What B Corp certification actually means
The B Corp logo turns up on an increasing number of clothing labels, food packets and shop windows, usually with no explanation attached. It is one of the more meaningful certifications in circulation, and it also certifies something narrower than most people assume. Here is what it does and does not tell you.
What is being certified
B Corp certification assesses a whole company, not a product. That is the first and most important distinction. An organic cotton certification tells you about a fibre; a B Corp certification tells you about the business that made the garment — its governance, how it treats workers, how it deals with customers, what it does in its community, and its environmental performance. A certified company can still sell a product with a poor environmental profile, and an uncertified one can make an excellent product.
How the assessment works
A company completes the B Impact Assessment, a lengthy questionnaire scored on a points system across five categories: governance, workers, community, environment and customers. The threshold for certification is 80 points out of a possible 200. Answers are verified rather than taken on trust, with documentary evidence requested for a sample of responses, and the process typically takes months rather than weeks.
Certification also requires a legal step that is easy to overlook and arguably the most consequential part of the whole exercise: the company must amend its governing documents to require directors to consider the impact of decisions on workers, community and environment, not only on shareholders. That change outlasts any particular management team.
What it does not mean
It does not mean a company scored well in every category — 80 points can be reached through strong performance in two or three areas and mediocre performance elsewhere, and the category breakdown is public precisely because it varies. It does not mean the company's products are recycled, organic or low-carbon. And it is not a permanent award: certified companies must reassess and re-verify their score every three years, and scores can go down as the standard tightens.
How to check a claim
The certifying body maintains a public, searchable directory of certified companies, including each one's overall score and its performance in each category. A logo on a website is not evidence; an entry in the directory is. If a company appears with a score of 81 and its environmental subscore is unremarkable, that is useful information about where its strengths actually lie.
Where it sits among other marks
Treat certifications as answering different questions rather than as a ranking. B Corp is about the business. OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 is about chemical safety in a finished textile. GOTS is about organic fibre content plus environmental and social criteria through the supply chain. The Global Recycled Standard is about verified recycled content. None of them certifies "sustainability" as a general property, and a brand displaying four logos has not necessarily answered the question you were asking. Our guide to certifications goes through the main ones individually.