DB Results, Intrepid Travel, One Stone Asia Pacific, and Armadillo are among the first businesses in Australia to certify under B Lab’s Standards Version 2 (V2). They’re eager to share what the process actually felt like so the rest of the community knows what’s ahead.
In short: it’s a real lift, and it’s worth the work.
“Our first reaction was that it was overwhelming,” says Vikram Gharti, Head of Global Risk, Governance and Impact at DB Results. He is known internally as the company’s “B Keeper”, or the person who stewards B Corp Certification for the business. “Good intent and best effort were no longer enough on their own. The new standards set the expectation of operational rigour across the board. That felt confronting but it was a necessary shift.”
One Stone Asia Pacific CEO Andrea Spencer-Cooke, who took part in the public consultation that shaped the standards, still found the reality bracing. She put it this way: “There was blood, sweat, tears, and late nights — but also relief and exhilaration — all bundled together.”
What they want you to know
- Purpose & Stakeholder Governance is the place to start. Now its own Impact Topic, it’s the area all three businesses felt most at home in. “B Corps are, by definition, purpose- and stakeholder-led, so this area comes quite naturally,” said Spencer-Cooke. Tip: Explore the Beginner’s Guide to Stakeholder Governance here.
- The gaps show up where things are informal. DB Results found its climate work needed a structure it hadn’t yet built. Intrepid Travel found that its human rights work needed to extend systematically beyond its own operations and across its value chain. Strong intent in an area doesn’t automatically translate into evidence.
- Expect it to involve more of your business than last time. “For a global business like Intrepid, that means engaging a much wider range of stakeholders, from people and procurement teams through to our people leading our trip and accommodation operations,” said James Thornton, CEO of Intrepid Travel.
Where to begin
B Lab Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand’s Community Transition Lead, Lauren Diggle, said the most common mistake is trying to do it all at once.
“The new standards are comprehensive, but breaking them down makes a world of difference,” she said. “I always recommend diving into one Impact Topic at a time directly inside the B Impact platform; it’s packed with helpful support guides and all of the relevant compliance criteria.”
Her practical starting point: delegate. Assign specific requirements to different team members and update live statuses as you go — the status feature doubles as an initial gap analysis, showing you where the business needs to spend time on improvements. “It’s also important to celebrate your wins along the way,” Diggle added.
The bigger picture
All three businesses agreed that the tougher threshold is the point of the exercise.
“The higher bar is better for the credibility of B Corp as a whole,” said Gharti. “It draws a clearer line between organisations that are genuinely embedding responsible practices and those that may be able to score well without the substance to match.”
Spencer-Cooke agreed. “It is a big change. But it’s something that needed to happen. B Corp is about redefining success in business, so challenging ourselves to be better is something all B Corps can get behind.”
Read the full case studies:
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