Analyzing B Corp Certification: Opportunities and Complexities in Addressing Grand Challenges

Résumé En

As global crises intensify, businesses face increasing pressure to align their commercial activities with societal and environmental objectives. Among the array of third-party standards aimed at assessing corporate responsibility, the Certified B Corporation label has emerged as a prominent framework, guided by its mission to "Make business a force for good". However, research has extensively studied why companies would engage in this process, much less how the assessment content is related to solving current Grand Challenges. This paper compares the content of an assessment questionnaire to the expectations outlined in literature about how companies should address Grand Societal challenges. We show that while being comprehensive on the ESG agenda, the B Impact Assessment tends to give limited attention to the interdependent and unknown nature of Grand Challenges, thus creating the risk of focusing firms' attention on known visible impacts instead of addressing the complexity of current crises. We then conclude on complementary mechanisms that can significantly improve the contribution of certification labels to making businesses a "force for good".