We are very proud to announce that Brave New Eco is now a certified B Corp, joining a global community of businesses that have committed to using their business for the power of good. That summary might sound fluffy, however, B Corp is anything but. The certification is backed by rigorous and ongoing accountability to measure a company’s social and environmental impact.
Becoming a B Corp is a significant milestone for our studio and represents hundreds of hours of analysing, documenting, and improving how we do business. We now join 915 other companies based in Australia (including 18 other architecture and design practices) and 8,205 worldwide who are dedicated to using their businesses to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.
Becoming a certified B Corp has allowed us to reflect on all the values and objectives built into Brave New Eco. We took the opportunity to review our entire project history and measure what sustainability outcomes we have achieved over the last decade so that we could set new goals for our company, and were proud and pleased with how consistently our sustainability objectives were reflected in all projects over the entire 10 years of our operation. B Corp has pushed us to create policies that support our staff and teams' well-being through continual growth, job security and transparency, and helped us answer what it means to be a good employer.
WHAT IS B CORP?
B Corp’s overarching mission is to ‘Make Business a Force For Good’, and it is a global movement of people that meet the high standards of overall social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability, and aspire to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.
B Corp is not specific to the architect and design industry, and businesses can be certified in all lines of work, from food and drink, retail, finance and more. You will recognise many of our fellow B Corps such as Patagonia, Toms and Who Gives a Crap.
To achieve certification, a company must:
Demonstrate high social and environmental performance by achieving a B Impact Assessment score of 80 or above and passing a risk review.
Make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders.
Exhibit transparency by making information about their performance measured against B Lab’s standards publicly available on their B Corp profile on B Lab’s website.
WHY B CORP?
Much of the B Corp standards and ethos describe how Brave New Eco has operated since its inception in 2014. They are closely aligned to our values of resourcefulness, analytical, aesthetic, holistic, and generous, so it seemed a logical next step to formalise these synergies with an official B Corp certification.
The benefits are many. For one, having the global certification connects us with a group of like-minded businesses across many industries. We can share knowledge, experience, tips, business ideas, and support each other in our shared goal of ‘Business for Good’.
We know we are good and we genuinely believe in what we do. However, intent and follow-through are continually challenging when deadlines loom and costs soar. Undertaking the B Corp process gives us a methodology that commits us to tracking and improving our impact. We already have a list of areas we want to improve in and commit to being transparent as we continue this journey. We know we are good, but we want to be better.
Finally, we believe that becoming a B Corp aligns our values with a recognised certification, making it easier for our clients to trust that they are supporting a local business that operates ethically. In simple terms, our success at becoming a B Corp validates all that we stand for.
BECOMING A B CORP
The B Impact Assessment is a rigorous and comprehensive review of the whole business. Companies get assessed across 5 key areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers.
Our audit and application were extensive and spanned over a year. For a small business such as Brave New Eco, it is a long road to becoming a B Corp. Undergoing the rigorous documentation process when you have a small team means removing someone away from the ‘actual’ work to complete the research and reporting - many larger firms have dedicated sustainability roles that can immerse themselves in the process. We kept our eyes on the prize and found it reassuring that obtaining the certification was challenging, as we believe it demonstrates that B Corp is taking their certification seriously.
We are proud of our B Impact score of 82.4 and look forward to seeing how much we can improve when we recertify in three years. For context, the score for ordinary businesses completing this assessment is 50.9.
Some highlights from our Impact Report in the 5 assessment categories below:
1) Governance
We scored above the benchmark average in this assessment area, and our mission statement, 'Our mission is to create beautiful, environmentally-resilient spaces that foster human health and happiness' received the highest score possible.
We also scored an exceptionally high evaluation in Social and Environmental Decision-Making, which incorporates the system we built to ensure we make sustainable choices at a function, form, and operational level when we design. You can read more about our system for specifying here.
2) Workers:
This assessment area is designed to evaluate a company’s contributions to its employees’ financial security, health and safety, wellness, career development, and engagement and satisfaction. Our standout areas above the benchmark are Career Development and Employee Engagement and satisfaction. Read about some of these measurements in our Impact Report, linked here.
3) Community:
This assessment category is designed to assess our engagement with and impact on the communities in which it operates, hires, and sources from, as well as measure our diversity, equity, and inclusion. Of course, we scored full marks in Female Leadership and Female Workers, and we are also proud of the work we have done to advocate for policy changes with suppliers to improve their environmental performance.
4) Environment:
Unsurprisingly, we performed well in this category, with the evaluation of our overall environmental management practices and our impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity above benchmark. Discover more about our outcome measurements here.
5) Customers:
BNE's measures for customer feedback, improvement, and fostering a healthy dialogue have seen us score above the benchmark in this category.
WHERE TO FROM HERE
We are committed to creating beautiful, environmentally resilient spaces that foster human health and happiness, just the same as we always have.
In addition, we will undergo a re-verification process every three years to recertify, which means we focus on regularly reviewing our progress, continuous improvement, and long-term resiliency. We look forward to sharing the insights and celebrating the efforts that our B Corp status brings.
If you’d like to learn more about our approach or discuss our journey to B Corp certification, please get in touch. To discover more about our B Corp credentials, click here.