What is the issue
Business is constrained from creating more benefit for society and the environment, as well as the business itself, due to the dominance of ‘shareholder primacy’ in the capital markets. The result of this is that the purpose of companies globally has narrowed to meet this short-term view of value in the form of shareholder returns. This creates costs – or ‘externalities’ – to society as it ignores the effect of business activity on human and natural capital. This approach is self-defeating for all . The B Corp movement aims to address this by redefining what success in business looks like.
What will the project try to achieve?
In order to achieve the systemic change that B Lab UK seeks, the B Corp community needs to represent the different sectors, regions and diversity of the UK economy and society. Building on the previous partnership with the Friends Provident Foundation, B Lab UK’s objectives for this project are to support and grow the UK B Corp community by:
- enabling further national expansion of the B Corp community with the launch of three pilots with regional partners;
- developing the B Leaders Programme to share information about the B Corp tools; this will help a wide range of organisations create operational change and manage their impact as much as their profit; and
- reinforcing the certification support system (developed in the previous project) more widely.
Who might be interested in this project?
Local authority officials, local prospective B Corps, investors in the area, consultants and advisors, as well as students of business and entrepreneurship and those running or going through incubator programmes.
This project is now closed.