Eighty.
That’s the starting place this month: one number. One number that represents the shared goals of thousands of entrepreneurs around the world—and a growing community in Costa Rica—who want to measure their businesses against rigorous standards of economic, environmental, and social impact. One number that has become one of our goals here at El Colectivo 506.
You see, 80 is the minimum score that a business must achieve on the B Assessment in order to become a Certified B Corporation. In Costa Rica, 12 companies have passed that milestone. But they’re the first to tell us it’s not a finish line. It’s really a beginning. These companies—from a law firm to a rural B&B, purveyors of solar panels and cleaning products and graphic design—have accepted the challenge of assessing, not once but continually, their impact on the world around them, in not one but five impact areas: governance, workers, community, environment, and customers. The process has an impact on the way they organize their teams, track their results, and define their communities.
At El Colectivo 506, we’re setting out on the path to B Certification ourselves, armed—as always—with lots of questions. How have Certified B Corporations in Costa Rica achieved and maintained a positive impact? Did the B Assessment simply confirm a path they’d already begun traveling, or has it changed their trajectory? In a country where B Corporations don’t yet have a special legal status as they do in the United States, for example, what benefits do certified companies accrue? And what are the challenges for entrepreneurs, particularly rural MSMEs, that wish to complete this rigorous certification?
We’ll be exploring these topics over the next month, together with the co-sponsors of this edition, all Certified B Corporations in Costa Rica that have honored us by joining in this effort—Bodhi Surf & Yoga, Casitas Tenorio, Florex, and Pucci.
Join us as we explore this complex effort to change the way the world does business.
Welcome to “‘Measuring Up.”
