B Corp bound - tips for navigating the BIA

The road to becoming a B Corp is as long as it is rewarding.  Getting yourself organised and knowing the potential trip-up areas can help you save time that could be used to improve your business and increase your score.  Below are a few tips that have helped me stay on top of all things B Corp related

Know your B Corp internal team

In order to prevent any delays in your assessment it is worth giving members of your internal team as much notice as possible that you will require their expertise in the near future to help answer questions and build our on your BIA score

You may not know at the beginning who in your internal team you will need to call on to gather information and support your B Corp assessment so below is a list of the team members and departments I would give a heads-up to:

• Finance team - to help with the BIA questions and during the assessment process

• HR team - for BIA questions

• Operations team - To support throughout the project

• MD/Owner - for general questions and to ultimately sign the B Corp agreement

• Any team member who has shown an interest in helping with the assessment - these people can be extremely valuable as an extra pair of hands!

Get information from 3rd parties as soon as possible

Some of the questions on the BIA will most likely require information from organisations outside of your company.  An example of this would be the businesses water usage over a certain period.  As many service agencies lease their space, they will require this information from their landlord…which of course, may not be their priority to provide this to you.  

It is worth going through all the questions and marking the ones where outside support is required so you can contact these as soon as possible and avoid frustrating delays waiting for small pieces of information before you can submit your BIA.

Log into the BIA regularly

You should be notified via both email and in the BIA when someone from B Lab reaches out to you.  I’ve noticed that some notifications do not come through on email for whatever reason so it is always worthwhile logging into the BIA regularly to check you haven’t missed anything.

Use the support portal

The BIA support portal has a wide range of information designed to help you through the assessment process, e.g. how the assessment is scored, choosing the right track, legal requirements and many more valuable resources.  Get it bookmarked and use it regularly.

Rack up the points before you submit

80 is the magical score to achieve before you can become a B Corp.  Going through the assessment once you submit your application is a rigorous process and it is likely you will lose some points during this.  It is recommended that you score at least 85 points by the time you submit but aiming for 90 is ideal.

Ensure you understand the questions

For UK service businesses some of the questions may seem a little ambiguous or open to interpretation.  Make sure you fully understand these before submitting to avoid being potentially docked points during the assessment.  Using the ‘learn more’ feature on each question is a good place to start to ensure you have understood what is required.

A good example would be the living wage and family wage questions.  In the UK these are treated as the same thing so the same answer can be given to both - with big points on offer for both of these questions.

Use the comments

Each question comes with a comment field.  It’s recommended that where you have documentation to back up your answer, or where you can provide a comment to add more information, you do so using this functionality.  It will save you from having to dig it all out 6 months later when the analyst asks for supporting evidence.

I could go on, but these would be the main quick and simple tips that could help you navigate the BIA more easily and hopefully get you on your way to becoming a B Corp.