How iiE helped Genee become a Certified B Corporation!
Genee, the North East Hub for Investors in the Environment, has been certified as a B Corporation™ (B Corp™), furthering the Company’s commitment to operating its business with social and environmental impact at the forefront.
What is B Corp™?
The B Corp™ verification process completed by B Lab measures a company’s social and environmental performance against 5 Impact Area Pillars, looking at a Company’s approach to their workers, the environment, the community, their customers, and their governance. Genee has undergone a thorough review of the impact of their operations and business model and ensured that they can provide evidence to meet B Corp’s high standards of business.
As an Environmental Consultancy who work with organisations of all sizes and sectors, Genee operates with the objective that business can be used as a force for good and strives to support as many organisations as we can to achieve their environmental goals.
How did iiE help them achieve B Corp™?
Having been through Investors in the Environment accreditation, Genee recognised how well this prepared the business for their wider aspirations of becoming B Corp™ certified. The iiE framework provided the tools and templates to guide Genee through the development of their environmental management system, and enabled Genee to evidence their environmental credentials and satisfy B Corp’s environmental impact pillar.
Investors in the Environment’s staged approach to sustainability for organisations examines environmental management holistically, from policies and action plans to communications and initiatives. Like B Corp™, iiE supports the idea that better business is built on continuous improvement and is an ongoing process for organisations seeking to be truly sustainable.
B Corp’s application process involves completing the B Impact Assessment, which includes answering a series of questions about your company’s practices and outputs, including environmental impact. The questions range from how the company monitors and reports on its energy and water usage, to waste management. As part of the iiE accreditation, all of this information was to hand to evidence how they operate and had been audited by iiE to verify its value as an effective environmental management system.
Managing Director of Genee, Jo Holmes, said, “When we started looking into the B Corp movement, we could see how well this aligned with our mission and values at Genee. At Genee, we seek partnerships and projects which add value and benefit to our community, whilst supporting organisations across the North East region to embed sustainability into their operations. Having already been through the iiE accreditation was a saving grace, as it enabled Genee to quickly evidence our environmental impact, with all of the resources we had created when setting up our Environmental Management System using the iiE framework.”
Genee is joining a network of over 2,800 likeminded U.K. based B Corporations.
If you’d like to find out more how we can support your B Corp application please get in touch at info@iie.uk.com.
