Update: In 2025, B Lab replaced the points-based B Impact Assessment with new standards built around seven mandatory impact topics, required for new applicants from January 2026. This engagement began under the previous framework, and the readiness work described here (documentation, policies and stakeholder practices) carries over to the new standards.
In brief: A small chocolate maker already practiced fair labor, responsible sourcing and community engagement, but had little of it documented. Readiness work separated strong-but-undocumented practices from real gaps, built the paper trail certification requires, and drafted right-sized policies, giving the business a prioritized roadmap toward B Corp certification.
Challenge
A small chocolate manufacturer wanted to pursue B Corp certification as a way to formalize practices the business already valued informally - fair labor, responsible sourcing, community engagement - and to signal that commitment credibly to retail partners and customers. The challenge was translation: the B Impact Assessment is built around corporate-scale documentation and governance structures, and the business had never had to prove what it was doing, only do it. Leadership needed to know where they stood against the assessment's actual scoring criteria before investing further time in an application that might fall short.
Approach
We worked through the B Impact Assessment category by category - Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers - scoring the business's current practices against certification requirements and separating three types of findings: what was already strong and simply undocumented, what needed policy or process changes to meet the bar, and what would require longer-term investment.
Documentation audit - Many of the business's strongest practices existed only as habit - informal supplier vetting, ad hoc employee benefits, community donations tracked nowhere. A significant part of the engagement was building the paper trail the assessment requires, without changing practices that were already sound.
Gap identification - Findings identified which areas were closest to meeting requirements and which needed the most work, so the business could sequence effort where it would make the most progress rather than spreading attention evenly.
Policy development - For gaps that reflected genuine absence rather than undocumented practice - formal environmental policies, structured governance documentation - right-sized policies were drafted to match the business's actual size and operations, avoiding the trap of importing corporate-scale governance language that would not reflect how a small manufacturer actually operates.
Stakeholder engagement planning - Certification also requires evidence of stakeholder consideration - employees, suppliers, community. A lightweight framework was built for gathering and documenting that input on an ongoing basis, not just for the application, so it becomes part of how the business operates going forward rather than a one-time exercise.
Current Status
The engagement is ongoing. The business has a clear picture of where it stands against certification requirements, a prioritized roadmap toward the certification threshold, and documentation practices now in place to support both the application and future recertification. Formal certification submission is anticipated as remaining gaps close.
Turning good practices into documented, certification-ready systems?
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