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B Corporation Certification

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International Encyclopedia of Civil Society

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B Corporation Certification is an accreditation granted by B Lab, a US-based nonprofit that has developed an assessment process to signal that a business meets responsible social and environmental performance criteria (Lab 2020).

At the core of the B Corp Certification is the B Impact Assessment (BIA), a free, online self-assessment tool that helps a business assess its practices with regard to its governance, workers, customers, community, and the environment. A B Lab analyst verifies a business’s self-evaluation (Lab 2020; Honeyman and Jana 2019). The BIA is overseen by an independent Standards Advisory Council with members from business, government, academia, and nonprofits appointed by B Lab’s Board of Directors (B Lab 2020). The B certification process varies somewhat by a business’s size, structure, industry, and location (Lab 2020; Honeyman and Jana 2019).

In addition to earning a qualifying score on the BIA, a business seeking B Corp Certification must amend its...

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Correspondence to Alan J. Abramson .

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Abramson, A.J., Baptiste, T. (2023). B Corporation Certification. In: List, R.A., Anheier, H.K., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_9572-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99675-2_9572-1

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