‘Social Impact is the true measure of success in a company’- Marcello Palazzi, Co-Founder, B Lab Europe
Last Thursday, AMI team members joined the social impact community in Nairobi to celebrate the progress of African social enterprise and the work of B Lab in East Africa. What exactly is B Lab? Good question, and it’s worth knowing if you’re an impact organization. B Lab is a non-profit organisation founded in 2007 to support entrepreneurs interested in using business as a tool to solve social and environmental problems.As a result, ‘B Corporations’ (or ‘B Corps’) were born. B Corps are organisations whose social and environmental performance standards have been certified through a rigorous assessment process conducted by B Lab. The impact of these organisations in areas such as community, environment, workers and customers is assessed. Currently, there are 846 Certified B Corps across 52 industries from 48 countries. African B Corps include Fintech Innovator Zoona and shoe manufacturer Oliberte, amongst others. Globally, Ben and Jerry’s and Patagonia are major brands which count themselves as part of the B Corp family.
We were inspired both by the work B Lab is doing to promote high environmental and social standards and by the range of high-impact organizations present at the evening. Check out some of our images from the event below.
If you’re a B Corp or an organisation focused on maximizing your impact, AMI’s practical and affordable blended learning programmes for impact organisations may be of interest. These programmes include courses on Innovating for Social Enterprise, Effective Advocacy and Scaling Impact, amongst others. Contact info@africanmanagers.org to learn more.
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