Why be a B Corp? It’s something Marque Lawyers has been for over a decade, and in truth, we always were purpose-led, before B Corp was even a thing. So it’s not a question we ask ourselves anymore, but I’m always happy to talk about what it means, writes Michael Bradley.
The B stands for “benefit for all”, which is a bit woolly. Simply put, B Corps are organisations whose purpose – their “why” – is something more meaningful than profit. Not-for-profits and social enterprises can certify, making for an easier conversation, but most B Corps are regular for-profit businesses like ours.
That begs the obvious question: surely “for-profit” means just that? Isn’t “purpose” just the latest fad, another iteration of corporate social responsibility, triple bottom line reporting, environmental and social sustainability, buzzword bingo by another name?
Fair call. Actually, for most businesses, certainly most law firms, it is bullshit. They do exist purely for the purpose of making profit, and any pretence otherwise would be (and frequently is) a lie. If you asked most commercial law firms why they exist, they’d struggle to come up with a coherent answer. In truth, it’s just money.
Which is fine, the pursuit of money is hardly abstract, arguably not very noble but certainly very concrete. It’s a legitimate way of spending your career.
That’s not something that keeps us awake at night. We sincerely don’t care why our competitors exist, and have no missionary zeal to convert them to our way of thinking. It’s one of the things you notice hanging out with other B Corps: it’s not a cult. It’s just a network of like-minded people running like-minded enterprises.
To round off the philosophical chat, personally, I’d prefer to be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy, but being rich *enough* and happy is a sweet spot to occupy. What creates happiness? In my mind, that’s meaning. Using my skills in pursuit of a better world, as part of a group of clever people who share the same goal, I find meaningful.
Can you pursue purpose and be profitable at the same time? Yes, that’s not a particularly difficult trick to pull off. Maybe you’ll be less profitable, maybe more, but that’s not the measure of success for B Corps.
What do we get out of being a B Corp? It hasn’t changed how we do business, but it is a handy signifier to other B Corps and other organisations with a similar mindset. Yes, it’s good for marketing, increasingly so (Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand B Corps turn over AU$25 billion between them, so it’s more than a niche). More importantly, the B Corp network is a delightful place to hang out, full of interesting and envelope-pushing businesses doing very cool things.
Even better, the B Corp Certification process (we have to recertify every three years) is extremely tough. That ensures the integrity of the label, but also forces us to interrogate our own business periodically and lift our own game. Every time we’ve been through it, we’ve come out better. It’s interesting, once you start seeing the breadth and depth of your impact as a business on the world, how many different ways that plays out practically – and in how many different ways we can constantly improve.
That’s the difference between B Corp Certification and other quality assurance processes; it’s not a box-ticking exercise, and you’d be crazy to attempt it just for the gold star.
Very few law firms are B Corps, worldwide. Very few could qualify, and very few would want to. That’s a shame, in the sense that it reflects the reality that the legal profession isn’t generally very attached to any sense of responsibility to the world. Law has evolved as a largely mercenary pursuit, where money and status are the measures of value.
All I’m saying is that there are other ways of thinking about our role in society, in our view, better ways. But that’s just our opinion. Yours, whatever it is, has equal validity.
Michael Bradley is the managing partner of Marque Lawyers.
