Digital Detox are thrilled to have now submitted their application to become B Corp certified.
Woohoo, we’ve made it this far!
It’s been a few months since we first shared the news that we are pursuing certification as a B Corporation. We’ve made great progress and learned quite a bit along the way.
While it’s no small task, it is doable, even for smaller companies like ours. And you don’t need to invest a lot of money to achieve B Corp certification, especially if your business is already 'living the B Corp life' with your pay scale, work flexibility, team benefits, pro bono work, sustainability commitments and so on.
Now that we’ve moved further along in the process, we wanted to share our journey alongside a few tips for those of you who are also pursuing this milestone.
The trigger for change
The reason behind moving to align Digital Detox to the B Corp framework is to drive us forward in building a better business and allow us to measure ourselves on how we perform against the framework. Becoming a B Corp will build trust, capability and value in our organisation.
It was the logical next step for us as a humanity-led business and we are passionate about the principles and emotions behind it!
We submitted our initial B Corp assessment last year without doing any prep work and we were awarded 59 points. This was more of a trial exercise to help us understand the requirements to get certified and how we can improve. The certification requires a minimum verified total score of 80 points across all impact areas, so we had some work to do.
One of the learnings of the assessment brought up the fact that we were already doing a lot of the B corp practices and initiatives internally, but they weren’t written down, so they needed to be formalised.
The whole process was coordinated by our Finance Controller, Marta, with some of our team’s help. But with 2021 being the year we’ve grown exponentially, our team was very busy on projects, so we had to strike the right balance between people, projects and planet.
That’s why we decided to get someone on board to help us speed up the process, offering this opportunity to someone eager to learn and that would also have an impact on their career. From that, we decided an internship sounded like the perfect option to go for!
Having Faustas joining us in August on a full-time internship helped us to put together the whole application in three months, given that some of the foundation work was already done. The whole team was involved, from internal stakeholders such as the Sustainability Committee, the leadership and operations teams, to all employees who were asked to complete some surveys around our diversity and culture. So THANK YOU everyone for your effort, we wouldn’t have gotten this far without you!
The journey from A to B Corp
We found the whole process to be fun and challenging at the same time. There was a lot of research to be done around the frameworks, policies and new approaches that needed to be implemented as part of the process - perhaps not the highlight of the experience, but incredibly rewarding nevertheless!
Autonomy alongside being a smaller business helped to skip some of the steps and sped up the process, particularly around data access and decision power.
The whole journey was more of a mindset change than anything else by getting the team to understand that this is how we run our business now and reflect that in our work.
Lessons learned
The short answer is that there is a lot more than points to be gained from the application and review process. From analysing the business areas that we needed to focus on, here’s just a few of the new measures and changes introduced.
1. Processes, frameworks and goals
First up, we adopted the Environmental Management System (EMS) framework that helps companies to achieve their environmental goals through consistent evaluation, review and improvements. We set environmental objectives and measurable targets, and introduced a consistent and credible way to track our sustainability performance.
One of the objectives we set ourselves is to audit our current suppliers and opt for more sustainable ones. So we’ve put together a supplier code of conduct that follows environmental and social criteria to take into consideration when choosing suppliers in the future.
To self-assess the environmental impact of our organisation’s activities and to track the EMS compliance we will be using GRI - an international framework for sustainability reporting. The point of GRI Standards is to have a common language for organisations to report on their sustainability performance and be consistently and credibly transparent consistently.
Some of our company’s sustainability targets for next year are:
5% overall carbon footprint reduction
5% carbon reduction per employee
Offset all of our carbon emissions in 2022
We are also using the B Corp framework model for our internal reporting with our main pillars being employees, community, environment, finance, customers, and delivery.
2. Value-led sales
Based on this framework, we introduced a Values Matrix for our potential clients that involves an initial screening of the company, as well as discovering if the project is aligned to our internal business values. A part of the matrix includes the client’s B Corp status/aspirations and sustainability behaviour, allowing us to streamline and transition our sales process towards a values-led model.
In fact, we were already on a mission to help our clients through the power of digital technology and sustainability, without harming the environment. That’s why we developed our unique concept and tool to support organisations build more efficient, sustainable business solutions - The Green Report.
3. Policies and partnerships
One of the best parts that came out of the B Corp application was the decision to partner with Bippit and help our employees enjoy financial freedom. Bippit provides each of our team with their own financial coach, to help them be happier, healthier and wealthier. You can read more about this groundbreaking service and how we use it at DD here.
We’ve also put together a few policies such as pro-bono, whistleblower and volunteering, with some already happening and others kicking off early next year. One of our most recent pro-bono projects was creating a digital campaign to engage the community in taking action to reduce waste and protect the environment for the Leave No Trace Brighton charity.
4. Use the B Corp Network
During the application process, we reached out to a few B Corp companies to ask for feedback and share recommendations. We'd previously met ADLIB Recruitment at one of our virtual events, who introduced us to MotherBoard, a community that supports working mums in the tech industry.
Joining a community of like-minded businesses that demonstrates their commitment to improving gender equality and inclusivity was a no brainer for us. Here you can find out all about why and how we became a Signatory of the MotherBoard.
On the marketing side, we’ve recently organised a roundtable with B Corps from different industries to better understand the concept and learn from them. It was a great opportunity to introduce ourselves to the community and hear everyone’s journey.
One useful tip from us - go to B Corp events! Whether virtual or in-person, events are the best and easiest way to get introduced and learn more about the framework and initial steps. We’ve previously gone to events organised by The Future Leap Network where we’ve met B Corp organisations but there are plenty others out there.
Next steps
Now it’s a bit of a waiting game. We hope to hear back in the next few months as there might be additional questions and documentation required.
The hard work is done - we have set up the framework. But substantial change is yet to happen. We’re going to report on our performance using real data and see how we can improve. We don’t want to be in the position where we get the B Corp certification to tick the box and get the nice logo. We want to implement these changes to become a better business.
No matter what, we’re committed to improving our impact and obtaining the certification. And we will celebrate that achievement when we get there. We’re feeling optimistic about reaching this milestone so stay tuned as we might be toasting a glass of champagne in a matter of months…