3Keel achieves B Corp re-certification

25 January 2024

3Keel has achieved re-certification as a B Corp™, three years after joining the global movement for an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy.

In 2019, we started work to become certified and we achieved it a year later, reaching 107 against the minimum 80 points required. With this year’s recertification, we have increased our score to 132.8.

What is a ‘B Corp’?

The B Corp movement, run by non-profit, B Lab™, aims to change our economic system to positively impact all stakeholders — workers, communities, customers, and our planet. To be certified as a B Corp, a company goes through a rigorous process of assessment. Passing the assessment demonstrates a commitment to being part of ‘a shift away from profiting only the few to benefiting all, from concentrating wealth and power to ensuring equity, from extraction to regeneration, and from prioritising individualism to embracing interdependence’ (B Lab’s description).

What does the score mean?

To become a B Corp, B Lab assesses a business against five impact areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. They add up the scores for each pillar and that’s the overall score. For more information about each impact area and how companies are assessed against them, visit the B Corp website.

3Keel’s score breaks down as follows:

Why does it matter?

We set up 3Keel to be ‘different’ as an organisation. Honouring this in the decisions we take on managing and developing the business is important to us. And we strongly believe that the B Corp movement is effective, which is why we have actively supported it over the last three years. This recertification feels like real recognition for the effort everyone at 3Keel puts in to our ongoing evolution.

A high B Corp score is a badge of honour of sorts, but is also so much more. It’s a commitment to an ongoing process of transparency and improvement, as well as adopting the B Corp ‘Declaration of Interdependence’. We have definitely found that feedback from our initial certification has been formative in shaping our areas for organisation development.

What’s changed since our original accreditation?

Many of the benefits that we have introduced over the last few years play a role in increasing the B Corp score. It is a virtuous circle: B Corp advises what a good company should look like, we take on board many of the recommendations, it improves life at 3Keel…and that feeds back into our score!

Some of the specific changes we have made that will have contributed to our score include:

  • Reviewing total staff rewards
  • Increasing basic holiday allowance
  • Providing access to financial advisers and support for all staff
  • Increasing our company pension contribution to 5% for all staff
  • Extending our training and support approach
  • Giving access to mental health support and resources for everyone in the company
  • Health and life insurance for everyone beyond the NHS
  • Enhancing parental leave policy
  • EV and e-bike financial support, and free charging
  • Achieving mission lock through our company articles
  • Involving evidence and stakeholder contributions in the design of our services
We recommend the process

We want to continue to learn from the B Corp movement and to use its collective wisdom to continue to shape priorities at 3Keel. Thank you to our dedicated internal team who worked incredibly hard to take us through the re-certification process. It’s taken time but it is very much worth it. We would urge all like-minded companies who aren’t already B Corp certified to consider joining this amazing global movement.