Ringing in Year 7 Officially B Corp Certified!
In 2022, we started our journey to become a B Corp, and 2 years later, here we are! It all started with wanting to be better— to be the kind of business people admire, respect, and believe in.
The journey began with a connection to purpose. Our company is driven by wanting to make a difference with how we build our team, the kinds of clients we work with, and how we operate day-to-day.
As of July 2024, MLD is officially B Corp Certified! This month is also a special one as we celebrate 7 beautiful years in business, and we’re marking it with a milestone that we are so proud to share. Achieving this goal and joining this initiative was really important to us, because the B Corp model supports people and the planet more than any other business model.
Our values at MLD align with companies striving to meet a higher standard in being more purpose driven and utilizing business to do good in the world. We wanted to be a part of this amazing group of businesses that are beyond kind and inspiring, and we’re incredibly grateful to join this community as both a service provider and advocate.
”Our most challenging problems can’t be solved by governments and nonprofits alone. For-profit businesses play a critical role in shaping our future. B Corps are for profit companies that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.”
Learn More About B Lab
What is a B Corp?
B Corps are certified by B Lab, a nonprofit network that operates out of Berwyn, PA. The B Corp certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards, verified performance, accountability, and transparency coming from categories like employee benefits, intentional community giving, supply chain/resources practices and materials.
We’re so honored to be a part of this group with aspiring companies like Patagonia, Warby & Parker and Ben & Jerry’s. There are currently 8,254 certified companies across 162 industries and countries.
To receive this certification, companies must meet and uphold “mission-driven” standards in regards to business practices. They are:
Demonstrating high social and environmental performance by metrics driven by B Lab, with a score of 80 out of 200 points. This also includes commitments going forward, a post assessment and how those metrics will be tracked.
Making a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just the shareholders or C-suite, while navigating jurisdictions.
Showcasing transparency by sharing information about performance measured by the B Lab standards.
A B Corp is a performance based on B Impact assessment, which includes a series of questions about company practice and outputs in five categories: governance, workers, community, environment and customers. We use this to measure our impact here at MLD.
We’re a young company, so we have a lot of room to grow our score! Fun fact: we are highest in our workers category.
Who Helped Us Get Here?
Community is everything for us. It’s part of who MLD is, so of course it was a part of our B Corp journey as well.
B Corp Clinic at NC State’s Business Sustainability Collaborative
The B Corp Clinic connects students to aspiring B Corporations to help them improve their environmental and social impact as part of the B Impact Teams initiative.
MLD worked with students in the Poole College Business Sustainability Collaborative at NC State for two semesters. We had a dedicated group of students that we met with once week on a Zoom call. Through our investment in this B Corp Clinic, students assisted us with a roadmap of actionables that we needed to execute to be able to earn points toward the B Corp assessment. NC State students put together a roadmap each quarter to outline what we needed to do to improve. Thanks to their dedication and research, they greatly simplified the process for us and made our actionables straightforward.
Malia Campbell
A big shoutout to our HR and wellness partner! She helped us execute our actionables and developed our company handbook to give us a formal documentation process.
B Corp Triangle Community
We also have to say a big thank you to B Corp members in our community who gave us advice and answered our questions along the way. Our beautiful community of B Corp members, like the Loading Dock and Brand Fuel, helped us understand what we needed to do and where our gaps were. Learn more by visiting their instagram page or event page. Also visit the BLDSouth website to learn about upcoming conferences.
What Makes This Certification Special?
More and more companies and people are looking to work with - not just clients, but employees, partners - we all want to do more and make an impact in the work we do.
B Corp is a journey not a destination, and we’re so happy to be amongst friends.
