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.