Method’s Journey with B Corp

This post is part of a series where our co-founder Steven Korner will be talking about a range of topics – from design, to what it’s like to engineer a product in the sustainability space.

Have you heard of Certified B Corporations or B Corps? It’s a declaration of interdependence, a global community of organisations that use their business for good.

At a time where we’re fighting COVID, climate change, discrimination and poor working conditions more than ever before, it’s important we celebrate B Corp month and the movement to change the way business is done.

The rising number of Certified B Corporations around the world is a signal of how business is changing, moving away from the traditional shareholder perspective towards purpose driven businesses that create benefit for all stakeholders - people, place and profit. Meaning the B Corp certification is one that you can trust.

Method’s B Corp Journey

The process to become a Certified B Corporation is intensive, and our sustainability team spent weeks going through the online questionnaire and assessing our practices on every aspect of doing business. They then formalised a lot of processes we already had in place and formulated plans for areas we were lacking.

One area that we continued to identify was that we’re a refined machine in our HQ in Wellington on all fronts - sustainability, travel, encouraging healthy behaviours and so on, but we lacked in these areas for our remote teams.

Our HQ has been around for several years now and the majority of our team work here so systems and processes already existed. Though for our remote workers this was harder and it’s something that we’re continuing to improve upon, particularly with the growing instances of remote working brought about with COVID.

We became certified in November last year and while we were proud of achieving a score of 93.4 on our first certification. Though, more importantly, B Corp is central to our growth and we’ll continue to use it as a tool to improve our impact.

However, in my personal opinion, the greatest part of becoming a B Corp is joining a local and global community of like minded businesses and the change that we can bring about together. Next week Method is excited to be a part of a Webinar about using business as a force for good with other Kiwi businesses driven by purpose - Sharesies, Springload, Dignity, Redvespa, CoGo, and Carbon South. Though we all work in very different industries, in very different ways we’re united by the fundamental core of our businesses existing to do more than just make money, if you’d like to join us you can register to attend for free here.

Is B Corp right for your organisation?

If you’ve been considering a certification for your business, have a read about what a B Corp is and consider how it could impact your business. We firmly believe that sustainable business practices are just good business. This is shown as we continue to see a growing number of consumers whose decision making process is heavily influenced by the sustainability of the organisation and product. Similarly, a growing workforce of people who want to work for organisations that have a purpose, we’re certainly privileged at Method to have a driven and hardworking team who are committed to our purpose.

If you think it's time to look into B Corp for your organisation, check out the B Impact assessment, it’s free and non-committal. Or let me know if you have any questions and one of our sustainability team would be happy to help - happy B Corp month!

Profile: Steven Korner

Steven Korner graduated from the University of Canterbury with first-class honours in Mechanical Engineering.

After leading the neonatal care product design team at Fisher and Paykel, and inspired by buying Total Bins, he and his wife India decided to create their own company and their own product.

Steven took an analytical approach with Method – spending weeks researching, prototyping, and gaining customer insights to decipher what could really make a difference in the waste market.

As co-founder and CEO, he has spearheaded Method’s innovative product research, development and design, and is the creator of Method’s award-winning 60L Office Recycling Bin.

Any questions? Get in touch here.