determines how you are going to embed your mission and your governance.
The fundamental requirement is embedding you mission in your governance so
that the purpose of the business is being changed and
you legally are required to consider all the stakeholders, right?
So that's the requirement, making sure that
inside the DNA of the business is a different fundamental purpose.
Now how you do that Katherine depends upon whether you're an LLC or
a partnership or a corporation, it even depends where you're incorporated,
because corporate laws state by state by state.
And so what we figure out is that In some states,
you just can't rewrite your articles of incorporation.
We had to create a new legally recognized corporate form,
which you were just talking about, a benefit corporation.
And so all Certified B Corps have met our legal requirement and
embedded mission into their governance, but
how will they do that depends upon their current corporate structure.
>> Great, and so it's look different among different states in the United States.
>> That's right. >> It also would look different
around the world- >> That's exactly right.
>> Because you have B Certified Corporations around the world.
>> That's right, so we're currently in 54 countries, and
how you make that legal change, embedding mission into your governance depends upon
how and where you're incorporated and
we've determined that path in those different jurisdictions.
>> Yeah. >> All 50 states
plus the 54 countries that we're currently in.
>> I got it, so we're going to dig in to more of this but did you think ten years
ago, did you envision this, did you think, yeah, this is going to take off as it has?
How many companies are now B Certified?
>> So we have about, a little over 2,300 Certified B Corporations,
150 industries in as I said a little over 50 countries.
And the truth, Katherine, is if I go back to the business plan ten years ago,
some things we've out performed on and some things we've under performed on.
And so the community of Certified B Corps,
at this juncture we thought would be larger.
We thought there would have been a more of a tipping point and
more rapid acceleration around certification.
Simultaneously I don't think we anticipated this early in our development
passing laws in 35 states, and it's moving forward in 12 countries.
And so the legal effort has moved more rapidly.
And then finally the use of our our impact assessment, the thing we use for
certification, we call it the B impact assessment, okay.
It's kind of like a free online do it yourself management
tool to figure out your impact on your workers community and environment, right?
That's free in a public good.
We have about 65,000 users of that and I don't think we anticipated that type
of leverage, that speed of adoption of the use of the tool.
>> Got it, and that tool is essentially a survey where companies are self reporting
their practices, their products, how they treat their employees,
their governance structure and so on, we'll talk more about that.
And once a company has reached a high bar then passes your standard,
that allows them to become B Certified.
>> That's right. >> So many more of these companies have,
what did you say, 2,500, 2,300?
>> Yeah, 2,300.
>> 2,300 out of 65,000.
>> That's correct.
>> So it's hard, this is a class that's hard to get into.
>> It's intentionally so, intentionally, so
again, coming back to that theory change, we find those best in class, and
then try to include all companies to use their business as a force for good, and
use our tools to try to start this journey.
>> So for people who are just getting exposed to this world and this idea,
Can you talk about what does it mean for companies to be good for
the world, to be building an inclusive, contributing to an inclusive economy?
What might they be doing?
What do they look like?
What are their business models?
Help us see them and maybe give us a typology, a chart for how they break out.
>> Sure, and so importantly, we believe, as core to our vision and
our mission, that any company can be a force for good.
It isn't just those companies with a product that's serving the underserved or
saving the tiger or curing cancer.
It includes every business,
that every business can in fact try to contribute to an inclusive economy.
And there's different ways to do that, obviously, Catherine.
One of which is in how you operate, and the other is in what you do.
And we talk about that in two different ways, the operations of a business and
its business model.
And divide the world into two different ways you can use your business as a force
for good.
>> So let's talk about the operations first.
>> because everybody can do the operations side, right?
And so on the operations side, we're looking at how do you treat your workers?