Manawa Honey’s Journey in B Corp Certification

Manawa Honey NZ has been proudly B Corp Certified since 2021! We are now undertaking the process of recertification and we’re observing how B Corp has developed as a movement across the world. Through this kaupapa we are a part of a group of about 170 companies across New Zealand that have achieved this certification by B Corp. It’s great to be in the company of some great New Zealand businesses like Kiwibank, Pic’s Peanut Butter, Bared Footwear, Chia Sisters, and many others.

Back in 2021, we were the first Māori business and one of only two honey companies at the time to achieve B Corp certification. It is great to now have other Maori businesses alongside us like Awwa and Miraka, paving the way for others to join us in the future.

As we go through recertification we are reflecting on what it means to be part of B Corp. In this article we explain all about B Corp covering:

• What is B Corp?
• B Corp Standards
• B Corp Certification
• Why Manawa Honey applied to get B Corp certified
• The B Corp Certification Process
• Our Declaration to Interdependence
• Further Development as a B Corp

B Corp seeks to engender a new kind of business that balances business purpose and profit, led by people who use business as a force for good. The B Corp certification framework measures a company’s entire social and environmental performance. The evaluation process involves assessing how a company’s operations and business model impact on governance, workers, community, environment and customers.

B Corp was founded in 2006 in the United States by three friends who shared a vision to use business as a force for good. B Corp has now swept across the globe as a premium business certification that is internationally recognised.

The movement now has over 9,900 Certified B Corporations spanning across more than 160 industries, employing over 990,000 people around the world. Almost 750 of these B Corps are based in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

We’re proud to add that within New Zealand, Manawa Honey NZ is one of only 170 companies certified by B Corp.

“We envision a global economy that uses business as a force for good.” — B Corp

B Corp standards are at the heart of the movement defining social, environmental, and governance best practices for businesses. Their standards serve as the foundation for everything the network does – from B Corp Certification to their policy work worldwide.

This overall goal (stated as the theory of change) is to “work toward a world where business is a force for good, and plays a leading role in positively impacting and transforming the global economy into a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative system”.

In order to achieve certification, a company must:

• Demonstrate high social and environmental performance by achieving a B Impact Assessment score of 80 or above and passing our risk review.
• Make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders, and achieve benefit corporation status if available in their jurisdiction.
• Exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance measured against standards to be publicly available on their B Corp profile.

So, when you are looking at B Corp certified business you know straightaway the following points apply:

1. This company exists to benefit everyone, not just shareholders
2. This company has to get verified and certified every three years
3. These companies are diverse – they come in every shape and size
4. They actively practise radical transparency
5. They are committed to being a force for good — no ifs, buts or maybes

The B Corp evaluation process uses a framework for assessment that consists of:

Manawa Honey NZ wanted to become a ‘B Corp’ to gain recognition of all that we do for our people and our environment here in Ruatāhuna. We believe that customers need assurance against certain standards as to the social and environmental impact of a business. They deserve answers to the questions of:

• Does this business do good overall?
• Can I trust what this business is saying?

We also considered that B Corp was a fitting standard to pitch our business against because it has such a comprehensive framework for assessment of overall social and environmental impact. Some standards focus just on sustainability, others on good employer matters, others on the environment. The B Corp standard is all-encompassing and is under ongoing revision to make the standards relevant and up-to-date, as challenges for and responses by businesses change over time.

The B Corp standards align with Manawa Honey NZs kaupapa (reason for being) and values. Choosing to go through the rigorous verification and certification process is a way for us to visibly demonstrate our commitment to being a socially and environmentally conscious company that employs people fairly and makes a difference in our community. Recertification processes in future years will continue to hold us accountable to these values.

It is the B Corp Certification process that ensures that B Corps are stewards in creating a positive impact and meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance. Before the Review process a company’s assessment score reflects a self-reported and unverified score. The goal for this process is to learn more about a business and to arrive at a verified score that applies the standards according to their intent and consistently with how they have been applied across the B Corp community. This is meant both to preserve the credibility of the certification and to support companies in designing a road map of what they want to measure and improve upon.

The stages of the process consisted of the following:

Evaluation:

• Confirming company eligibility for B Corp Certification, Reviewing Approach and Completing the B Corp Statement
• Completing the B Corp Impact Assessment, Company Structure and Business Model to confirm the company’s path to certification in order to receive a preliminary minimum score of 80 points.

 Verification:

• Once the Verification tasks are completed, an Analyst is assigned to you and a 1-hour Focused Review Call is scheduled. They will have highlighted questions that require additional documentation or comments. Attend to any notifications that require action as a result of the review call.
• Submit company’s review for a Final Assessment Check – this process may trigger further follow up requests and answer adjustments. Review and acknowledge any final adjustments needed to assessment responses
• Complete and upload Legal Requirement Review      

Post Verification:

• Once the final verified score of 80 points is reached, sign and send B Corp Agreement & Declaration of Interdependence and pay Certification fee.

Review Closed

• Once Post Verification steps are completed, you receive an email welcoming you to the B Corp Community, which will officially conclude your certification process.

With B Corp Certification, we signed up to this declaration of interdependence. All companies who gain certification through B Corp make this commitment, which puts ‘wind into the sails’ of the B Corp mission for using business to do good.

We are also listed as Manawa Honey NZ on the B Corp website.

We use the logo of B Corp in our labelling and other promotion to refer to logo for B Corp certification to the labelling of at least some of our products and into the material profiling our business and what we stand for.

Carrying the B Corp certification means that our customers around the world can trust that Manawa Honey:

• understands the significance of our social and environmental impact for us as a business and organisation for good; and
• has business processes and practices in place to do good for our people and to avoid doing harm to our environment.

As a certified B Corp member, we have also joined ‘The B Hive’. It’s a platform the B Corp community uses to connect, collaborate, access resources, share knowledge and offer discounts to one another.

Further in December 2022, we were granted charitable status by Charitable Services under the Charities Act 2005. This status recognises the charitable nature of much of what we do in our operations as the Tuawhenua Trust trading as Manawa Honey, and builds on our certification as B Corp. 

With B Corp and in line with our kaupapa of “Kia tau te iwi me te whenua” (People and land thriving, together), we also have an ongoing plans for further developing policy and practice for even more positive social and environmental impacts. These developments will be continuing throughout our ‘business as a force for good’ journey.