Why B Corps Matter
B Corporations address two critical problems which hinder the creation of social and environmental impact through business:
- The existence of shareholder primacy which makes it difficult for corporations to take employee, community, and environmental interests into consideration when making decisions; and
- The absence of transparent standards which makes it difficult for all of us to tell the difference between a 'good company' and just good marketing.
B Corporations' legal structure expands corporate accountability and enables them to scale and achieve liquidity while maintaining mission. B Corporations' transparent and comprehensive performance standards enable consumers to support businesses that align with their values, investors to drive capital to higher impact investments, and governments and multinational corporations to implement sustainable procurement policies.
Our vision is simple yet ambitious: to create a new sector of the economy which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. This sector will be comprised of a new type of corporation - the B Corporation. B Corporations will be legally recognized by the states, tax preferred by the IRS, and valued by investors and consumers. In a generation, this marketplace of B Corporations will reach 5-7% of US GDP -- the size of the non-profit sector today.
As a result, individuals and communities will have greater economic opportunity, society will have moved closer to achieving a positive environmental footprint, more people will be employed in great places to work, and we will have built more local living economies in the US and across the world.
