Broadsword on Becoming a B Corp

We are over the moon to announce that our event agency is officially a B Corp! There are around 1,500 B Corps in the UK and 7,000 worldwide. Joining this global community of change makers has been a central goal for us over the past 18 months and a fantastic learning journey, with collaboration across the business at every stage. As we celebrate, Broadsword’s MD shares why this is a real milestone for us and how we got there.

B Corp certification is awarded to companies that use business as a force for good, demonstrating that people and planet matter as much as profit. Certification is administered by B Lab, the not-for-profit behind the global movement, who conduct an in-depth review of the applicant’s business.

To become certified, applicants must score at least 80 out of 200 points on the B Impact Assessment having met rigorous social and environmental standards. Certified B Corps are reassessed every three years across all categories, to retain their status (Broadsword scored 90.6).

“Purpose matters greatly to me personally and to the entire Broadsword team. It was really important for us to find a standard for building a sustainable and ethically-driven organisation, and a method to formalise our commitment to using business as a force for good. B Corp does exactly that. It’s shorthand for the type of business we are. Becoming a B Corp has given the whole team an immense sense of pride in what we do. ”

The journey has been a huge team effort and a labour of love, which has taken up a lot of time and energy across the agency. As a small business, it wasn’t possible to appoint a person full time to B Corp, so we used the divide-and-conquer technique and ran the project across the senior leadership team. Working through the long application alongside running the business meant that it took time – around 18 months – from start to finish; there was a lot of patience and determination needed to keep us on track.

In summary, it has been worth it! And this is just the beginning; we’re determined to continue to improve the way we do business – for good – and hope that by becoming B Corp certified, we will inspire others to do the same. It’s fantastic to join a community of like-minded businesses that have committed to creating a better world. By collaborating we have a louder voice, a bigger stage and more collective power to drive change for people and the planet.