The National Sustainability in Business Conference will be held in Brisbane from the 23-24 March 2017.
Dr. Shanah Trevenna
Shanah Trevenn is CEO of Smart Sustainability Consulting and joins us at the conference to discuss ‘Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of The Global B Corp Movement’.
B Corp is rapidly becoming the global gold standard certification for private enterprises using the force of business for good. B Corp stands for benefit corporation since it assesses how a company bakes sustainability values and practices into the DNA of their organisation ensuring all sectors of the company create environmental and social benefit. B Corp aims to transform the norms of doing business, much as LEED strove to impact the building industry. Its rigorous assessment and verification process addresses corporate green washing with many layered benefits for B2B, consumers and markets.
This presentation is a summary of my dissertation research into the values, ideas, beliefs, and professional and personal trajectories of B Corp company leaders, as well as the operations, structures, and results of their sustainability focused businesses. B Corp is introduced as an ideology and a certification and the challenges and benefits of becoming a B Corp certified company are thoroughly discussed. Four common paths to becoming a B Corp leader are shared to inspire business professionals on how they can participate and why they would want to.
Next, B Corp is further introduced as a movement toward integrating sustainability into business led by its founding organisation, the US non-profit B Lab. Using the articulation of its leaders, the B Corp movement is described by its internal strengths and weaknesses and global opportunities and threats. Frameworks for systemic change are then used to assess where the movement currently stands and where it needs to go to be successful.
The presentation concludes with three over-arching goals and seven guiding principles for a sustainable, socially just and environmental economy as articulated by B Corp leaders, B Lab and a recent and comprehensive literature review on green business. Participants leave with a clear potential picture for a sustainable future economy.
For more information on the 2017 National Sustainability in Business Conference and to secure your spot today, please visit the conference website.