Need to know
- B Corp is an international cross-industry certification scheme for companies that meet a certain ethical and sustainability standard
- Critics say the assessment criteria are vague, poorly regulated and that the standards expected from businesses aren’t high enough
- B Lab, who oversee B Corps, say they are strengthening their criteria and will have a new framework in place by 2026
Whether or not you've heard of B Corps before, you've probably been exposed to their marketing and labelling, even subconsciously.
The recognisable 'B' inside a circle is present in the advertising and imagery of the more than 9500 registered B Corp companies around the world across over 160 different industries.
More than 750 of the growing number of these registered B Corps are in Australia and New Zealand.
The certification scheme, which started in 2006, promotes registered companies as being committed to "Benefit for all" and certifies them as socially and environmentally conscious businesses using a complex points-based ranking system.
But critics of the scheme say the bar is too low for certification, its regulations are too vague and lax, claiming that the B logo is being used by big for-profit companies as a greenwashing exercise.
"If we're looking for systematic change and radical change and we want consumers to be able to identify good companies from bad, then we need better systems, we need better certification programs," says Michael O'Regan from Glasgow Caledonian University's School of Business and Society.
How do B Corps work?
For-profit companies seeking B Corp certification do so through an organisation called B Lab, which, for a fee, certifies the companies as B Corp compliant.
Companies rank themselves on a series of metrics across social, environmental and governance criteria and are given a score based on these self-appraisals. Companies must reach an overall 80 points to be eligible for B Corp certification and B Lab says the median score for an ordinary business is 50 points.
B Lab then checks that companies have accurately portrayed their social and environmental credentials and certifies them.
B Corp Australia/New Zealand brought in almost $6 million in operating revenue last financial year
The fee to become a B Corp varies based on the size of your business, with certification fees in Australia starting at a $1750 one-off fee and $2500 annual fee for businesses with revenue of under $2 million. For businesses with revenue over $1 billion the annual fee goes up to $82,800.
B Corp Australia/New Zealand brought in almost $6 million in operating revenue last financial year, $3.3 million of which was spent on operating expenses and a further $2 million of which was paid to B Lab global.
Good intentions, big criticisms
O'Regan has been studying and writing about the B Corp movement for several years.
While he doesn't doubt the good intentions behind the scheme, O'Regan believes the certification standards aren't rigorous enough and that some companies are using the scheme to ethically-wash and greenwash their brands.
"There's a lot of wild and exaggerated claims as to what B Corp is actually doing for a company," he says.
O'Regan says B Corps often get away with focusing on low-hanging fruit like making their offices more environmentally friendly, while ignoring things like human rights abuses in their supply chains.
"It is giving consumers a false confidence that they are making better choices in their purchasing decisions."
Those guys are a B Corp?
Personal loan provider MoneyMe is a certified B Corp business.
MoneyMe is a provider of personal loans, car loans and credit cards "with a B Corp difference".
The company, which scored 91.2 on B Corp's rating system, says they "care deeply about people and the planet, and we believe that accountability and transparency are key to ensuring we have a positive impact on the community at large".
But financial counsellor Deb Shroot from Financial Counselling Australia (FCA) says the company is "very problematic". FCA has documented stories of MoneyMe offering promotions to customers, encouraging them to take out further loans, which they would likely struggle to pay back. FCA also says the company's approach to pursuing debts from vulnerable people is often inconsistent with their own hardship policies and varies from case to case.
It is giving consumers a false confidence that they are making better choices in their purchasing decisions
Michael O'Regan, Glasgow Caledonian University School of Business and Society
"The volume [of] complaints about MoneyMe [that] come in, they're not demonstrating behaviour that's respectful and fair to their customers through the practices that we're seeing," she says.
MoneyMe told CHOICE the company "adheres to the goals of the B Corp movement by prioritising social responsibility, stakeholder impact, and transparency."
"We take a sympathetic and respectful approach to customers experiencing financial or other difficulty, and we have well-documented policies and procedures in relation to hardship. This includes special procedures to deal with customers who are in a position of vulnerability, to ensure we treat them in a way that does not compound the difficulties they are experiencing," they said in a statement.
Former B Corp company not happy
Some have questioned Nespresso's B Corp certification, obtained in 2022.
Criticism of the B Corp system has also come from a former B Corp-certified business.
Dr Bronner, which claims to be the highest selling natural soap brand in North America and the B Corp business with the highest ranking score in the world, announced in early 2025 that the company was pulling out of the scheme because of the scheme's low standards and B Labs' decision to give certification to certain multinational companies.
"The increasing certification of multinationals including Unilever Australia and Nespresso in 2022, followed by Nestlé Health Sciences in 2023, demonstrated that B Lab is not committed to protecting the integrity of the B Corp Certification and movement, nor ensuring that the certification won't be used to mislead consumers," Dr Bronner said in a statement.
"Sharing the same logo and messaging regarding being of 'benefit' to the world with large multinational companies with a history of serious ecological and labour issues, and no comprehensive or credible eco-social certification of supply chains, is unacceptable to us," it added.
Unilever ANZ received a B Corp certification score of 82.7 and Nespresso, despite its well-documented issues with child labour and human rights abuses in its supply chains, received a score of 84.3.
B Lab responds
CEO of B Lab Australia and New Zealand Andrew Davies says B Lab's decision to certify big multinational corporations hasn't compromised the integrity of the scheme.
"We made a decision a while ago that in order for us to drive change in the wider economy, we need to work with bigger businesses as well. We've had to build far more comprehensive standards and processes for those bigger businesses, and that's been a big theme of our work," he tells CHOICE.
"There is a tension, it would be silly not to acknowledge that. That tension is an important one to work with because if we're going to change the way the world works and the kind of harm that's done by business, you've got to deal with both big and small," Davies says.
"I think if you look for businesses that have a B Corp certification to be perfect, then you're holding them to the wrong standard, it's about a willingness to be accountable," he adds.
I think if you look for businesses that have a B Corp certification to be perfect, then you're holding them to the wrong standard, it's about a willingness to be accountable
B Lab Australia and New Zealand CEO Andrew Davies
B Lab was keen to highlight the work of companies like toilet paper sellers Who Gives A Crap in Australia, who donate 50% of their profits to clean water and sanitation not-for-profit organisations around the world.
Chia Sisters, another company put forward as a positive example by B Lab, is a New Zealand-based health drinks and breakfast company that sells into Australia. Co-Founder Chloe Van Dyke says B Corp certification has become part of their brand in markets where sustainability is a growing expectation.
"We wanted an external framework to test and challenge our business. We'd always prioritised sustainability and social impact, but B Corp gave us a structured way to see where we were strong and where we could improve," she says.
Regulation key to improving outcomes
B Corp has recently moved to update and strengthen its certification criteria and by 2026 all companies applying for new certification and those undergoing their three-year renewal process will be assessed by an independent third-party, not B Labs itself. The move, Davies acknowledges, is in part in response to changes of the law in Europe and in part due to "growing expectations that the certifications themselves need to stack up to expectations of what good looks like."
The European Union has introduced new stricter rules around green claims made on products and their certification. Michael O'Regan says B Corp's old standards may have fallen foul of the EU's new regulatory regime had they not updated and strengthened their procedures.
Consumers are increasingly looking to make ethical choices and poor certification schemes, along with the sheer volume of them, may hinder their ability to do so
"The fact that these directives from the EU are far stronger than anything B Corp has done registering almost 10,000 businesses, shows that regulation in this space is part of the solution," he says.
Andrew Hughes, a lecturer in marketing at the Australian National University, agrees that, closer to home, consumers are increasingly looking to make ethical choices – and poor certification schemes, along with the sheer volume of them, may hinder their ability to do so.
"Ultimately we need someone like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to be regulating these schemes and policing them, because as we have seen, time and time again, leaving it up to these schemes to certify themselves privately doesn't guarantee ethical outcomes," he says.
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Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
