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Not your typical consultancy, Redvespa has what it takes to take business from where it is to where it could be. Filled with caring and creative people, they are passionate about making change happen with their clients and their social purpose helping young New Zealanders unleash their potential. They believe you can be commercially successful and simultaneously good for society.
Why did your business become a Certified B Corporation?
Redvespa has always been in business for good but it was never a formal thing, it was just something we did. In 2016, our former Head of Social Purpose, Jamie Gibson, was tasked with defining exactly what this meant for Redvespa. What he came up with was Your Kingdom: A Guide to Wellbeing & Potential, a book aimed at young people (but suitable to anyone) to give them the tools required to navigate our increasingly complicated world.
From there, our desire to do good grew and when B Corp came along, we knew this was what we needed. Not only to validate the work we were already doing but to guide us in our journey to being better.
What changes did you make during the certification process?
We were very fortunate that we didn’t need to make too many wholesale changes during the certification process as we were already meeting a lot of the minimum requirements. However, we learned that there is so much more we can do and it’s great to have the backing of B Corp for this to give us ideas, provide contacts and to learn from.
For us the certification process was very reactive whereas now we have the certification we can be a lot more proactive about what we do and where we can have the most impact, whilst also keeping within the values that Redvespa was founded on.
What are the positive impacts your business has on environment, workers, and/or community?
Our employees have a number of options at their disposal to make their lives easier. This includes flexible working hours, work from home Wednesday, generous leave allowances, and an annual In Touch allowance which can be spent on technology or wellness initiatives. Our consultants are also given a large individual learning and development budget with more and more of our consultants choosing to use this for wellness related purposes.
In 2019 we also released our first ever Business for Good annual report, a showcase of the work we have done, an account of the plans we have and a new layer of transparency for our stakeholders.
Do you have impact improvements planned?
In 2018 we started our journey towards becoming carbon neutral by offsetting 18 tonnes of emissions related to our business activities. For 2019/20 we have implemented a carbon measuring system and have joined the Climate Leaders Coalition. We are updating our Diversity and Inclusion and our Parental Leave policies to make them more flexible, transparent and relevant. We’ll also be redefining our social purpose to come up with new ways for our consultants to get involved with this work.
What benefits have you experienced from being a Certified B Corporation?
Our clients are showing more interest in this side of our business and they are starting to look at their own businesses. Whilst they might not all end up becoming B Corp certified it’s great that we are able to influence their thinking.
We’ve opened up a new market for ourselves as organisations want to work with those who share their values. Having such a public statement of our values makes this a much easier value proposition.
The same can be said with our recruitment. People want to work for a company that shares their values and where they know they’re going to be looked after. We’re attracting attention in other areas that we might not otherwise have had and we’ve made contact with other B Corps and are actively seeking out ways to work together.
We’re attracting attention in other areas that we might not otherwise have had and we’ve made contact with other B Corps and are actively seeking out ways to work together
Laura Caccioppoli. EA to the CEO & Business for Good Champion
This case study was featured in B Lab’s State of the B Report 2019.
