More than three years ago, Intellitonic became a certified B-Corp. Now, Intellitonic is proud to announce that we completed our B-Corp renewal and increased our score by 16%! 

What is B Corp?

B Lab Global is an international nonprofit that aims to improve the global economy by reviewing and certifying corporations that meet “high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.” As of 2024, there are roughly 7,500 companies across nearly 100 countries and 175 industries. 

What is B Corp certification?

The B-Corp certification requirements are rigorous. To become certified, organizations must complete a B Corp impact assessment which includes answering a ton of questions, going through multiple rounds of assessment with a certified B Corp reviewer, submitting documentation including financial statements and governing documents, and completing an interview. Once a company has completed its questionnaire and documentation, the review process takes at least 3 months (the larger the company, the longer verification takes). Certification lasts for three years and costs roughly $2,500 per year, depending on annual revenue. Note: There is also a one-time initial verification fee of $1,500

Organizations must receive a score of 80% or higher to become B Corp certified. If their score falls below 80%, they can make changes and update their documentation and questionnaire to work towards improving their standards. 

Why did we become B Corp certified? 

Our agency is based in Bellingham, WA that has a tight-knit community of small business owners. Intellitonic’s Founders formed a group of like-minded business owners after serving on a nonprofit board for Sustainable Connections.

Although our businesses differed greatly across industries e.g. residential and commercial builder, yoga studio, book store, solar energy provider, furniture store, and marketing agency (that’s us!), we all showed interest in becoming more valuable to our community. 

Together, we explored what it meant to be a certified B Corporation, how to become one, the benefits of B Corp certification, and navigated the processes to become certified. In the end, certification didn’t make sense for all industries based on the time commitment needed to go through the B Impact Assessment – that said, those businesses still found value in reviewing the process and have set goals to become certified in the future.

What is the value in certification?

We have found a lot of value in becoming B Corp certified and we had the opportunity to present the value of B Corp certification in Tokyo at the bi-annual MAGNET Global conference!

• For starters, the process was helpful for our small team to set some guidelines and standards internally on what we want to do with the business.
• It has also helped us attract team talent and communicate our agency’s core values to new and prospective team members.  
• The certification gives us a competitive edge over other marketing agencies and many clients have noted that it’s either attracted them to us or has broken a tie between us and another agency. 
• We get access local, regional and international networking events, an online networking platform via the B Corp directory, and gain a backlink and a citation from the database entry.
• Finally, B Corp certification is a recognizable international standard that allows us to show that we care without having to tell. 

The B Corp certification environmental stewardship metrics are attuned to more traditional business sectors with larger waste streams and carbon footprints. By nature, our digital marketing agency already operates with a relatively small carbon footprint as we’re not generating emissions from shipping products or creating waste from manufacturing. To keep travel-related emissions to a minimum, we maintain a remote-first work-from-home policy and are always looking for ways to reduce our environmental impact. 

What does the B Corp renewal process look like? 

Luckily, the renewal process was slightly easier than the initial assessment! The certification lasts three years but companies should prepare to start the re-verification process about two years out. Although a few new questions have been added since we became a B Corp, most recertification questions build off of the many questions that were answered in the initial assessment.

That said, B Corp is currently working on updating their certification (and recertification!) assessment and processes, making verification more difficult! If you’re thinking about starting the process, we highly encourage you to do it now!

In conclusion

While we may not be the agent of change for environmental sustainability, we can be the digital marketing agency who supports those organizations and initiatives. In the meantime, we can use our B Corp certification badge to attract and retain team members, attract (and land!) deals with values-aligned potential clients, expand our connections in the B Corp community, and be our guiding light during agency growth.