From our friends at Oliver Russell:
Brand marketing firm Oliver Russell was recognized recently for creating the most positive overall employee impact by the nonprofit B Lab with the release of its fourth annual ‘B Corp Best for Workers’ list. The ‘B Corp Best for Workers’ list honors businesses that earned a worker score in the top 10% of more than 1,200 Certified B Corporations from over 120 industries on the B Impact Assessment, a comprehensive assessment of a company’s impact on its workers, community, and the environment.
The B Corp “Best for Worker” list sets the gold standard for high-impact companies and demonstrates any type of company can use business as a force for good. In the workers category, Oliver Russell is one of 98 companies from 13 countries and 31 industries to be so recognized. Additional 2015 Best For Workers honorees include Cooperative Home Care Associates, a worker-owned cooperative based in the Bronx, Venezuelan biotechnology firm ETAVENCA, America’s oldest flour brand King Arthur Flour and Kansas-based MAX Insurance. Thirty-five percent of honorees are based outside the US, with companies operating in emerging markets such as Brazil, Ghana, and Venezuela.
A full list of this year’s honorees can be found at bestfortheworld.bcorporation.net. And an expanded version of this news release can be found as a blog on the Oliver Russell website.
“Many companies pay lip service to the shopworn adage, ‘people are our most valuable asset’,” said Russ Stoddard, Oliver Russell founder and president. “We decided to make this a competitive advantage – to invest significantly in our employees—and we’re gratified for this recognition as it shows we’re on the right track.”
“Today’s honorees inspire all companies to compete not only to be best in the world, but best for the world,” said Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder of B Lab, the nonprofit organization that certifies B Corporations and governs the independent third party standard used to generate the comparable assessment of corporate impact.
B Lab simultaneously released separate lists recognizing the companies ‘Best for the World’ (overall impact), ‘Best for Community’ (community impact), and ‘Best for the Environment’ (environmental impact) which can be found at bestfortheworld.bcorporation.net. A total of 350 companies were named 2015 Best For the World Honorees, including Natura, d.light designs, Roshan, New Belgium Brewery, Method Products, and Seventh Generation.
Each honored company is a Certified B Corporation. These companies use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems and have met rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Today there are more than 1,200 Certified B Corporations, across 121 industries and 38 countries, unified by one common goal: to redefine success in business. Any company can measure and manage social and environmental impact performance at bimpactassessment.net.
About Oliver Russell
Oliver Russell, a Boise-based brand-marketing firm founded in 1991, builds brands for purpose-driven companies and causes. The company counts Hewlett-Packard, Allegro Coffee/Whole Foods Market, and Mountain Health Co-op among its clients. It is a certified B Corporation, part of a growing movement of companies that believe in using the power of business to help solve social and environmental issues. Since the company’s founding, Oliver Russell has donated more than $1.8 million in cash and resources via social impact grants to nonprofit causes and social enterprises. More information about these Social Impact Grants can be found here.
About B Lab
B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world and society will enjoy prosperity for all for the long term. B Lab drives this systemic change by: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and good marketing; 2) passing benefit corporation legislation to give business leaders the freedom to create value for society as well as shareholders; 3) helping businesses measure, compare and improve their social and environmental performance with the free B Impact Assessment; 4) driving capital to impact investments through use of its B Analytics and GIIRS Ratings platform.
