Helping to lift the bar for over 10,000 companies around the world
When the opportunity arose to work with B Lab on their standards for B Corp certification, we jumped at it. As a B Corp ourselves, Write sees the impact of B Lab’s work every day. And we could hardly imagine a client better aligned to our own mission — to use the power of words for good.
B Lab’s reach is global. Over 10,000 B Corps are certified in more than 100 countries around the world. B Corps employ around a million people, and their impact is felt from their supply chains to their customers.
Once you start looking, you’ll spot the B Corp logo all over the place. It pops up in supermarkets, clothing stores, banks — and, of course, on the Write Group website.
Aotearoa New Zealand has over 300 certified B Corps — and we’re proud to be one of them.
The B Lab Standards make a difference
B Lab’s standards for B Corp certification are its tool for making a difference in the world.
The new standards, in B Lab’s words, offer a comprehensive blueprint for what good business looks like. And they support a global movement of leaders committed to transforming the economy for the benefit of people, communities, and the planet.
The standards are developed by B Lab, independently governed by a Standards Advisory Council, and rigorously tested with users and stakeholders.
The standards are made up of seven impact topics across social, environmental, and governance areas, plus foundation requirements to ensure a company is eligible.
Together, they lay out the requirements for both aspiring B Corps and existing B Corps.
B Lab Standards seven Impact Topic areas. Image credit: B Lab
Lifting the bar for impact
Continuous improvement is written into B Lab’s code.
B Lab revisits and revises its standards regularly, because standing still is not an option. The most pressing social and environmental issues of our time are not going away — in fact, they’re growing even more urgent.
That means companies who want to be a force for good need to push boundaries, keep pace with changing legislation, and maintain best practice in their industries. The B Lab standards help motivate them to do that and verify their efforts.
B Corp certification is also about leadership and community.
In B Lab’s ‘theory of change’, B Corps take bold action with real impacts, catalysing change throughout their community and beyond.
Senior Standards Manager Susmita Kamath worked with Write on the environmental impact topics. She emphasised the importance of responding to growing social and environmental crises.
Our goal was to make the standards more impactful, to make them more clear, and to make them responsive — both to the feedback from stakeholders and our community, but also responsive to the state of the world today.
Where Write fits in
B Lab published an update to the standards in early 2025, after its second public consultation and many months of drafting, testing, and refining.
Near the end of that cycle, in 2024, Write came on board for a plain language review of version 1.0 of the new standards — around 80,000 words, plus nearly 250 definitions.
We worked collaboratively with B Lab’s standards experts in Europe, Latin America, and the US to:
- improve the clarity and conciseness of the standards
- untangle complex requirements in precise, accessible ways
- create a consistent and accessible tone across different topics and authors
- add descriptive and reader-friendly introductions for extra context.
Write came on board for a plain language review of version 1.0 of the new standards — around 80,000 words, plus nearly 250 definitions.
Why plain language?
B Lab Senior Manager Bernard Gouw is chiefly responsible for the social impact topics. He gives three main reasons why B Lab added a focus on plain language to this edition of the standards.
Using plain language is just a kindness to our readers.
First, the standards have a diverse audience, and plain language is more accessible and inclusive for a wider readership. It’s crucial for the standards’ readers to understand what they say — clarity (or a lack of clarity) can have big implications.
Second, B Lab also translates the standards into five languages. Translating from plain language is much easier.
‘And finally, using plain language is just a kindness to our readers,’ Bernard explains. ‘We’re expecting people to read a lot of content. It’s a kind and collaborative thing to do — to make sure that what you create is readable.
‘And maybe there’s a fourth benefit,’ he adds, ‘which is that all of the above benefits B Lab. If we have clear standards, we have more impactful standards.’
The community is calling for clarity
B Lab’s emphasis on plain language also responds to feedback from companies who reviewed earlier drafts of the standards.
‘We heard very clear feedback that companies were feeling quite overwhelmed with the overtly technical nature and the language used,’ Susmita notes. ‘This could be at loggerheads with an organisation that wants to lean into JEDI principles.’
(JEDI, or Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, is one of the standards’ seven impact topics.)
‘And … around another 300,000 companies are using our standards, without being certified — just to learn about impact management and improve. So again, there’s a huge benefit in making it easier for those companies to navigate the standards.’
The estimated number of businesses using the B Lab Standards to inform their own efforts, without being certified.
Clear writing inspires clear thinking
Susmita and Bernard both speak highly of their time working with Write.
That back and forth challenged our thinking and helped us make decisions.
While Bernard had been interested in plain language for some time, Susmita was newer to the concept and its principles.
‘I honestly didn’t even know there was this thing called plain language that was so different from the way we were writing our standards. But it was really enlightening to learn how — while I didn’t know about it before — its contents are actually quite intuitive in many ways.’
Bernard says it wasn’t just the writing advice that helped. The ‘back and forth’ to untangle parts of the standards helped the team nail down what they wanted to say.
‘Sometimes there was a lack of clarity in the wording because there was no clarity in a requirement to begin with. That back and forth challenged our thinking and helped us make decisions.’
How Write made our mark on the standards
Our plain language review of the B Lab standards helped lift them from a dense, technical, and legalistic document to something more easily understandable to a wider audience.
‘Write made our standards more readable, and therefore accessible,’ Bernard says. ‘And as part of that, you made them less technical, improved clarity and flow, and made them more enjoyable to read.’
It’s not like something set in stone that can’t be broken down and rebuilt in a clearer way.
Susmita says Write helped to simplify passages she thought could only be expressed in complex ways.
‘Standards are technical, so we assume they ought to be written like that! But rewriting it the way you did, I think it helped us see that no matter how technical, how dense, there’s always an opportunity to improve it.
‘And that also helps us see the ephemerality of our content. It’s not like something set in stone that can’t be broken down and rebuilt in a clearer way.’
Empowering B Lab to integrate plain language
Part of Write’s approach is to leave our clients with a clearer understanding of plain language practices. That way, they can continue to improve their written communication after our work is done.
‘One thing I found particularly valuable about Write’s style was that you didn’t just tell us “Do this” or “I think this is better,” but you also empowered us to do things ourselves,’ Bernard says.
Working in Google Docs, with tracked edits and extensive commentary on our changes, Write was able to guide B Lab through each part of our plain language review.
The edits were thorough and extensive, but Bernard says he never felt criticised by the red wall of markup.
‘I never felt any negativity. It always felt constructive. Overall, it was a very positive experience — it felt like you understood what we were trying to do, and you were just doing your best to help us get there.’
Would B Lab work with Write again?
‘100%,’ Susmita says. ‘We are so, so happy.’
Bernard says he’s immensely proud that the plain language in B Lab’s standards gives them a point of difference from other standards.
‘There are many ways in which we talk about our standards being industry-leading, or adding value to the sustainability ecosystem. A lot of it has to do with the content, and what we’re asking companies to do to push the envelope.
‘But another part of that now is the fact that we’ve written a standard that’s gone through a plain language review.’
Before partnering with Write, Bernard felt that writing the standards in plain language might make them too informal, or diminish their rigour. But, through the process, he learned that formal and plain writing are not mutually exclusive.
‘I think what we ended up doing with our standards is creating a formal document that is also readable, and therefore accessible. Striking that balance has added a lot of value to our work.’
Get in touch to discuss your project
Writing standards in plain language makes them more accessible for more readers. That can give your standards a greater impact and reduce the time you spend untangling ambiguity.
Contact us to discuss your ideas.