We’re a Certified Benefit Corporation!
/By Dani Babineau
Finally, a bright spot in 2020.
Believe it or not, we have good news. Great news, really. Redemption Rock Brewing Co. is officially a Certified Benefit Corporation! It’s the culmination of a roughly 18-month assessment, review, and certification process, and good god does it feel amazing.
This makes us the first Certified Benefit Corporation (B Corp) in Worcester (UPDATE: This actually ain’t true. The first B Corp is Worcester is actually Vanderburgh House which provides sober housing for men and women in recovery from addiction and was certified in 2018.), the first craft brewery B Corp in Massachusetts, and the third craft brewery B Corp in New England (joining the legendary Alchemist in Vermont and Allagash in Maine. Please click here to access our reaction to that).
Okay enough chest thumping. What does this, like, actually mean? Because if you’re at all familiar with us, you’ve almost noticed that we’ve referred to ourselves as a B Corp - a for-profit company that uses the power of business to build a more inclusive and sustainable economy - for a long time. So what’s changed?
Prior to this big moment, we were only a registered benefit corporation, which is a corporation status in Massachusetts. This status (which is also available in more than 30 states and many countries) allowed us to amend our governance so that, by law, we can make decisions and implement practices that consider not just shareholder value, but the impact on all stakeholders — employees, customers, society, and the environment.
To become a Certified Benefit Corporation, or B Corp (so yes, that’s different than a lower-case benefit corporation), a company has to achieve the minimum verified score on their B Impact Assessment - a third-party review that measures a company’s performance in five categories: governance, workers, customers, community, and the environment. A company has to be open for at least a year to go through this assessment process, and takes anywhere from 6-12 months to complete.
And we did really well on ours! Read on to learn more about the scoring process and our breakdown.
The B Impact Assessment and Scoring
As mentioned, companies going for B Corp certification are scored in five areas: governance, workers, customers, community, and the environment. Across these five areas, we had to demonstrate to B Lab - the third-party organization that provides B Corp certification - that we’re doing the real work, like developing processes, metrics, and KPIs, setting goals and benchmarks, measuring and improving our progress, and formalizing policies and commitments across our business.
We won’t get too into the exact topics and questions covered in each category, because, well, it’s a lot. But you can get a bigger breakdown on our B Corp profile page: https://bcorporation.net/directory/redemption-rock-brewing-co.
As you can see, companies have the option to focus on certain areas more than others in order to hit the minimum score, which is 80. We got a 96.8. Heck yeah.
And it should surprise no one that our largest scores were for Community (our partnerships with local nonprofits and efforts to conduct the bulk of our business locally played a big role in achieving this score) and Environment (largely for our efforts in monitoring and limiting our energy usage and reducing waste).
We’re certainly proud of this score, but we have a tremendous amount of people we have to thank for making this possible.
Thank you to Anna Vellante, our former taproom employee and sustainability liaison, and Aswira Pasha, who were instrumental in helping us understand our waste and energy usage and putting programs in place to measure and limit these. And thank you to Pat Knight, our Benefit Director, for helping us make heads and tails of the certification process. And thank you to our wonderful local vendors, who make sourcing locally easy, including Crust Bakeshop, Acoustic Java, Atomic Coffee Roasters, Four Star Farms, Stone Path Malt, Valley Malt, Pearson's Elmhurst Dairy Farm, Worcester Wares, Polar Seltzer, Mullahy's Cheese Shop, State 64, New England Label, Lincoln Crafted, Westerman Store & Restaurant Supply, and so, so, so many more (terribly sorry to those we inevitably missed).
And of course, the biggest of thank yous goes to our team - Bronwyn Vogler, Rebecca Baker, Jen Carlson, and Frances Pittman - for fulfilling our mission every single day. And, last but not least, to all our customers who are voting with their dollars and making this possible.
What’s Next
Well, we were gonna plan an absolutely epic party to commemorate this special moment, but that’s pretty much out the window right now. So we’re going back to the drawing board when it comes to formal celebrations.
In the meantime, we’re gonna start plastering the Certified B Corporation on EVERYTHING. Merch, stickers, beer cans, you name it. In fact, some beers already have it on the label, and we have special B Corp stickers up for grabs now!
Other than that, nothing really is changing. Being a B Corp has been in our DNA since day 1, and we’re gonna keep on keeping on. We’re looking forward to having you all continuing to be a part of it, too.
