  I'm rooting hard for this movement to take off because it could create (through laws and standards) a fantastic method to direct businesses at solving the entire gamut of social problems.  

What could those solutions look like?  It could be a company serving healthy food to school kids that doesn't contain an ounce of artificial ingredients or fried anything.  Revolution Foods has already delivered 33 million of these real, dirt grown, non-processed, super lunches.  Or maybe it could be a specialty coffee company that is committed to helping its coffee growers (small-scale farmers in Peru, Bolivia, and other countries) get through the "meses flacos", thin months when the savings dry up from the previous year's harvest and food prices exceed families' budgets.  Sustainable Harvest has applied its "Relationship Coffee" model to invest in farmer training and community development, to share the fruits of the labor with its farmers.  Buy a book, and one gets donated to kids in developing countries.  Buy a new tent to camp out in the Himalayas, and a portion of that sale will go towards grassroot environmental groups.  There's hundreds of B Corporations selling thousands of products, and through these purchases a consumer could be contributing to far-flung or local causes.

Why is the concept of a B Corporation so attractive at this moment in time?  Well, here's a romantic comedy metaphor.  It's like when a guy/girl walks into the cafe at the instant that you raise your eyes, and the sun is shining behind them and the wind stirs their hair sexily around their glowing faces, and in their hand they're carrying your favorite book/cd/movie/insert hobby.  It's destiny, you think.

All jokes aside, I think that actually the key reason boils down to the economic crisis that has left the so-called 99% extremely annoyed at the 1%.  Having been vilified by the media and well, by themselves (Goldman Sachs), corporations have really taken a public relations beating.  At the perfect moment, this distaste for the traditional business model combined with the booming social business revolution (this is where I lump social entrepreneurship, social venture, impact investing, etc.).  BOOM.  That's chemistry.  The end is that these two goodlooking people start flirting at the cafe, and made a goodlooking baby together.  This is the love story behind B Corporations.

In the future, anything you buy (fuzzy Xmas socks, gummi bears, oversized piñatas) could be from a B Corporation.  7 states in the US (you go, hipster Californians!)  have adopted laws to legally recognize B Corporation status, and 7 more are working to push bills through.  They're scaling their reach to South America, and I'm predicting other regions will be quick to join the party.  

However, like the Fair Trade and Organic label, it will take time for B Corps to raise consumer awareness on what separates them from the traditional corporation.  For the time being, most companies who want to promote their positive social contributions will do so through corporate social responsibility campaigns, which require less commitment.  Once you've declared B Corp, this status requires re-certification and continuous commitment to uphold the label's standards.

In short, corporations now have a way to create positive impact, visibly market themselves as being part of the solution and not the problem, and grow as a business while maintaining their social mission.

To me, this proves that B Corps can be a game changer.  Your thoughts?