How a Company Can Be Best for the World
2017 Best for the World Criteria
The 2017 Best for the World lists are determined based on the verified B Impact Assessments of Certified B Corporations.
List Categories
The honorees featured on the Best for Community, Best for Environment, Best for Workers, Best for the Long Term, and Best for Customers lists scored in the top 10th percentile of all Certified B Corporations in the respective impact area on the B Impact Assessment, with Best for the Long Term corresponding to the Governance impact area. The honorees that have earned Best for Overall scored in the top 10th percentile of their overall score on the B Impact Assessment across all impact areas.
More information about what the B Impact Assessment measures:
The honorees on the Best for the World: Overall list: The full B Impact Assessment evaluates a company’s environmental performance, employee relationships, diversity, involvement in the local community, the impact a company’s product or service has on those it serves, and more. The 176 Best for the World: Overall honoree companies come from 75 different industries and 25 countries.
The honorees on the Best for Community list: The Community portion of the B Impact Assessment evaluates a company’s supplier relations, diversity, and involvement in the local community. It also measures the company’s practices and policies around community service and charitable giving, including whether a company’s product or service is designed to solve a social issue, such as access to basic services, health, education, economic opportunity and the arts. The 180 winning companies in the Community category come from 80 industries and 34 countries.
The honorees on the Best for Customers list: The Customer portion of the B Impact Assessment measures the impact a company has on its customers by focusing on whether a company sells products or services that promote public benefit and if those products/services are targeted toward serving underserved populations. The section also measures whether a company’s product or service is designed to solve a social or environmental issue (improving health, preserving environment, creating economic opportunity for individuals or communities, promoting the arts/sciences, or increasing the flow of capital to purpose-driven enterprises). The 174 Best for Customers companies come from 63 different industries and 29 countries.
The honorees on the Best for the Environment list: The Environment portion of the B Impact Assessment evaluates a company’s environmental performance through its facilities, materials, emissions, and resource and energy use. Companies answer questions about their transportation/distribution channels and the environmental impact of their supply chain. The assessment also measures whether a company’s products or services are designed to solve an environmental issue, including products that aid in the provision of renewable energy, conserve resources, reduce waste, promote land/wildlife conservation, prevent toxic/hazardous substance or pollution, or educate, measure or consult to solve environmental problems. The 180 Best for Environment companies come from 66 different industries and 24 countries.
The honorees on the Best for Workers list: The Workers section of the B Impact Assessment assesses the company’s relationship with its workforce. It measures how the company treats its workers through compensation, benefits, training and ownership opportunities provided to workers. The category also focuses on the overall work environment within the company by assessing management/worker communication, job flexibility, corporate culture, and worker health and safety practices. The 148 Best for Workers companies come from 61 different industries and 21 countries.
The honorees on the Best for the Long Term list: This list is based on the Governance section of the B Impact Assessment, which evaluates a company’s overall mission, ethics, accountability and transparency. It measures whether the company has adopted a social or environmental mission, and how it engages its employees, board members and the community to achieve that mission. This section assesses employee access to financial information, customers’ opportunities to provide feedback, and the diversity of the company’s governing bodies. The 186 Best for the Long Term companies come from 79 different industries and 13 countries.
The honorees on the Best for the World: Changemakers list: The honorees on this list are calculated based on verified positive change across all impact areas over time. See more under Methodology.
Methodology
Honorees in all categories are calculated by size: sole proprietor (0 employees), micro (fewer than 10 employees), small (10 to 49 employees), midsized (50 to 249 employees), and large (250-plus employees) businesses. Size category was determined by the company’s most recent verified B Impact Assessment prior to January 6, 2017. Honorees are calculated by size because score weightings of the indicators on the B Impact Assessment vary between size tracks (learn more about the B Impact Assessment below).
The Best for the World: Changemakers list honors the Certified B Corps with the most verified improvements on questions in the B Impact Assessment over time. This inherently restricts eligibility to Certified B Corps who have completed at least two verified B Impact Assessments. The algorithm used to calculate the Changemakers list assesses positive change made on individual questions. Efforts are made to to exclude what is termed “standards-based change,” such as changes in score resulting from a company moving to a different track or version of the assessment (learn more about the B Impact Assessment below). This leaves behind only genuine improvements a company has made, and Honorees on the Best for the World: Changemakers list represent the top 20th percentile on this measure as of June 20th, 2017
All other 2017 Best for the World lists are based on verified B Impact Assessment scores as of January 6, 2017.
Eligibility
Only Certified B Corporations in good standing with a Reviewed Version 4 or 5 B Impact Assessment (including both phone and document reviews by B Lab Staff with scores transparent online) are eligible for inclusion on the Best for the World list. While other businesses and organizations may use the free B Impact Assessment, they are not eligible for inclusion on the Best for the World lists. Only Certified B Corporations are eligible because they have not only obtained a verified score on the B Impact Assessment, but also have met the highest standards of public transparency and legal accountability to align their interests with the interests of society.
Companies were selected based on their verified B Impact Assessment as of January 6, 2017. B Corps certified thereafter will be eligible next year. Likewise, Certified B Corps who recertified with an updated B Impact Assessment after January 6, 2017, will be considered based on their new Assessment for the 2018 Best for the World lists.
The B Impact Assessment (BIA) is a free online tool designed to comprehensively measure the positive impact that businesses generate for their communities, customers, workers, and environment.
The questions that a particular business sees and their relative weightings depend on the company’s industry, size and geography — there are more than 80 of these tracks in the assessment to ensure questions are material for a particular type of business.
The B Impact Assessment produces a numeric score based on a company’s responses, and a company must receive a verified total score of at least 80 points to be a Certified B Corporation. The BIA is administered by the independent nonprofit B Lab.
Find more information about the B Impact Assessment and learn more about B Lab or Certified B Corporations.
Questions about the B Impact Assessment and the data metrics should be directed to B Lab at thelab@bcorporation.net.
These lists, graphics and comparative data for the Best for the World coverage were created using B Analytics, which is a flexible data platform for measuring and managing impact at scale. B Analytics houses the largest database of social and environmental performance data on private companies globally, collected from more than 40,000 users of the B Impact Assessment. Learn more at at the B Analytics site or email info@b-analytics.net.
