B Lab Response to Invitation for Collaboration

August 28, 2012

Charles,

Apologies for the delay, the leadership team has been in and out of the office and it has been tough to pin all of them down.  I did meet with them today to go over your letter among other things, so we do have clarity moving forward.   

The main headline of the conversation is that we are thrilled that you are embarking on this project and grateful for your support of the B Corp movement.  We realize that this doesn’t take off without people on the ground working with real companies and organizations to explain what this it’s about, and we thank you for taking that on.  

We’ve had a number of requests from sustainability professionals to law firms to other businesses that are trying to create a combo legal zoom/sustainability consultant wanting to affiliate with B Lab as a kind of preferred provider or for us to provide testimonials or the like.  While we’re not opposed to creating some kind of affiliate program, the fact is we don’t have one today.  

To do so, we would need to think through all implications of creating preferred provider program, and we just don’t have the visibility or bandwidth to give it the thought it requires. At the earliest we can see going through that process in the latter half of 2013. And until we do something more formal, we’re not in a position to do any preferred partners, testimonials, quotes, etc.   

In the meantime, if there are ways that we can be helpful and we’ll do the best that we can : )  You’re welcome to use any information available on any of our sites (www.bcorporation.net, www.benefitcorp.net, www.giirs.org) in your materials or presentations.  If there’s additional information that would be helpful to you we’re happy to provide it (or let you know that we don’t have it).  

Thank you again for your leadership, and we’ll look forward to seeing your organization grow!  

Best,  

Heather.  

p.s. One option that does exist right now is becoming a Service Partner, which means that you would give a discount to Certified B Corporations.  You can find a list of existing service partners at www.bcorporation.net/services/.  If you’d like to move forward with that please let me know and I will connect you with a member of our Services team to set that up.  --

Heather R. Van Dusen
B Lab, Certifying and Supporting B Corporations