On a personal level, if you want to discover more value about yourself in addition to working day after day, or as a manager, if you not only concern the profit, but also hope promote harmonious development of enterprises and society, you should focus on this sharing sessions in WorkFace from Starry Jiang, the member of B Corps China Taskforce.

Theme: A journey to self-discovery and business discovery

Share by: Starry Jiang

Project Manager, B Corps China Taskforce

Project Manager, B Corps China Taskforce

Activity Partner: WorkFace, BottleDream

1.  What needs to be changed in 2006

Much of change began with a simple, like-minded idea.

In 2006, three Americans, Jay Coen Gillbert, Bart Houlahan, and Andrew Kassoy, founded the B Lab. They tried to identify profit companies that met high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and responsibility through a system of evaluation and certification that "became a growing and reflective good company", and called it: B Corps. The goal of B Corps is to promote and develop the idea that enterprises not only seek to become the most profitable enterprises in the world, but also become the most valuable enterprises in the world.

But none of the three founders had expected that the concept of B Corps would attract a lot of attention and support from the business community, politicians and others as soon as it was proposed: 

• In 2007, the first 19 B Corps were certified, and King Arthur Flour became the first brand to mark the product package with B Corp certification.
• In 2009, Philadelphia became the first city to implement B Corp tax breaks and in Canada the first B Corp is certified.
• In 2010, Maryland became the first state to pass legislation on the legal form of Benefit Corporation, with the first 11 companies registered as Benefit Corporation, launching the B Corp advertising campaign and 96 per cent of US consumers saying "I will take the initiative to learn about, and even buy, B Corp-certified products next time I shop".
• In 2011, 500 enterprises became B Corps.
• In 2012, under the influence of the outdoor luxury brand Patagonia, an increasing number of businesses in California applied for becoming Corps, attracting widespread media attention and since then, B Corps has become a movement affecting the future of business in the United States.
• In 2013, there were more than 15,000 Corporations participate in B Impact Assessment to help them understand their own impact on society, the environment, employees, consumers, and so on.

Since then, the B Corps movement has had a profound impact on business globally.Rose Marcario , the president and CEO of Patagonia, the world's top outdoor luxury brand, puts it:

"The B Corps movement is one of the most important things in our lifetime, and it drives us to recognize the simple fact that business should not only influence and serve the stakeholders in the business, but also shoulder the responsibilities of business to the community and the environment."

Rose Marcario , the president and CEO of Patagonia

Nowadays, more than 2,400 enterprises in more than 130 industries in more than 50 countries have become B Corps. The B Corps Movement has become one of the most influential business transformations in the world.

2.  Everything is changing in 2006

During the decade from 2006 to 2016, the B Corps movement grew and grew globally, but it is still a rarely mentioned concept in mainland China.

During this decade, Starry, a post-90s Shanghai girl, who was keen to volunteer in her spare time. She graduated successfully and entered the financial industry and became a white-collar worker in the metropolis. However, living a smooth and easy life, working on these boring works make Starry uncomfortable and confused:

What exactly can a person be defined by? For many people, what is really important to us when we take off those external labels, such as famous schools, famous enterprises and so on?

In 2016, she was looking for answers about her life: try to explore at work what she really likes. She quickly discovered that among the various activities offered to employees, such as flower arranging, wine tasting, coffee tasting and other advanced training, there was no public service-related activity.

This puzzled her who had been doing charity service in her spare time, so she took the initiative to look for like-minded partners in the company. With the help of the corporate social responsibility department (CSR), she established the VLG (Volunteer Leadership Group), and through this volunteer team carried out many volunteer activities for the staff of charity organization.

Starry began to work more closely with a number of non-profit organizations/agencies and to understand the impact of corporations on society, environment, etc. In the process, Starry found that her want to engage in the practice of promoting business for the good--

For a long time, we only focused on the performance of the distribution of profits and assets in business, but ignored the fact that the thousands of enterprises in the world including a variety of different states of the company. When we take profit/asset and influence factors as the standers of measuring the ability of enterprises, we will find that the really good companies are the ones that perform well in both latitudes.

What are the companies that have both profit and influence? What is the standard by which these enterprises are measured? How can you help more companies grow both profitability and influence at the same time? It is in this way that she learns about the concept of B Corps and tries to redefine her life by engaging in the practice of pushing business for the good.

3.  How will the world be in 2018? 

Making hard choices in life, Starry joined the newly formed China Task Forcefull-time in 2017. Since 2016, eight different scales companies from different industries, different cities in mainland China have been certified as B Corps including companies that specialize in social services, such as First Response ®, BottleDream, etc.:

First Respond®

First Respond, the builder of the Citizen Help First Aid Platform, is an international leading first aid training and life-saving organization. As of 24 January 2018, First Respond has secured more than 1.18 million marathons in 279 events in more than 39 cities, successfully saving 11 patients with cardiac arrest; Organizing first aid training for more than 120,000 adults and children; It has served more than 400 enterprises such as Alibaba and Zhonghai Commercial. First Respond is one of the first certified social enterprises in China, and the first mainland enterprise in the world to receive the B Corps certification. We will make joint efforts with you to build a "social sharing first aid platform" and make mutual rescue and mutual assistance the norm of Chinese society.

BottleDream

Founded on June 1, 2011, BottleDream strives to become the top distributor of social innovation in China. In a way that young people love, BottleDream has told stories of nearly 1,000 young innovators around the world, reaching nearly 180 million readers and audiences. BottleDream is committed to making more people altruistic innovators, promoting a better life.

Education, architecture, technology and hardware companies, such as Challenge! Pisa, Zhong Building, Couplet Information Accessibility, Couplet Technology and SKT Scott Education Group are included in B Corps.

From an unknown concept to be familiar to people, B Corps gradually being recognized in mainland Chinese enterprises.

So, is the world going to be better?

On this issue, the advocates of B Corps believe that how we view the world depends on our own attitudes: 

If you let yourself

As part of the solution that will make the world a better place,

Then at least,

The world can't get  worse. 

Together with companies that have become or are interested in becoming B Corps and organizations that share the same philosophy, B Corps China Taskforce is changing and promoting business-friendly practices in Mainland China. It hope to help more companies not only focus on the profit growth, but also attach importance to the development of their own influence.

Let more people focus not only on their own success, but also on making the world a better place;

Bringing together more companies that not only pursue business interests, but also care about the impact of business on society, the environment and other stakeholders,

To be part of the solution to the current social and environmental problems in the future business: