For B Corporations, recertification is an opportunity to identify potential areas of improvement, celebrate wins and update their assessment to reflect exciting new initiatives or structural updates. This month we caught up with three recently recertified B Corps, The Australia And New Zealand Recycling Platform (ANZRP), Brightly, and Fancy Films, who shared with us the improvements they’ve embraced since initially earning that coveted ‘B.’
Image: ANZRP
Hitting reset on e-waste with ANZRP
To state the obvious, we are living in the digital age. But with all the solutions, opportunities, and entertainment our gadgets provide, they also present us with a problem: what happens when it’s time to part ways with our tech?
E-waste is growing three times faster than any other type of waste. This is why The Australia and New Zealand Recycling Platform (ANZRP) opened its doors in 2012 — to help hit reset on our growing e-waste issue.
The not-for-profit platform offers safe and accessible e-waste collection to businesses and the community. They have so far collected over 240,000 tonnes of waste, and ensure at least 90% is recycled into new products.
Image: ANZRP
Connecting with businesses across a range of industries, they are also in a unique position to influence, advise, and support partners in pursuing their recycling and circularity goals.
Since first becoming a Certified B Corporation in 2019, ANZRP has focused on strengthening staff programs and initiatives including:
- establishing hybrid work
- expanding their staff bonus scheme,
- providing equitable parental leave,
- linking social and environmental performance directly to executive team roles
- embedding purpose into their constitution,
- vastly expanding the activities of their wellbeing team initiative,
- improving training opportunities and outcomes, and
- improving diversity across a variety of metrics.
ANZRP has also achieved carbon neutrality and has conducted an annual life cycle assessment to benchmark performance.
When asked if they had any advice for recertifying B Corps, the ANZRP team emphasised the importance of documenting your progress along the way.
“Our advice would be to maintain good record keeping as well as verifiable evidence of initiatives implemented, make sure the initiatives are maintainable and embedded effectively, and focus on the greater good when making decisions on implementations.”
— ANZRP
Re-humanising IT with Brightly
Aotearoa New Zealand-based IT firm Brightly helps impact-led organisations to meaningfully embed sustainability into their tech operations. From building whole new systems to day-to-day IT obstacles, Brightly is, as they put it, ‘re-humanising’ IT support.
Brightly proudly offer pro-bono support to local not-for-profits, is certified Toitū Climate Positive, and donates 1% of revenue to causes close to their heart.
Image: Brightly
To Brightly, promoting sustainable IT solutions to the local community is just as important as responsible environmental stewardship.
“For us at Brightly, it’s really about improving digital equity in Aotearoa while also supporting climate impact initiatives and biodiversity programs.”
First becoming a B Corp in 2020, Brightly was keen to see how they had improved through the recertification process.
“We have been working on understanding our environmental impact, gaining a better understanding of our carbon footprint and making improvements to the point where we are now a Climate Positive certified organisation. Much like how being a B Corp is about continuous improvement, this is in many ways just a starting point, with a lot of work still needed to reduce our climate impact in line with science-based targets.”
— Brightly
Image: Brightly
On the road to recertification it’s no surprise that this technologically talented team used progress tracking platforms to efficiently dot their i’s and cross their t’s.
“Our advice is to start early, and track your impact as you go. Work as a team and use a collaboration or project management platform to help track progress working through the assessment and verification.”
— Brightly
Behind the scenes with Fancy Films
Fancy Films is a creative content agency that harnesses the power of video to uplift humanity. Their approach is all about influencing positive behaviour and policy change by capturing hearts and minds through visual storytelling.
Using their creative talents for good since the firm’s inception in 2002, Fancy Films works pro-bono with a selection of projects that contribute to Indigenous education and cultural awareness; homelessness support; equality, diversity and inclusion; and health and well-being initiatives.
Image: Fancy Films
In recertifying, Fancy Films were proud to celebrate their enduring focus on social impact, despite the challenges COVID presented their industry.
“We stuck true to our purpose, prioritising our pro-bono work and our values — infact, our B Impact score increased.”
“Much has happened in the past three years, and the pandemic caused us to take a step back and unpack our internal structures, environmental impact, customer and stakeholder base, and our local community involvement. We are a much happier business because of it.”
— Fancy Films
Reflecting on their recertification journey, the Fancy Films team offered these words of wisdom.
“Key to staying focussed on the recertification process, despite our rapidly growing and busy work environment, was to assign two ‘B Keepers’ to keep us on track. They worked collaboratively to share the (emotional and practical) load. We found that engagement with our CFO was crucial as well because, of course, he is great with numbers. Analytical minds really help push the process along sometimes.”
— Fancy Films
Image: Fancy Films
In the spirit of continuous improvement, Fancy Films already has its eyes set firmly towards the future.
“Over the next three years we are looking to strengthen what we are currently doing to broaden engagement within the Indigenous Education space – our country needs this more than ever. It is a space we are culturally competent in and people like us need to step up, so we are. We’re also hoping to strengthen our connections within the B Corp community. Apart from our neighbours at Small Giants we have felt pretty isolated from other B Corps so we are looking forward to the Assembly 2024 gathering, learning from others, and finding some connections with those who share our passion for social impact.”
— Fancy Films
A big thank you to ANZRP, Brightly, and Fancy Films for taking the time to share their journeys with us.
