WISE UP: Use the B Corp Assessment to Level Up

After a year of effort, WISE proudly became a Certified B Corp in fall 2024, joining other leaders in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy. The certification process measures a company’s entire social and environmental impact, looking at both internal and external factors.  

B Corps are part of a new generation of corporations that want to use business as a force for good. This isn’t your old guard capitalism. Nearly 10,000 B Corps from around the world are leading the movement toward conscious capitalism. And the nearly 1 million employees who make up those B Corps represent an army of changemakers, demonstrating the desire to leverage purpose-driven profit for social and environmental change, creating benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. 

You don’t have to fully pursue B Corp Certification to evaluate your organization based on its standards. WISE used the assessment, which is free to fill out, as a tool to review the company in five core areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. The assessment gave us an opportunity to review our practices in comparison to B Corp standards and make changes to level up in all core areas. While the certification is available to for-profit companies, we recommend that all businesses, including nonprofits, take advantage of the assessment as a tool to improve how you operate.  

Use the Assessment as a Corporate Performance Evaluation Tool 

The B Corp assessment is designed to evaluate companies according to their size, with points being awarded based on performance in a given area. It takes 80 points to earn certification. To get the greatest benefit, be honest and conservative in filling out the assessment, keeping in mind that if you submit it for certification review, you must also provide evidence (with documentation and interviews) for your responses.  

Make Immediate Changes for Greater Impact 

One of the reasons it took us a year to achieve certification is that we spent about six months using it to inform changes within all areas of the company. Some examples include:  

Governance 

We implemented a whistleblower policy and related procedures. As a small business without a human resources department, we got creative and utilized a human resources consulting firm, People Performance Resources (PPR), to serve in that role. We also added our PPR contact to the employee handbook so that in case an employee did not feel comfortable bringing concerns to the attention of corporate leadership, they could speak to an outside party. 

Workers 

We compared our health insurance plans to the B Corp standards and added a new platinum tier that met the co-insurance, maximum out of pocket and co-pay standards. Then we gave staff pay increases so they could afford their portion of the increased premium cost to choose a higher-tier plan. We confirmed that our insurance covers transgender care and implemented a health reimbursement account that pays up to $2,500 for care that is covered by insurance but not available in the state of Texas. Additionally, we implemented a flexible savings account so that employees could contribute pre-tax funds to be used for childcare and medical expenses.  

Community 

We set a goal to donate two percent of our annual corporate revenue to nonprofits impacting the Texas communities where we do business.  

Environment  

We implemented a written policy encouraging environmentally preferred practices and products in employees’ virtual offices.  

Customers 

We established key performance indicators for client satisfaction ratings for our quarterly client surveys and roundings.  

Set Long-Term Goals 

The B Corp assessment has a helpful feature that lets you create goals associated with its metrics. For instance, one of the metrics is related to Paid Secondary Caregiver Leave. We received .52 of .87 points for this metric, because we have two weeks’ paid leave for new parents and we do not distinguish between the primary and secondary caregiver in the leave policy. If we wanted to earn more points, we could make a goal related to this metric using the assessment feature –– say, increase the paid leave to the next level of two to five weeks. When we denote this as a goal, the system allows us to set timelines (1, 3, 6 or 12 months), as well as email reminders, so you don’t forget about your goals. At WISE, we reassess our benefits and policies every fall as we update our employee handbook, so setting reminders that prompt us about our goals and our timeline is very helpful.  

If you choose to submit the assessment for certification review, you’ll face two rounds of review by trained B Corp team members at the national and international levels over the subsequent six months. This is to ensure accuracy of your assessment. WISE was thrilled to achieve the certification with 105.2 points and to join other conscious businesses from around the world as part of the #BGeneration.