CSRwire Talkback

By Jay Coen Gilbert

Business is the most powerful manmade force on the planet, so it is important to recognize businesses that are using that power to do the most good.

It doesn’t matter if a business is the biggest. It doesn’t matter if a business is the fastest growing. It matters if a business is the best in the world at being the best for the world.

The B Corp Best for the World List honors 67 businesses from 20 countries across 25 industries that are best for their workers, best for their communities, and best for the environment. Businesses like Roshan, Afghanistan's leading telecommunications provider, One Pacific Coast Bank, a pioneer triple-bottom line, community development bank, and Cooperative Home Care Associates, the nation’s largest worker-owned cooperative, providing high-quality home care services to elders and individuals living with disabilities.

Putting Shared Value In Practice

These businesses are putting into practice the principles of shared value and conscious capitalism. What makes these businesses Best for the World is that they are doing so not just in a small part of their business, but throughout their entire business.

Each honoree earned an overall score in the top 10 percent of all Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment, a comprehensive assessment a company's impact on its workers, community, and the environment. [Best for the World honorees have their performance certified by the nonprofit B Lab and have met the highest standards of legal accountability and public transparency.]

They are backing their storytelling with a comprehensive measurement of their performance against an independent, credible, comprehensive, and transparent third party standard for assessing overall corporate impact.

Some, such as Give Something Back Office Supplies and Re:Vision Architecture, pay 100 percent of all health insurance premiums for full time employees. Others, like Impact Makers and Greyston Bakery, donate all profits to charity. Many rely on renewable energy, with companies such as CDI Ventures S/A and Grounds for Change solely utilizing renewable sources.

Best of the World: Creating a Sustainable Economy

As a result, research is showing that businesses that compete to be the best for the world will attract the best talent, the most evangelical customers, and the most patient capital.

According to Hewitt Associates, for instance, companies with higher levels of employee engagement outperformed the stock market by nearly 20 percent. Furthermore, according to a Cone Communications survey, 90 percent of Americans say that companies must not only say a product or service is beneficial, but must prove it.

By honoring Best for the World businesses, we want to shine a light on those helping to create a more inclusive and sustainable economy that works for all of us and for future generations. We honor businesses creating the best places to work and the greatest economic opportunity while leaving the lightest environmental footprint.

Simply put, by honoring these businesses we redefine success in business. 

The most important trend of our time is the use of business as a tool to solve social and environmental problems. Government and the nonprofit sector are necessary but insufficient to the task. These businesses are leading the way toward an economy that strives to do no harm and benefit all. 

Check out the complete B Corp Best for the World List or start measuring your impact and see how you match up with the free, confidential B Impact Assessment.