B Corps Should Be Boldly Out Front on Advancing Racial Equity in Business

‘The 2021 CEO Blueprint for Racial Equity’ Identifies Ways for B Corps to Advance Racial Equity and Combat Systemic Racism

Business leaders have a responsibility to usher in an economy — and by extension, a society — that advances racial equity. Employees, customers, and society at large are demanding improved outcomes for People of Color, and it is time for business leaders to be accountable. This work is not simple. Many leaders have questions about how to take effective action or how to be a strong business leader in this work. Others report an experience of leadership paralysis for fear of doing or saying the wrong thing. In community and with the right tools, businesses can and must make meaningful change now.

The community of Certified B Corporations is both a group of leaders and learners — and in the case of upending systemic racism, B Corp leaders must also be ready to unlearn. A key facet to being a strong anti-racist leader — one of the three pillars of change B Lab U.S. & Canada announced this year — is the willingness to learn, to be open to recognizing previous wrongs, and to continue to consider areas of strength and areas in need of reflection and improvement. Essential to this work is the community foundation that B Corps have collectively built, which provides space for companies to be vulnerable in asking questions, experimenting, and sharing their findings, as well as to hold one another accountable to continued progress.

B Lab, the nonprofit that assesses and certifies B Corps, is also committed to work in deep collaboration to advance racial equity practices and principles as a new standard in business alongside PolicyLink, JUST Capital, and FSG, who have joined forces to launch the Corporate Racial Equity Alliance.  B Lab is a flagship partner to the Alliance and contributed to the critical resource, The 2021 CEO Blueprint for Racial Equity. True to the standards-based ethos of B Corp Certification, the future of the Alliance is to develop corporate performance standards for racial equity building off the foundation of the Blueprint. For B Lab, this work sits squarely in its plans to mobilize the B Corp community to take action on anti-racism. B Lab will also leverage this partnership to update B Lab’s standards for B Corp certification with the standards this Alliance is developing as an input — because businesses can’t manage what they don’t measure.

In the words of the Alliance, as shared in the Blueprint:

“The actions we describe in this updated Blueprint provide a North Star, but they are not sufficient to align market actors around how to approach, measure, report, and incentivize progress. We are now developing robust performance and process standards with stakeholders to set the bar for what good looks like, embed accountability, and establish consistency for how corporations should approach, measure, disclose, and speak publicly about their equity journeys within the company, within communities, and at the societal level.”

A Roadmap for Business Leaders to Take Action Today on Racial Equity

The Blueprint recognizes the need for organizations to implement enterprise-wide strategies, meaning the efforts are not housed in a single department but are coherent, transparent, and resourced. To support leaders in that effort, the Blueprint offers five foundational principles to guide organizations:

1. Strive to be a pack leader and focus on results.
2. Approach racial equity work as both a journey and a destination.
3. Center the people who have been most harmed by racist practices, systems, and institutions.
4. Amplify your impact by fostering trust and collaboration with equity advocates and community leaders with lived experience.
5. Thoughtfully and transparently engage in reckoning and repair work across all three domains of influence (within the company, within communities, and across society).

The Blueprint recommendations are broken down into the three domains of influence — within the company, within the community, and within society — with 12 steps starred as a “start here” list for companies early in their racial equity work. These first steps include crafting and publishing an enterprise-wide anti-racism policy and doing a racial equity audit across the company. In line with the standards approach uplifted by the Blueprint’s partner authors, another first step includes setting transparent goals, means of measuring progress, and accountability timelines.

Examples of B Corps Leading on Racial Equity

The Blueprint includes examples of steps several B Corps have taken on their anti-racism journey:

• Amalgamated Bank in 2020 became the first publicly traded company where shareholders approved its new business purpose clause, further committing the bank to its B Corp values and ensuring business decisions consider social and environmental factors in line with shareholder return.
• Ben & Jerry’s co-founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, are driving policy change to increase transparency and accountability for law enforcement through The Campaign to End Qualified Immunity.
• Cascade Engineering is reimagining the way companies can build better lives for employees, including through its Returning Citizens program that provides job opportunities and transition support for formerly incarcerated individuals.
• Fireclay Tile has launched and continues to expand its employee-ownership program, democratizing ownership and seeking to distribute wealth more equitably.
• Red Bay Coffee’s business model is designed to better distribute coffee industry revenue to coffee bean farmers and seeks to increase transparency and eliminate exploitation in the supply chain by sourcing high-grade products directly from farmers.
• Rhino Foods pioneered an Income Advance Program, providing small-dollar loans for its employees that transition into a savings program, and has since provided guidance for other companies interested in adopting the program.
• Sundial Brands and Unilever established a Social Mission Board to scale Sundial’s Community Commerce economic empowerment and impact model across Unilever. The two companies also partnered to create the $100 million New Voices Fund to provide access to capital for female entrepreneurs of color.

After you’ve had an opportunity to dig into the Blueprint, the Corporate Racial Equity Alliance invites you to fill out this brief survey to share how corporate standards for racial equity can help you in your work, your day-to-day, and your community. You can also learn more about opportunities to get involved here.