Ethical Marketing Under the New B Corp Standards: How Practice Became Infrastructure at a Boutique Marketing Firm

By Sarah S. Yasukochi, Founder & CEO, House Collective

As B Lab evolves its standards to deepen accountability and transparency, responsible marketing now plays a more defined role within the Purpose & Stakeholder Governance (PSG) standards. Under the new standards, companies must establish principles that guide how they communicate. These directives affect everything from requiring that claims are grounded in evidence to ensuring transparency, ethical use of sensitive channels, and that messaging guidelines are widely communicated internally.

For B Corps certifying or recertifying under these standards, a natural question follows: What do they look like in practice, especially at a small or micro business?

At House Collective, a boutique marketing firm in San Diego, we partner with organizations and teams committed to building stronger connections in their communities. We accomplish this through strategic marketing plans and digital campaigns that build trust while supporting long-term growth. 

Because marketing is our service, responsibility is central to how we deliver it. We earned our B Corp Certification in September 2025 under the previous standards. As we look ahead, the new standards are actively shaping how we continue to show up for our clients and our community. Here is how that journey unfolded.

When Practice Becomes Infrastructure

Our path to putting ethical marketing on paper took years.

B Corp Certification asked us to look at every dimension of how we operate, from governance to client service, and give structure to what had previously lived in conversation and culture. Achieving compliance with the comprehensive standards required assessment, reflection, and communicating the values we had long aligned our operations with using formally documented systems and practices.

At the same time, a nomination for the BBB Torch Award for Ethics placed us in a parallel review of our leadership, culture, customer relationships, and community impact. As we worked through both processes, we noticed meaningful overlap. Both required us to articulate how our values show up day-to-day, from decisions to documented systems.

In September 2025, both processes reached completion within a week of each other. The Torch recognition affirmed the values we had practiced for years, and B Corp certification formalized them into documented standards. Together, they deepened our clarity and commitment.

What Our Ethical Marketing Policy Looks Like

As a small firm navigating the new standards, we’ve taken the time to define the principles that guide how we communicate and serve our clients. We’ve formalized those commitments in a published ethical marketing policy that informs our team and shapes our partnerships across industries and project types. 

Here are a few ways they show up in practice:

Values alignment. Discovery conversations help us understand a prospective partner’s goals, priorities, and approach to growth. We look for shared commitments to transparency, community impact, and responsible decision-making. Shared values ensure the strategy we build reflects both the desired outcomes and the principles behind them.

Clear and transparent scope. Each partnership begins with clearly defined deliverables, timelines, asset ownership, and pricing. Agreements and onboarding materials outline how collaboration will function and what success looks like. This shared clarity allows both sides to focus fully on execution and progress.

Strategy before tactics. Before launching new initiatives, we prioritize structured research, audience insight, and stakeholder alignment. This process clarifies goals, reveals gaps, and defines both immediate and long-term direction. At House Collective, we formalize this approach through our Blueprint, resulting in a roadmap that guides internal teams, external partners, and future initiatives.

Truthful messaging. Communication is grounded in evidence, context, and alignment with real capabilities. We prioritize education and clarity, ensuring messaging reflects what an organization can authentically deliver and what its community can reasonably expect.

Human-guided technology. AI tools, automation platforms, and analytics systems support research, reporting, and workflow efficiency. Every input and output is reviewed by our team to ensure accuracy and relevance. Our guidelines outline how these tools are used so partners understand how they strengthen the work.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

These policies help shape who we partner with, guide how we work, and inform the ways we respond when it matters most. They also mirror and build upon the requirements of PSG4.1/4.2 for companies to have clear marketing policy guardrails and guidelines in place.

One example emerged during a partnership with a commercial real estate portfolio seeking to launch a tourism initiative across several regional retail centers. The program was designed to strengthen relationships with hotels, concierge networks, and tourism organizations to drive visitor traffic and support local economies.

During our Blueprint process, we identified inconsistencies in public-facing listings, visitor information, and digital pathways across several centers. Expanding outreach at that stage would have increased visibility without ensuring consistency across the full visitor experience.

Momentum to launch was strong. Recommending a pause required alignment and trust. We focused first on strengthening foundational systems, clarifying the visitor journey, and building credible resources for B2B partners. When the initiative launched, messaging and infrastructure reflected the experience the portfolio and its retail partners could confidently stand behind.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

What This Means for Smaller Firms

Practicing ethical marketing shapes how we grow. Choosing depth over volume narrows the number of clients we take on and often extends timelines. Clear boundaries around team wellbeing and partnership alignment mean not every opportunity moves forward.

Those choices influence revenue and pace. They also create space for work that is sustainable and built on mutual trust. Over time, we’ve seen that partnerships grounded in shared expectations tend to last longer and generate stronger outcomes.

We’re comfortable growing steadily if it means growing intentionally. The systems we’ve built make that approach clear and repeatable for our team.

What the New Standards Are Teaching Us

The new standards highlight opportunities to strengthen and refine what we’ve already built—not just in public-facing marketing, but also client-facing communications. Being transparent in scope means we’ll be more deliberate about communicating both positive and negative impacts. Evidence-based claims push us to share results with context and data across our own work and client partnerships. Ethical practices in sensitive channels continue to shape how we approach data stewardship. 

Governance is built in daily decisions, regardless of company size. It shows up in how we lead, serve clients, and contribute to our communities.

Translating responsible marketing practices into written policy has made those commitments clear and visible. It anchors how we grow, the partnerships we build along the way, and the impact we’re working toward together.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

B The Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.