The corporate impact that counts is not only economic.Certified B Corporations harness the power of business for social and environmental good. An initiative of the Pennsylvania-based non-profit B Lab, B Corp certification requires companies to meet rigorous and independent standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Last month, B Lab and the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing – the B Corp hub in Canada – announced the 39 Founding Canadian B Corps. In this special series, The Mark is excited to feature testimonials from three of these pioneering Canadian B Corps.
Bullfrog Power, Canada’s 100-per-cent green-energy provider, has recently become a founding Canadian B Corporation. For us, becoming a B Corporation is part of being a social enterprise, a new way of doing business that has the potential to have a significant impact on the economy. Social enterprises not only try to earn a profit and be economically sustainable, but also have another bottom line that addresses a social need. In our case, this other bottom line involves the environment, in general, and an increase in the amount of renewable energy in the country, more specifically. While social enterprises are currently few in number, we believe their number will grow as people increasingly recognize that we have to transform business in order to achieve many of the social goals we all share.
Prior to the founding of Bullfrog, one of the big barriers to new renewable-energy generation was that organizations and individuals had to win a government contract in order to finance a project. Unlike virtually every other product you use, there wasn’t a market for renewable electricity.
Greg Kiessling and I (Bullfrog’s co-founders) wanted renewable electricity for our homes, and figured there must be others out there like us, who wanted to support green power and were willing to pay a premium for it.
We launched Bullfrog Power in 2005, offering Ontarians a green-electricity option for their homes. The proposition was simple: If you Bullfrogpower your home or business, we ensure the electricity injected onto the grid on your behalf is from clean, renewable sources.
Although the offering was straightforward, it had big implications. No longer did Ontarians have to accept conventional, polluting energy sources. Through Bullfrog, they could choose green power for their homes, reducing their emissions footprints and supporting the growth of the renewable-energy industry in Canada. They could also set an example for friends, neighbours, business leaders, and policy-makers, and send a powerful message to government. This new business model meant that the energy and support of thousands of Canadians could be directed at solving pressing issues related to energy, pollution, and climate change.
Many Ontarians were quick to embrace the choice – and, in the years following, we were able to launch green-energy offerings in Alberta (2007), British Columbia (2009), and the Maritimes (2009). Currently, more than 8,000 homes and 1,200 businesses are choosing green energy with Bullfrog. To date, several new wind projects have been commissioned in Canada to meet the demand of these homes and businesses.
When we learned that B Corporation was launching in Canada, it was clear to us that we needed to achieve certification. B Corporations must amend their corporate documents to permit their boards of directors to consider not only the interests of shareholders, but also of all the other important stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, and, in our case, the environment. In order to qualify as a B Corporation, a company must pass a test related to its corporate impact on workers, consumers, suppliers, communities, and the environment.
The characteristics of B Corporations are aligned with our mission and values and how we run our company. Since Bullfrog’s beginning, we’ve been committed to higher standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. Bullfrog is a double-bottom-line organization that has pledged to donate 10 per cent of its after-tax operating profits to organizations that support environmental sustainability. The founders have also pledged 10 per cent of the founding equity to organizations that promote sustainability.
Bullfrog is audited annually to confirm that as much green energy has been injected onto the energy systems as our customers have used, and that we have retired all emissions credits related to customer contracts. Furthermore, we only source from generation facilities that have met high environmental standards, such as EcoLogoM certification. We foster a workplace environment of trust, diversity, and creativity, and provide our employees with fair benefits, stock options, and salaries at market rates. In addition, we employ a number of internal green programs: We subsidize staff memberships in local bike-sharing programs, implement stringent recycling and conservation programs, and provide sustainability training for staff.
B Corporations in Canada are still new, but they promise to be part of an important shift in the way businesses understand their bottom lines. With the other B Corporations across the country, Bullfrog Power is showing Canadians that social enterprises can be successful – and can help change the world.
Original Article
Source: the mark
Author: Tom Heintzman
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