WHAT IS A CERTIFIED B CORP?

The B Corp Movement is a global movement of People Using Business as a Force for Good®. The aim is to shift our economic system from profiting only the few to benefitting all.

Being a Certified B Corporation means that we have been verified as meeting B Lab’s extensive standards for social and environmental impact. It also means that we have made a legal commitment to stakeholder governance, and that we are demonstrating accountability and transparency by disclosing a record of performance in a public B Corp profile.

B Corps are not only competing to be the best companies in the world – but helping each other becoming the best for the world.

The certification is measured across 5 impact areas and scores on a scale, where 80 points grant a B Corp certification. The impact areas are; governance, workers, community, environment, customers.

STILLING AS A B CORP

When we first heard about the B Corp certification, we knew that the highly demanding framework was a great way to quantify our existing sustainability efforts from our “Purposeful Growth” strategy, as well as commit ourselves to making continuous improvements henceforth.

But furthermore, it was a way to become part of a larger movement, that shares our core beliefs about the world we conduct our business in. A belief that companies should take on much more important roles in society than simply being places of employment and generating profits for shareholders. They should be catalysts for driving positive changes throughout the value-chain for both planet and people. In other words, creating benefits for all stakeholders.

Those of you, who know our business a little, will know that acting with high ethics and responsibility has been an intricate part of our DNA for years, and have accelerated enormously since our 3rd generation takeover.

We’ve evolved from thinking about sustainability as simply a product feature, to acknowledging that working with resource conservation is only a single aspect of the positive impact we must bring to the planet and its people. Systematic changes are needed to ensure decent living conditions for future generations and we want to help forge a path for a new normal.

DEEP DIVE INTO OUR SCORES

We went through an intense process together with the B Lab organization, who spent a little over a year going through all corners of our business, analyzing and evaluating our core responsibility and initiatives to create positive change.

We’re proud to announce that we have received an overall B Impact score of 89.2, distributed across the 5 impact areas!

Governance (16.9) – Points come primarily from our transparency initiatives, as well as our mission lock; a declaration in our bylaws that define our company as a benefit company, driven to create benefit for stakeholders throughout our value-chain and not only shareholders.

Workers (37.2) – A profit-sharing program benefitting all employees equally, diversity in the workplace, and an inclusive production unit, creating growth opportunities for people on the edge of the labour market, are the basis of our high impact score in the “Workers” section.

Community (17.4) – The implementation of responsible supplier control throughout our value-chain and creating partnerships for sharing and cultivating sustainable development are key areas in our community strategy.

Environment (14.9) – Working with aluminium is an energy-intensive task, meaning that we have the potential to make real improvements to our environmental impact. Not just for us, but for the inspiration of our entire industry. Working with new and innovative materials, reduced packaging and new production principles are some of our latest initiatives.

Customers (2.6) – Through ethical marketing, extended warranties and incentivized purchasing, we seek to bring our customers along with us on our journey for doing better.

But the amount of points we scored are not only important on their own. We are equally focused on the points we are yet to earn; our potential for growing our positive impact.

WHAT COMES AFTER A CERTIFICATION?

Our B Corp certification was an important milestone on our path to crossing the neutral line, and the start of a movement to ensure a responsible business with continuously purposeful growth, so that we can eventually give back more than we take.

With a recertification every three years, we are already coming up with initiatives to improve our positive impact. An example is pulling our entire aluminium production from Asia to Europe as of January 2024. And we have challenged ourselves to obtain a new score of 100 in 2026!