BCorp and our commitment to ESG

B Corp – Realm’s journey to Certification

As of November 2023, Realm is now a Certified B Corp, joining a select group of worldwide businesses that have undertaken the journey to validate and benchmark our social and environmental impacts.

Having Certified B Corporation status means that our company has voluntarily met the highest standards for social and environmental performance. These standards are intentionally set high and are meant to recognise leading companies. The standards are developed independently and cover a company’s impact in key areas, including Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers.

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About B Lab

There’s no Planet B.

B Lab describe themselves as the nonprofit network transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.

Building on their standards and certification process, their network leads economic systems change to support a collective vision of an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.

B Lab programs and tools help B Corps and non-B Corps plan for a resilient future – including multinationals looking to understand their social and environmental footprint – and their policy work pushes for meaningful legal change around corporate accountability and social impact.

The B Global Network and B Lab UK

There are B Labs across the globe (forming the B Global Network) including Australia, East Africa, mainland Europe and North and South America. B Lab UK is a charity that launched in 2015.

As part of this international network, B Lab UK leads economic systems change to support our collective vision of an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy. Our purpose is to redefine success in business through building a community of engaged businesses, raising awareness of the B Corp Movement and influencing change in the UK economy.

What is a B Corp?

Certified B Corporations, or B Corps, are companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.

Realm joins other prominent businesses Ellandi, Stanhope PLC and The Portman Estate as one of the few certified B Corps in the UK Real Estate Sector, joining other household name operators such as the Jamie Oliver Group, Ben & Jerrys, Body Shop, Patagonia, Guardian Media Group, Gousto and Innocent.

Our most challenging problems cannot be solved by governments and nonprofits alone. By harnessing the power of business, B Corps commit to positively impact all stakeholders – workers, communities, customers, and our planet.

There are now 1,500+ B Corp Businesses in the UK and over 6,800 worldwide across 89 countries.

You can now shop by filtering only B Corp products at Boots, Waitrose and Ocado.

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Why B Corp?

Our journey started in 2022 with a desire to find a way of externally validating all the good work we do throughout the business in terms of our environmental, community, and worker engagement.

The Directors wanted to benchmark our performance and find a way of demonstrating the added value and benefits of running our business not only as commercially for-profit undertaking, but also as an enterprise that could operate ethically and sustainably and be a force for good.

We started by engaging with one of our suppliers who we knew had obtained B Corp status, Halo – a Bristol-based Marketing Agency used by London Designer Outlet for strategy, advertising and digital comms. We spoke at length with their directors to find out if the exercise was beneficial to them, the resources they needed to help secure certification and the length of time and challenges they faced along the way.

The Board subsequently approved the decision to undertake a B-Impact Assessment, an exercise necessary to determine if we met the criteria set by B Lab in order to move to the 2nd stage interview/validation process. This was submitted in December 2022

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“Certified B Corps are businesses that balance purpose and profit and are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, community and the environment, along with wider stakeholders”
“By harnessing the power of business, B Corps commit to positively impact all stakeholders – workers, communities, customers, and our planet”.
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The Certification Process

The B-Impact Assessment focused on 5 core “pillars of impact” covering the full range of Realm’s business practice from how the company is structured, the terms, conditions, and working arrangements for our employees, our approach to community engagement, environmental considerations through to how we treat and communicate with our stakeholder customers.

A comprehensive disclosure questionnaire completed the review which amounted to over 250 separate pieces of information along with supporting documentation.

Following completion of the Impact Assessment and verification that Realm met the prescribed minimum standard to apply for B Corp status, the Company moved into the verification stage – this involved a deep dive into our responses, seeking evidence to back up our answers and, importantly confirmation that we have amended the Company’s Articles of Association – a mandatory requirement for B Corps that sets out legally binding obligations on the business.

The final stage of the verification process involved a two-hour interview (via Teams) with a Senior B Corp Analyst based in Brazil which underlined the global nature of the movement we were seeking to join.

This involved confirmation at the highest level of the business of our commitment and any final questions.

Realm’s B Corp Certification was finally confirmed on Monday 20th November following return of a signed legally binding contract with B Lab.

Our Impact Report

As a B Corp, every year Realm has to write our own Impact Report. The B Corp Impact Report explains what impact and difference our company is making on people and the planet. Detailing how we’re tracking against various B Corp assessment criteria and how we’re progressing towards our sustainability goals.

The report is a requirement for all B Corps and can be read or downloaded below.

Accreditations: Cyber Essentials | SOCOTEC ISO 14001 & ISO 45001

Certified B Corporation™: As a B Corp, we’re part of a global community of businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental impact.

Awards: British Safety Council, Sword of Honour Winner | Revo Gold Awards, 2019 Winner