This was published 7 years ago
Why small businesses make up the majority of B-Corp accreditations in Australia
The numbers speak volumes.
By Bhakthi Puvanenthiran
Alicia Darvall is not surprised that most of the companies she works with are small.
Darvall is manager of B Lab Australia, a global not-for-profit aimed at people who want to make their business a positive force in the community.
Mentorloop founders Lucy Lloyd and Heidi Holmes.Credit: Craig Sillitoe
"We exist so that for profit business are seen and supported. We can help redefine success and show they aren't just 'greenwashing'," Darvall said.
"Only three of the companies I'm working with, out of the 150 that have been accredited, are actually what you would consider large companies," she said.
The three big guys are Silverchef, Australian Ethical Investments and Aspen Medical Group.
"Partly I think it's because it's a new sector in Australia, and we've only been here for two years, so I think lots of the B Corps are yet to scale and support each other by inter-trading," Darvall said.
"But mostly I think it's because it's easier to set out those intentions and embed that purpose in their business from the beginning."
One such young business is Melbourne-based Mentorloop, which is setting up to be the Tinder of mentoring.
"I wanted to connect with a mentor but my network didn't have entrepreneurs in it, so I built this business to solve that problem," said co-founder Heidi Holmes.
"We just closed a capital raise and we have 12 months of paying customers in the platform so the focus is very much on growth. It's important for us to have the values of B-Corp now while we are looking to expand our team. The B-Corp process has forced us to think about hiring policies and what we need to be communicating as a group," she said.
Holmes admits the process of becoming accredited took effort.
"There was some work involved and we're only a team of three so we've all been very close to the application process and putting together the documentation," she said
For example, Mentorloop uses local developers, a Collingwood outfit Common Code.
"To us we've been passionate about the philosophy about supporting the community that supports us, that's one of the core principles of being a B-corp."
"Even though you might be paying a little bit more, we believe that there's advantage in that. The quality is often better, you're building relationships with suppliers and you're building your own network of like-minded businesses," she said.