From Paper to Practice: Applying the new B Corp standards to daily action

STAKEHOLDER GOVERNANCE THAT PUTS EMPLOYEES FRONT AND CENTER

Shared across the panel was the inherent need for employee involvement at every level. Whether through employee councils, rotating staff attendance at board meetings, anonymous input through feedback forms, or informal company gatherings, B Corp businesses recognise that employee engagement improves dialogue and is key to good governance. Companies are finding many ways to build two-way communication into everyday operations.

Alastair Roberts: “At Hawkins\Brown we are an employee-owned organisation. Within the concept of employee ownership, there is a huge amount of employee involvement to make sure everyone's voice is heard. As part of that we have an Employee Council, where members of staff are elected to this body and they consult regularly with their colleagues. They meet quarterly to share ideas, consult, get their colleagues feedback and pass that information on to the management team. The employee council mechanism at Hawkins\Brown is one of the key ways we involve the wider team and have a continual dialogue on important matters within the business.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF FAIR PAY & LIVING WAGES

The updated B Corp Standards place greater emphasis on transparency around pay, dismantling pay gaps and supporting living wages. Past pay discrimination and bias often flows from one job to another, especially for women, which needs to be overcome in the recruitment process.

Lucy Arndt: “We do not ask people what their pay was in previous jobs, because we do not think it is relevant. Instead, we set standardised pay levels, and if your skills and experience is appropriate, then that is what we value.”   

Alastair Roberts: "One area that is typically the challenge is cleaning services, so we really went out of our way to find a company called Clean for Good, which are based in London, I hugely recommend them, they're Living Wage accredited, they were founded by a charity, they're a B Corp, and they've really gone out of their way to look after their staff. Having Living Wage accreditation makes you sort of think, well if we want this for our staff, what about our wider sort of family? I think it challenges you once you sign that pledge, you can't turn a blind eye to the other people who you're working with who might not get a living wage."

CLIMATE ACTION IS A SUPPLY CHAIN CONVERSATION

Across the board, the panellists agreed that most of their environmental impact sits in their supply chains and the products they specify or in the buildings they design.

This demands a collaborative approach to decarbonising supply chains.

Shreya Nambiar: “We work with an external consultant to scrutinise our supply chain partners and to understand where their emissions are from and bring them on our journey. This is not possible for everyone as we have so many suppliers, but it is about education and collaboration. How we work with our clients is also a big part of how we decarbonise. We have a lot of say on what gets specified, so we work with the clients to guide them to choose products that are lower in embodied carbon for example.”  

Phil Towle: “As a small department compared to the rest of the business, we look at how we can make the biggest impact with the smallest amount of effort and that starts with really understanding where the biggest impacts are. Scope Three emissions calculations provide you with this information, and we have been calculating this for a couple of years now. With this in mind, we found that if you focus on procuring furniture that is reworked or designed for circularity and reuse, then you are already reducing the upfront carbon in a building or over its lifecycle.”

Practical steps included onboarding suppliers into shared emissions management platforms, prioritising reuse over new products, and supporting clients to make lower carbon decisions early in the design process.

BEYOND CARBON

While decarbonising remains a priority for our panellists, they agreed that too much focus on carbon related metrics risks overlooking the small to medium businesses that may not have the resources to report on carbon calculations and in-depth material reports. Retaining relationships with SMEs can provide a balance within supply chains that captures a rounded understanding of sustainability that includes social value, supply chain ethics, and community regeneration.

John Wright: “The problem with just looking at carbon is that you potentially ignore everything else – biodiversity, labour conditions, material origins for example. Biodiversity is not easy to measure, and it is becoming more important, as well as supply chain impacts. A lot of what is built in the UK, is not necessarily made in the UK so it is keeping that impact in mind too. The construction industry has always focused heavily on in-use carbon and reducing operational energy consumption, but it has not looked as hard at embodied carbon. That is now coming to the forefront. In the fit-out world, one thing that really frustrates me is Cat A. You can design whatever you like, but if you start by ripping out ceilings, lighting, and air-conditioning equipment and throwing it all in a skip, it hardly matters what you do next. Tackling embodied carbon in fit-out is something our industry urgently needs to address.”

Lucy Arndt: “As a furniture procurement dealer, we work with hundreds of manufacturers - from large multinationals to one person workshops in London. When you look at what manufacturers can analyse in their supply chains, the big companies have the resources, money, and time to produce EPDs and detailed carbon assessments. And that is great - they should, because it is their responsibility.

But if, as specifiers, we focus only on companies with extensive data, we end up ignoring SMEs, social enterprises, young designers, and people making things by hand or approaching design in completely different ways. That comes with huge social, community, and human rights implications that really matter.”

THE NEED FOR SYSTEM LEVEL COLLABORATION

Human rights due diligence and circularity emerged as two of the most challenging areas for companies to action alone. Businesses are conducting deeper supplier audits, and using risk profiling tools to understand where more scrutiny is needed.

Further, circularity within the built environment was identified as an area that should be defined by policy or mandated at a system-wide level.

Alastair Roberts: “It would be easy to say, ‘Well, we’re not buying the furniture, the glazing, or the insulation for this project, so it’s not our problem.’ But as an industry, I do not think that is adequate. That is where frameworks like B Corp really matter. As we have said, having external accreditation helps - because we do not have the resources to conduct the level of due diligence that manufacturers are doing.

By working with other B Corps, we know that work is being done by our partners. So, we are increasingly looking at how we can use B Corp specifically as a way of ensuring that everything - from the beer we buy for staff socials to the furniture we specify - meets a certain standard.

That is one of the real strengths of B Corp: creating a benchmark the whole industry can look to and trust.”

Phil Towle: "Auditing a supply chain on a regular basis is really important. Whenever we begin to work with a supplier, we ask them to go through an onboarding process. We ask them a number of questions and if they represent a higher risk, then we recognise we've got to do more with them to understand whether we should be advocating for their work and our work with them. And that might mean, yes, asking for more evidence around certification, insisting on certain things, understanding clear risk profiles based on whatever you choose to profile and then workshopping that with them. They probably won't be used to that level of engagement. And if they're not able to provide you certain assessments, then we may say that we can't work with them, so we can give it back to the furniture consultant and the client and say they haven’t passed the risk assessment for these reasons.

Either, you come along, we'll do it together, we'll use the leverage of a project opportunity to put these things in place, or if they're not able to come on that journey, then we need to find an alternative.”

Shreya Nambiar: “It is challenging in a client‑led industry - circular choices are not mandated, so we spend a lot of time advocating for them, and uptake varies depending on a client’s values. In the future, policy mandating even a small percentage of circular products would make a huge difference. Designing for circularity is always easier when clients understand and prioritise it, but the wider industry infrastructure still is not fully ready, and not all manufacturers or surveyors are there yet.

That is why one of the most challenging and powerful things we have done is bring people together - bringing mechanical, electrical and other project partners into our office to workshop solutions. Issues like reusing lighting, understanding reliability, and dealing with rewarrantying still need answers, and they are complex. But creating a space for the right experts to collaborate helps us move circularity forward in a practical, coordinated way.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Across all topics, one theme stood out: applying the B Corp Standards is becoming less about internal performance alone and more about shared responsibility. The transition from “paper to practice” requires businesses to influence and collaborate with each other, not just optimise their own operations.

Bringing the community together reinforced that progress is most effective when it is collective. As the Standards evolve, so too will the ways we collaborate - within organisations, across supply chains, and throughout the built environment sector.

Modus wishes to thank AMAMUS, our B Corp certified office coffee supplier, for partnering with us at this event. 

Videography: Fern Films