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- B Corps are for-profit businesses that volunteer to be graded by the nonprofit B Lab each year to ensure they're meeting the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability.
- They're among the most impressive of companies that are willing to conceptualize "good business" as including both profit and purpose (and have the third-party vetting to prove they really mean it). To B Corps, sustainable business isn't charity, it's better business.
- Below, I've rounded up a few of the B Corps we love shopping at most. If you like the sound of them, they're good companies to support.
As the past can attest, not all of society's ills can be solved by well-meaning government or nonprofits alone. While invaluable, they won't reveal themselves as silver bullets capable of single-handedly eradicating poverty, inequality, and infusing the workforce with jobs that make workers feel their lives have dignity and purpose.
For that caliber of change, we'll need to consider the importance of businesses. The economist Milton Friedman famously wrote in 1962 that "there is one and only one social responsibility of business...to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits", and while that sentiment remains largely unchanged, there are companies willing to bet on a different conceptualization of "good business."
Perhaps most impressive of this group are B Corps - businesses that volunteer to be graded by the nonprofit B Lab each year to ensure they're meeting the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.
Companies that get awarded B Corp status have committed to using their business to work towards a more inclusive and sustainable economy. Together, the companies and their communities work to reduce inequality, lower poverty levels, and create a healthier environment, stronger communities, and jobs with purpose.
In short, B Corps leverage their resources (creativity, manpower, and profits) to pay into a better world for people in general - creating a definition of success that includes the commonwealth and positive impact as necessary aspects of sustainable consumerism. It's not charity, it's better business.
Below, we've rounded up 10 companies we love to shop at that also happen to be certified B Corps. They make great stuff we love to buy, but they're also helping drive a global movement that uses business as a force for good.
Check out 10 stores we love to shop at that also happen to be "business for good" B-Corps:
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