Ever since we started business back in 2010, our central goal has been to enrich the lives of everybody involved in our brand – from the farmers who produce the ingredients used in our tea to the consumers that enjoy our brews in the comfort of their homes. Last year, we were incredibly proud to see our commitment to doing good recognised through the achievement of B Corp certification.
What is a B Corporation?
Conventional thinking often claims that when it comes to running a business, you can either make money or try to do good. However, this belief is largely deceptive. B Corp certification is provided to for-profit businesses who are able to commit to and achieve exceptional social and environmental performance. Awarded by B Lab, the certification recognises the businesses that are working towards mitigating the vast inequalities caused by consumerism and highlighting those that provide a positive impact both on the planet and its people
What measurements are used to become a B Corp business?
B Lab used a number of measurements that are used together to provide B Corp certification:
Environment – B Lab evaluates each brand’s impact on the planet, assessing their sustainability aims and practices. This focuses around ecological impact on factors such as air quality, climate and biodiversity, alongside the effects on the local communities they operate within.
Employees – How a business treats its employees is central to B Corp certification. Career development, financial security and wellbeing and safety are all taken into account by B Lab.
Community – It is vital that companies do not impose a negative impact on the communities in which they interact. To achieve B Corp certification, the relationship between business and community is evaluated critically, ensuring a company’s producers and employees are benefited from their involvement in business.
Customers – B Lab evaluate the ability of the business to do good by its customers. This is analysed through the quality of its products, the ethics of its marketing and its management of personal data.
Governance – How the company operates also forms part of B Lab’s scoring. Company’s must be transparent, possess a top-down positive mission and ensuring engagement around its ethical objectives if it is to achieve B Corp certification
Our Journey to B Corp certification
As previously mentioned, doing good through our business has always been central to our aims, so going for B Corp certification was a no-brainer. Under the banner of our mantra of ‘celebrating communities from farm to cup’, we’ve been able to run many of the programmes that have allowed us to achieve this success; below, we’ve detailed just a small aperture into how we’ve been recognised for this.
An employee-owned business – As an employee-owned company, we recognise the importance of doing right by everybody who has made the English Tea Shop what it is today. By being employee-owned, we ensure our workers have a role in decision-making and have greater control over their work.
Sustainable and organic farming – The beauty of Mother Nature and its resources is obvious, but what is often underestimated is the impact that business can have on it. With this in mind, sustainability and an environmental outlook has been central to everything we do, ensuring we can create the finest organic teas whilst celebrating the Earth’s biodiversity.
Knowledge-sharing and education – Our farmers are incredibly important to us and we’ve always wanted to make sure that our relationship with them is mutually beneficial. We frequently hold training or ‘knowledge-sharing’ sessions with our farmers, to ensure they’re able to reap the full benefits of organic farming, both for themselves and the future generations to come.
Thank you so much to everybody who has supported our journey so far – whether that’s the farmers that produce our ingredients to the consumers of our teas, we wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.