We are a B-Corp!

AWO was officially certified as a B-corp organisation, joining a global membership of accredited businesses that balance purpose and profit, and who commit to using business as a force for good.

Since AWO’s founding four years ago, we have worked hard to build an ethical, values led business, embedding these principles of into our organisational development at each step of our business’s growth. We are extraordinary proud to be alongside over 1000+ other businesses in Europe and 7300+ worldwide demonstrating how better business practices can help better society as a whole.

This B-corp certification confirms that:

• our work is impactful and positive for society.
• we meet high standards of social and environmental performance, governance, transparency, and accountability.
• the way we work is to the benefit of all people, communities and the planet.

The certification process

B Corp certification has been more than two years in the making after first submitting our B Corp Impact Assessment in November 2021. As legal and policy experts in technology governance and compliance we already had robust policies and practice across a number of areas which B Corp assesses businesses on, and had applied these principles and processes across into adjacent areas.

As a relatively new business, there were however areas were hadn’t yet formalised policy around, and the B Corp process provided a productive approach on how to engage with those areas drawing on what has worked from their members. One area that we’ve advised and been involved in from public policy perspective, but hadn’t operationally implemented before was human rights and environmental supply chain management review. Putting policy into practice to find a way to review all our existing suppliers to ensure they’re meeting the standards we set for ourselves, and implement new processes for selecting new ones was a great milestone. Another area where we’d done lots of thinking around but not formalised our approach was instituting an environmental action plan. As a remote first business, lots of the traditional areas to address environmentally didn’t apply to us, so we’ve looked instead at reusing and recycling laptops and other e-waste, reducing our travel or preferencing accredited eco-friendly suppliers across all areas of our business.

We were pleasantly surprised how rigorous the certification process was, and it accounted for many months of work from our operations team to review and update our work to ensure we were meeting the highest standards we could, and meet the robust criteria B Corp requires.

With the accreditation also comes a binding legal commitment, which has been embedded into our Articles of Association. This commitment shifts the responsibility of the business away from being required to exclusively take decisions through the lens of profit maximization for the benefit of the owners, and take a wider more holistic societal view. By certifying as a B Corp, and changing our Articles of Association, we are legally required to consider the impact of our decisions and are legally accountable to all of our stakeholders - staff, communities, customers, suppliers, and the environment - not just owners and shareholders.

Moving forward

This B Corp certification demonstrates that we are committed and accountable to creating lasting value for all of our stakeholders, and credibly using our business as a force for good.

But this is just the beginning of the journey, as we continue to look for ways to improve and incorporate these ideals into our business and operational practices.

You will see the B-corp logo and certification be added to our website over the coming weeks, but for now we are happy to share and celebrate this collective achievement for our team. Thank you to @B-Lab UK for working with us these past few years and recognising our efforts in modelling the B-Corp ethos!