B Corp Diaries

In this first chapter, I talk about how we originally came to learn about B Corp, why we decided to commit wholeheartedly to the process, and how we got started.

Discovering B Corp

Since I founded Team Tactics in 1995, we’ve always been ahead of the curve with the activities and experiences we offer to corporates. The concept of team building is sometimes met with reluctance from employees, and when they’re asked to drop their day-to-day to take part in seemingly random activities with no explanation or objective for doing so, it’s easy to see why the rationale is questioned.

Through 2023, we began to offer more charity and CSR team building activities, providing businesses with opportunities to unite their teams and support causes that employees genuinely wanted to get behind. Not only do these activities bring teams together in a powerful way, but they also make a real difference to disadvantaged communities, people and animals. In 2023 and 2024, with the help of our clients, we have donated 405 adult and child bikes; 98 dog wheelchairs, 1118 prosthetic hands; 492 meals to the homeless; and much more, through our charity partners.

While I knew we weren’t unique in offering CSR activities, I did know that we needed to do things differently having researched what other event companies offer. I felt conflicted watching what consisted of CSR team building – seeing the positive impact they were driving in one area but at the same time neglecting to consider their environmental impact, using single use plastic materials, for example. Everything we would source from now on as a business, wherever possible, would be sourced sustainably, ethically and responsibly.

When chatting to a friend and fellow business owner about our approach towards sustainability and how we wanted to differ to other events companies, I was met with, “Oh, you mean B Corp!” I hadn’t heard of B-Corp before. However, after our conversation I researched this new word, what it meant and what is stood for and felt it perfectly epitomised the direction we wanted to go ourselves as a business. We were ready to jump in with both feet!

B Corp also aligned with my plans in the long term. In the next 10 years or so, somebody else will take over Team Tactics and I’d like to leave the business in the best possible way, with a minimal carbon footprint. With a fabulous team around me and having taken a step back in the day-to-day running of the business, I now have more time to get the framework of the business right.

Generating employee buy-in

In many cases, I hear that B Corp certification is raised and pushed forward by climate-conscious junior employees, while management are more reluctant to look at it because the focus isn’t entirely on profitability. However, in our case, B Corp was initially proposed and driven by me – the founder and MD of the business – but without my team’s support the business couldn’t progress.

In January 2024 at our company off-site, we dedicated a portion of the day to talking about B Corp and what it would mean for the business. Momentum and excitement from our young team has continued to build from there and now it’s starting to become more embedded into the culture of our company. The ideas and suggestions are coming thick and fast, and we often have to take a step back to consider the whole picture before putting the wheels in motion. It’s a learning process for everyone, and one that we’re all fully committed to.

Formalising procedures and documentation

The five pillars of B Corp align with our existing focus areas for the business, but compiling the appropriate documentation and proof to submit for certification is time-consuming, especially for an SME. While larger businesses have procedures documented as standard, as a small company we’ve never had these formalised on paper. It’s long been a goal of mine to define and document company policies, but resource has always been a barrier. Carving out the time and space to focus on B Corp has meant that I’ve started to do this, using the five pillars as a roadmap of the different areas we need to work through. It’s not only an important part of applying for the certification, but it’ll also make packaging up the business to hand over one day much easier, with its principles, procedures and values set in stone.

Engaging a consultant

Another crucial part of our early B Corp journey was enlisting help and support from a specialist. While I was willing to invest the time and effort in the process, the application and everything it involved seemed incredibly overwhelming. Those of you who have looked at the document for the first time will be nodding in agreement! Upon reaching out to my network and discovering that an existing contact and friend of mine specialised in B Corp consultancy, it was a no-brainer to enlist her help and expertise to help guide us.

Alongside Helen, I’ve found information and guidance on the B Corp website to be incredibly useful, helping us break each section down into bitesize pieces and slowly chip away at our goal. Personally for me, undertaking just a few questions at a time has given me greater focus on each section. Each part of the journey is like part of a marathon, and chipping away at each mile at a time is more motivating.

What’s next?

As we continue to work towards our B Corp certification, I’ll share our journey in installments here on our website. I’ll be sharing our experiences as I work across each of the ‘five pillars’, and touch upon important topics like carbon footprint calculations.

I hope you’ve found my first chapter helpful and I hope to see you all in the next.

In this second chapter, I delve into one of the five impact areas – governance – breaking down what it entails, the key steps we’ve taken as a business, and my advice to other leaders taking on this area of the assessment.

Getting to grips with governance

When we started to tackle the governance ‘impact area’, I first had to do some reading to understand exactly what it refers to – where it starts and where it ends. Essentially, this part is all about documenting exactly how the business is managed and defining the ethics, systems and processes and that underpin our wider mission. Yet, with employees, environment, community, customers and financial performance all coming under the governance umbrella, it’s a sizeable area to tackle. There are questions to be answered, processes to be formalised, and evidence to be compiled.

Updating documentation

As we started to work on governance, it quickly became clear it would require updates to some of our formal and legal business documentation. As part of this, we had to make an amendment to our ‘Articles of Association’ to reflect that the company aims to pursue a positive impact on both society and the environment.

We also had to revise and publicly share a corporate mission statement for Team Tactics, outlining our commitment to using business as a force for good. We’ve been working on a new section of the website to host this (and our B Corp Diaries!) which we will continue to build on as we work through the assessment.

We’ve not only had to update documentation to outline our commitment to social and environmental responsibility, but we’ve also made amendments to our employee documentation to define how our team should go about this in their roles. We’ve updated our job descriptions to reflect that social and environmental performance should be integrated into decision making, ensuring that all actions taken align with our ethical standards and contribute to employee and customer wellbeing, as well as financial success. Employees also agree to support diversity, quality and inclusion and do their bit to monitor and report on the social impact the business creates. This has also been reflected in our employee handbooks, code of conduct and DEI policy.

The role of measurement

A number of the governance questions we must work through relate to the KPIs we’re tracking to determine whether we’re meeting our social and environmental objectives, and as such, we have defined a broad range of metrics we’ll be tracking moving forward. These include financial; charity; employee engagement and satisfaction; community impact; innovation and growth.

But what does this look like exactly? Let’s take our environmental impact KPIs, for example. We’re now measuring the total greenhouse gas emissions produced by the company’s activities, energy consumed and the percentage from renewable sources; water consumption and efficiency; the amount of waste produced and the percentage recycled or diverted from landfill; and the percentage of materials sourced from sustainable or certified suppliers. Within this one area, there’s a huge to consider and measure.

Some of these commitments are more challenging than others. With the team building activities we create and host, for example, we’re trying to use as many recycled materials as possible and source sustainably. For our Watt’s Sustainable event, we went to great lengths to ensure we upheld the integrity of the game and sourced materials responsibly, using FSC-certified wood, recycled fishing nets, and eco-leather. While this affects the profitability of the event, we are prepared to take the hit to ensure we don’t compromise on our values. However, with a new event we’ve been exploring, our responsibly-sourced materials are coming out at thousands of pounds, while foam alternatives are just a couple of pounds each. There’s no straightforward answer, but there must come a balance with our materials sourcing choices and wider profitability as we strive to be a financially successful yet sustainable and ethical business.

Reflection and key takeaways

The governance impact area has been a huge learning curve – and it’s something we’re still working through.

My advice to any business leader embarking on this stage of the B Corp assessment would be to research governance and what it entails as a business. The literature from B Corp itself was easy to digest and gave good direction. It can also be helpful to look at the websites of B Corp Certified organisations – take in their public mission statements and any information they’ve shared about their journey.

While our experience working through governance as a small business will undoubtedly vary from a public company with thousands of shareholders, I don’t think the importance of research and understanding can be overlooked at any level.

Another challenging part, as I touched upon in my last chapter, is getting our mission, processes and evidence down in writing. We’ve operated as a business for almost 30 years without having all of these processes documented or formalised, and trying to remember and capture everything accurately to get it down on paper can be tough.

However, formalising our mission and processes, measuring our progress, and committing to targets, has undoubtedly helped us learn and grow as a small business. We know we can’t be perfect – and no company is – but we’re taking steps to improve and holding ourselves accountable.

In this chapter, I share my take on the second of the five impact areas – workers. I cover some of the new measures we’ve implemented, our ongoing challenges with workplace diversity, and how being a small business both helps and hinders the process.

Workers: What does it entail?

The workers section of the B Corp assessment is wide-ranging, covering financial security, health and safety, wellness, career development, engagement and satisfaction, and models to benefit and support employees. Of all the impact areas, this was one that we were keen to sink our teeth into. Without our fantastic team, we wouldn’t have a successful business, and we’re always looking for ways to support our employees and enhance their experience with us. We spend a lot of our waking hours at work, so it’s important it’s as fulfilling and enjoyable as possible.

The questions in this area of the assessment cover how employees are paid; how the company is structured to benefit them; our approach to onboarding and professional development; our parental leave policies; how the company engages and empowers its workers; and so much more.

Changing and revisiting employee policies and procedures

As we’ve been working our way through this impact area, we’ve had to introduce and formalise certain processes and mechanisms. While we’ve had our own processes and ways of handling issues, many of them haven’t been formally documented until now.

We’ve established a formal staff complaints procedure to foster open, respectful and trusting relationships with staff, and outlined that if a satisfactory resolution cannot be met, external, impartial resource will be available.

Another new measure is our annual anonymous engagement survey, used to gauge how employees feel across a range of important matters. It’s designed to collect honest ratings and feedback on job satisfaction; salary; benefits package, work environment, work-life balance; company goals; business growth; training and development; DEI; company values; and the future of the company. The first survey has been incredibly positive, affirming high levels of satisfaction generally and providing clear, actionable feedback. It will be interesting to see how next year’s results compare with the new policies, measures and ideas we’re implementing.

We’ve also spent some time revisiting our employee handbook with the help of a legal firm to ensure it contains everything it should. With the addition of our B-Corp mission, nondiscrimination statement, anti-harassment policy, and grievance resolution processes, it’s become quite a hefty document!

Workforce diversity

One of the most challenging areas we’ve come up against as part of our B Corp journey is diversity. Being located in a far corner of South East Kent countryside, the commutable radius of our office doesn’t have a particularly ethnically diverse population. While we do fare better with regards to our gender splits and age range in the team, we don’t a diverse race or ethnicity representation. With our geographical location, this feels somewhat out of our hands. However, we don’t want to become complacent in our approach.

For now, our focus remains on creating a workplace and company that’s accessible and inclusive, removing barriers and addressing biases so Team Tactics can welcome and support employees from marginalised groups in future.

Employee support and supplementary benefits

Another area we found difficult was the question on ‘supplementary benefits’ – whether we provide on-site childcare, off-site subsidised childcare, free or subsidised meals, or have a policy to support breastfeeding mothers. As it stands, our answer is ‘none of the above’. Many of the options provided here seem like resource only much larger firms can provide, and as an SME up against tough economic and sector challenges, these benefits simply don’t seem feasible.

As a close-knit team, we pull together to celebrate and support one another through life’s milestones as well as the day to day. However, many of the special things we do aren’t formalised or recognised by this part of the framework, and at times, it can feel as though the assessment overlooks small businesses.

Reflection and key takeaways

The workers impact area has been good for us. It’s helped to focus attention on important issues and pushed us to establish and formalise crucial structures. Being so involved in the day-to-day, I don’t often stop to think about the bigger picture, and these questions have led to new ideas and developments that I truly feel will take Team Tactics in a positive direction and make life even better for our employees.

At times, working through the assessment can be frustrating. The ability to impact certain metrics feels out of our control, and some of the suggestions don’t feel feasible for a small business like ours. However, this encourages us to continue pushing, improving and considering outcomes beyond what we initially thought possible.

While our size can feel like a hinderance at times, one of our key strengths is that our employees feel heard, and feel they have the space and forum to voice their opinions, knowing that every member of the team will listen to them. This open communication is a crucial foundation as we continue to make changes for the betterment of the team and business.

In this chapter, I share my take on the third of the five impact areas – community. I cover why this has been one of the harder sections we’ve tackled so far, how we’ve documented and formalised our community commitments, and further learnings and reflections as we prepare to submit our B Corp application.

Community: What does it cover?

With our charity and CSR events being such a significant part of our business, we were looking forward to getting stuck in with the community section. However, it has been one of the more difficult areas we’ve worked on and is much more wide-ranging than we’d first assumed.

In B Corp’s words, the community impact area evaluates a company’s engagement with and impact on the communities in which it operates, hires from and sources from. It incorporates themes of DE&I, economic impact, civic engagement, charitable giving and supply chain management.

We’re diving into this chapter at an exciting time in our B Corp journey as, behind the scenes, we’re getting ready to submit our application. We’re incredibly thankful to have the support and expert guidance of our consultant, Helen Rushton, as we understand what each question is asking of us, and how it relates to our business. It has taken us around 18 months to get here and know that this means the process is far from finished, but we’re excited to have reached this milestone. For now though, back to all things community.

Suppliers

We’ve spent a significant amount of time evaluating our suppliers as we’ve worked through this impact area and (like many areas!) a large focus has been on documenting and formalising what we do.

Over nearly three decades in business, we’ve developed strong and long-lasting relationships with our suppliers and feel we have a good grasp on who they are and what they stand for. However, the assessment requires a level of supplier information that we didn’t have access to, for example, their diversity of ownership. To gain a better understanding of who we’re working with, we’ve had to collect a large amount of information, asking suppliers about everything from materials sourcing, to what measures they have in place to support workplace diversity, and whether they are B Corp certified or hold any other third-party certifications.

We have also developed a community supplier code of conduct that, alongside all the standard legal and ethical stipulations, outlines that suppliers should demonstrate a commitment to DEI and implement practices that minimise environmental impact. We’re now obtaining supplier signatures and will conduct audits every couple of years to ensure their values and practices continue to align with ours.

The questions also touch on the locality of suppliers, which is another area we found challenging. Being based far out in the South East Kent countryside, we don’t benefit from proximity to suppliers. While we do make some purchase decisions with location in mind, for example, utilising freelancers nearest to event venues to minimise carbon footprint from travel, this is another area we’ve struggled with. We now ask employees to evaluate on a case-by-case basis, weighing up B Corp values and cost to make the best decision for the business.

Charity

When it came to the assessment questions on charitable giving, we assumed we’d score highly because of all the charity events we run and the incredible donations we’re able to facilitate. However, as our consultant Helen pointed out, these are on behalf of our clients and don’t translate directly into our community impact. This required us to narrow our focus to the charity events we do solely as Team Tactics, such as our work with Catching Lives, a charity supporting homeless and insecurely housed people in East Kent.

The assessment also asks for the percentage of our revenue donated to charity, which we’ve struggled to convey. For example, when our clients take on our Apprentice-style charity treasure hunt, Team Tactics employees volunteer to distribute the items collected to the appropriate charities, but it’s difficult to reflect that in quantitative metrics.

However, the charity questions have prompted us to formalise some of the things we offer, such as offering employees three volunteering days per year on full pay and matching individual workers’ charitable donations. We have set these out in our new statement on social and environmental impact through philanthropy.

Further changes

Alongside our new supplier and philanthropy policies, we’ve made several other important changes to our documentation and processes.

One of which is our overarching community engagement policy, which outlines how Team Tactics supports the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of its local and wider communities. Within this, it outlines how we participate in community events, support local businesses in any purchasing we do, contribute to charitable causes, and look to create new charity team building events that can help enhance the wellbeing of others. It also outlines our partnerships with local organisations and stakeholders, including Pilgrims Hospice, Porchlight, Kids Out (Luton), National Autistic Society, Eary Lives Foundation, and The Young Lives Foundation.

We have also enlisted the support of our recruitment partners to conduct an analysis of the language used in our job postings and descriptions to ensure they are inclusive and equitable and include a statement outlining our commitment to DE&I.

Reflection and key takeaways

There’s certainly been frustrating parts of the community impact area, like the questions regarding ‘low income communities’ and how that’s defined and recognised beyond individual interpretation.

At times, we also felt somewhat penalised for being a small business, as fast-growing businesses typically gain more points with regards to job creation and economic impact. Our business is purposely fairly static. We are, and intend to be, a small business. However, reflecting on what we already offer to a range of communities and stakeholders has been very rewarding, and continues to form a large part of who we are.

Aside from the importance of documentation and formalising processes (not to sound like a stuck record!) my main learnings from this impact area come in the themes of patience and persistence.

The B Corp assessment is vast, and at times, can feel a little daunting. Split it into manageable chunks – whether it be a few questions at a time or a couple of hours spent working through it every week, for example. There’s been periods where we’ve been so busy at Team Tactics that our application has taken a backseat, and other times where we’ve been heavily focused on it, but that’s okay. We’re making significant fundamental changes to the way we do things, and this takes time. We found that there are some things we can change now, some we can’t, and lots that we intend to revisit and improve in future. It’s important to accept that you can’t do everything all at once.

When we started working through the assessment and scored ourselves it was daunting, and we realised we had a long way to go. However, it’s all important to reflect periodically and realise how much progress and growth has been achieved. In a relatively short space of time, we’ve made so many important changes and it’s rewarding to see the culture changing in the office as the team learns along with us and shares our excitement.