Equitable Origin is proud to announce its certification as a B Corporation, building on its goal to bring greater transparency and accountability to the oil and gas industry. Equitable Origin’s B Corporation Certification by B Lab recognizes its mission to protect people, the environment and biodiversity, and welcomes it into a likeminded community of socially driven businesses throughout the world.

Equitable Origin is the first stakeholder-based, social and environmental certification, certificate trading and eco-label system for the oil and gas industry. As a Certified B Corporation, Equitable Origin reaffirms its commitment to meeting higher standards of social and environmental performance in its own operations and in the markets and industries it works in.

Certified B Corporations work to benefit stakeholders, not just shareholders, and are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on consumers, communities, and the environment. B Lab’s rigorous evaluation formally acknowledges Equitable Origin’s vision of a new, economically viable norm for the oil and gas industry whereby local communities benefit socially and economically from production in ways that protect and maintain local ecosystems.

“Equitable Origin is a mission-driven business, driving positive change in the oil and gas industry,” said David Poritz, the company’s president and co-founder. “Becoming a Certified B Corp helps us ensure we practice our values within our own operation, helping us deliver the credibility, transparency, and accountability our stakeholders demand.”

Founded in 2009 as a market-driven solution to protect communities and ecosystems in the Amazon rainforest, Equitable Origin’s innovative certification system rewards best practices in oil and gas production and enables consumers to support responsibly sourced oil and gas. In collaboration with a diverse group stakeholders including industry experts, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups, Equitable Origin developed the EO100™ Standard which uses robust metrics and performance standards to measure and evaluate extraction sites on sustainability indicators. Companies and operators that meet the EO100™ Standard are assessed, certified and issued Equitable Origin Certificates that can be sold and exchanged by parties interested in supporting best practices in oil and gas production, who can then place the Equitable Origin Certified eco-labels on their products.

Equitable Origin’s B Corporation Certification follows similar steps the company has taken to become a recognized leader in sustainability in the oil and gas sector, such as becoming a full member of the ISEAL Alliance. In line with the mission and values of B Corporations and B Lab, Equitable Origin and the EO100™ Standard provide a framework for responsible oil and gas extraction that encourages and incentivizes social and environmental excellence, harnessing market-mechanisms and the power of enterprise to deliver positive social change.

About Equitable Origin:

Equitable Origin was established in 2009 to create a new norm for oil and gas exploration and production through an independent certification, certificate trading and eco-label system that rewards responsible practices relating to social, environmental, good governance and safety performance. Extensive consultation with the oil and gas industry, leading international NGOs focused on oil and gas production, and indigenous communities affected by oil and gas exploration and production led to the development of the EO100™ Standard. The Standard focuses on six principles: corporate governance, accountability and ethics; human rights, social impact & community development; fair labor and working conditions; indigenous people’s rights; climate change, biodiversity & environment; and project life cycle management.

About B Corp

Certified B Corporations meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, legally expand their corporate responsibilities to include consideration of stakeholder interests, and build collective voice through the power of the unifying B Corporation brand. As of May 2014, there are more than 1,000 Certified B Corporations from over 60 industries and 34 countries, representing a diverse multi-billion dollar marketplace.

About B Lab:

B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement to redefine success in business so that all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world. B Lab drives this systemic change through a number of interrelated initiatives: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and good marketing; 2) passing legislation to accelerate growth of social entrepreneurship and impact investing (24 states have already passed benefit corporation legislation); 3) developing B Analytics, a customizable platform for investors to benchmark and report on the impact of their global equity portfolios; and 4) providing free, powerful tools for businesses to measure, compare and improve their social and environmental performance (more than 16,000 businesses use B Lab’s free B Impact Assessment). For more information, visit www.bcorporation.net

For more information about Equitable Origin visit: www.equitableorigin.com

For more information about B Corporations and B Lab visit: www.bcorporation.net

Equitable Origin

Equitable Origin

Equitable Origin (www.equitableorigin.org) is an innovative stakeholder-based certification system for the energy industry that promotes higher social and environmental standards, greater transparency, and more accountability in energy development projects. Equitable Origin is a nonprofit organization with offices in New York City and Bogota, Colombia.

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