Transcripts:

Q & A

36:48
Thank you so much, Carlina. Indeed. It’s, it’s very significant. And so, um, uh, I will hand it off to Christopher to follow up with a questions, but I will, uh, leave with a question of my own first, and that is, in the spirit of transparency, is Blab going to share the feedback that’s been given by B Corp so that we, all of us B CORs will kind of know what is important to, to the B Corp community and so that we will also know how much weight is Blab giving to the feedback from the B Corp community? And thank you again. Yeah, that’s it. Thank you so much. Oh,

37:29
Sure. Yeah. Thanks Rose. Um, uh, that’s a good question. That is a question that was asked on the webinar that Blab did last week. And what they shared is, yes, they, they don’t provide, um, the feedback results individually, obviously, you know, just for confidentiality reasons, but they do share that information, uh, in the aggregate. So they are able, they are looking at making, um, you know, those findings and, and kind of the feedback that they get available.

38:01
Okay. Thank you. Car, Oh, go ahead. The, the next question. Um, so are, are you able to make these slides available after the meeting? Are

38:13
You, Yeah, we’ll

38:14
Share them, yeah. Okay. Um, you know, you covered kind of differences in size of company by number of employees. What about differences in, um, service versus product, um, versus industry? Uh, are there any planned differences there?

38:35
Yes, so on those snapshot slides where, you know, I showed one like, this is gonna affect all companies, and this is companies, you know, with over 10 employees and so on, there are some other requirements that are actually broken out by, is it a service with a minor environmental impact? You know, is it full sale retail, is it manufacturing? So yes, Blab is also contextualizing based upon the track that a company is on.

39:00
Yeah, there were a number of questions around definition of terms, and I imagine there’s a lot more detail in the full document, but some of the, the terms that came up were climate transition plan, like what does that look like? Track record of climate action, Like what is that, um, material positive impact? How do you define that? Just anything that you wanna comment around those types of terms and, and such.

39:29
Yeah, so blab in that 90 page pdf, um, they are providing descriptions of those terms and they are also providing a number of resources that are available as well. So, you know, just in the interest of time, there was no way that I could kind cover all of that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but it is something that they are, um, articulating very specifically as well. And I would say this is also why this feedback period is so important. If, if you take a look at that and you’re like, Well, it’s still not clear, we need some additional guidance, then this is really the time to start to provide that feedback to blab.

40:08
Great. Um, how do the 10 areas align with the s d G questions in the B assessment portal?

40:17
Yeah, that’s, that’s a good question. That’s another question that actually came up on the webinar and what Blab said is that, you know, we, the SDG action manager is, you know, built into the impact assessment, but the, the questions here, um, are not designed to like align, you know, perfect alignment with the SDGs because SDGs are really kind of what society should be doing as a whole, whereas these are really focused on what a company should be doing. That said, you know, there is definitely, um, some overlap and one of the things that has not yet been done is to actually map out the requirement against the SDGs. Um, perhaps if there’s anybody involved with the B academics, that would be a great project for somebody to, to take on.

41:06
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Great. Uh, the last question that I currently have captured, I’m, it’s a comment and a question. Um, I’m just gonna read this. I’m most concerned about how these will be measured and how the work we’ve already done will map to the new requirements. We have put in a ton of additional practices in the last six years since we’ve been certified. And we’re wondering if the points that we were working towards will still be as meaningful in this new approach?

41:37
Well, I would say, um, not knowing, you know, who’s, who asked that question or the specifics of, you know, their impact assessment, if what you have been working towards is, um, anything related to an impact business model that is certainly going to be carried forward. And that for, you know, most companies, that is the biggest source of points. So that is, it appears to be carrying forward, uh, since it looks like they are gonna be keeping the IBMs. Um, other things that you’ve been doing, like if you, you know, implemented Living wages, for example is part of the certification, that is obviously going to be carried forward. Some things that maybe you’ve done in the past, um, might not necessarily earn points because the scoring system, as we’ve known it, is pretty much going away. There might be a new scoring system, it seems like vLab is considering that, but they have not yet given any indication of what that might look like. So if there is something that you did that maybe earned points, um, you know, then perhaps you might not earn points this time, but hopefully it’s something that was of benefit to your business and will just be a good, a good foundation to have in place.

42:49
Yeah. Those are all the questions that I captured from the chat. Does anybody out there have an additional question or a question that I missed?

43:02
I could lob out a quick one. Okay. First of all, I just wanna say thank you Carolina, that was amazing and, uh, appreciate all the informed insight. Um, I’m gonna try and be as quick as I can. The current model with the point system is very much lends itself to the B Corp directory on the lab’s website being easy to parse relative to impact of a company, right? Like, it’s almost like a nutrition facts kind of thing where you can understand impact for a company. Did you have any sense in any of the conversations with Blab about how they look at transparency around reporting at that kind of community level? You know, what that model might evolve to such that the public can understand how companies have performed over the assessment because it’s fairly easy right now because of the point system, but I imagine it gets a lot more complex with this newer system.

43:59
Yeah, that’s, that’s a good question. I haven’t heard, um, b l a address that in any, in the webinars that I’ve been on, and I haven’t seen that particular question addressed in the materials that I’ve reviewed. What I would expect, um, this is, you know, just, just my thoughts right now is that it will be less, um, important to know how everybody is doing across the five areas of the impact assessment because anybody that is listed on the, on the directory will have met these requirements. Um, I expect that they will also show the IBMs on there in some way, but that idea of, hey, this, you know, this company earned 32 points in community versus, you know, eight points in environment like that, I think is the, the variability that is gonna go away a bit under the, the new requirements. Um, the other thing that is kind of tied into that is with a point based system, it’s very easy to identify, okay, these are the best for the world companies, right? Once we start kind of moving away from the point based system as we’ve known it, um, I don’t know yet that we know exactly what that, you know, what impact that will have on, on best for the world. And I think we’re at time. Yeah.
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