Have you ever heard of B-CORP or B-CORPORATION?
This is a certification certifying the environmental and social sustainability performance, issued by B-Lab.
As stated on the site, the B-CORPs are companies that have obtained this certification because:
"they stand out on the market from all other companies because in addition to pursuing profit, they continuously innovate to maximise their positive impact on employees, communities in which they operate, the environment and all stakeholders. "
In short, a different way of doing business; I would say perhaps a more complete and balanced way of doing business. Business does not necessarily have to rhyme with "unsustainable devastation", as almost always happens in big corporations.
The environmental and social sustainability is achieved when it returns in equity that you take a loan from the ecosystem and people.
The typically capitalist business model, on the other hand, is greedy for resources for maximising profits, whatever it takes.
B-Corporations instead are those companies that voluntarily commit to using their business to do the good of people and the planet.
There are 4,000+ B Corp certified companies of which 120 in Italy alone and 1000 benefit companies. What is the difference?
As mentioned, the B-Corps are the companies that have obtained the certification from B-Lab. On the push of B-Lab itself, however, in 2016 it was introduced in Italy a legal form of Benefit Company: real companies that are halfway between profit and non-profit.
In particular the Benefit Company, according to Italian law, is a traditional company with modified obligations that commit it to fulfil high standards of purpose, responsibility and transparency.
The Italian Companies we cheer for:
1) FRATELLI CARLI
Fratelli Carli was the first Italian production company to obtain the B Corp certification. Since 1919 it has been producing extra virgin olive oil and products based on olive, of first quality. Sustainability for this historic Ligurian company is nothing but continue to achieve what is the motto that distinguishes them: the ability to do well, do well (and fare the good we add).
2. ICMA - SARTORIAL PAPER
Another historic company that has been producing since 1933 luxury paper under the banner of beauty and innovation, transforming paper into an artifact full of ethics and value.
3. REDA
Reda is an Italian company that has been producing since 1865 fine merino wool fabrics. The theme of sustainability is essential for this B-Corp certified company, for which quality is the most precious goal but also the inevitable result of a production process that respects the environment, animals and people at every stage.
4. RIFò
Rifò is in my opinion pure innovation, an Italian pride, born from the need to create value by making a circular economy looking forward towards ... tradition! This young company based in Prato produces high quality garments and accessories, made with regenerated and regenerable textile fibres. With the help of local artisans they transform old garments into new yarn with which to create new items of clothing at km 0.
5. TEA NATURA - BUONI PRINCIPI ATTIVI
It deals with the production and sale of ecological household cleaners, natural products for personal care and other products that support fair trade projects abroad.
The pay-off "Good Active Principles" embodies their entire philosophy: "From the beginning, our main desire was to create a company different from the others: transparent, available, active and supportive of environmental and social issues . "
6. PERLAGE WINERY
The PERLAGE winery in Farra di Soligo (TV), in the homeland of Prosecco, produces high quality organic wine. For all companies that work the land and profit from its fruits, environmental sustainability should not be a plus but the very condition of their existence. Perlage is well aware that it is necessary to pay back with interest what has been borrowed by committing itself in terms of responsibility, transparency and sustainability as made clear without mincing words in their company mission.
Consumer responsibility: change starts with choice
When it comes to sustainability, especially when referring to the environment, it often is thought that the responsibility for a cleaner, greener and healthier world falls completely in the hands of the world's big players: politicians, institutions and multinationals.
If this is partly true, it is also true that as consumers and citizens, each of us has tremendous power in his or her hands: the power to choose how to behave and how to spend our money.
It is the law of supply and demand: the more a good is required, the more the supply increases. And an excessive supply not only preys on more than is sufficient but creates waste and overproduces.
A very cheap product can be neither fair nor sustainable, because, in a certain part of the supply chain, someone pays in place of the final consumer: it can be the person who sells the raw material, the one who processes it, the employees who trade it or the same final consumer when the quality of one of these passages is not high.
As consumers we have a duty to choose companies that do not exploit environmental or social resources at the cost of spending a little more, in a win-win-win perspective because the planet wins, the company wins and you win.
As a tiny business, Inchiostro and Paper has spent the last five years trying to do something different.
This is what we have done so far and this is what we are trying to do
This is what we have done so far and this is what we are trying to do