Using Business as a Force For Good

Tonic’s Journey to Becoming a Certified B Corporation

“From conception, the success of our business has never been measured solely by profit, but also by the positive change we can make for our clients, team members, and community.” Ellen Caviligia Clark, CEO and Founder of Tonic, has always believed business could be used as a force for good. Bucking the conventional measurement of dollars earned as the sole benchmark of achievement, Tonic runs on the belief that a company can do much more than earn a healthy bottom line. This made pursuing a B Corp Certification a naturally good fit.

As of August 2023, Tonic is now officially part of a movement redefining profit and purpose — by becoming a Certified B Corporation, adding their voice to the 7,500+ companies worldwide redefining success in business to build a more inclusive, sustainable, and equitable economy.

Becoming a Certified B Corporation is no easy feat; it is a rigorous testament to having and sustaining positively impactful business practices. “Tonic has always weighed people, profits, and the planet when making decisions and discussing their impact,” says Emily Kucera, Manager of Impact Initiatives at Tonic. “Now, being a Certified B Corporation, we found a community that believes in the same values. We found a community making the world a better place.”

How do you become a Certified B Corp?

A business’s first step in becoming a Certified B Corporation is completing the B Impact Assessment provided by B Labs. This assessment is a free tool utilized by individuals and companies across the world to better understand the impact of their practices and the true weight of their stakeholder decisions. Though completing this assessment is required to become a Certified B Corporation, many companies use this tool simply as a way to benchmark their practices and understand where they can do better.

The assessment centers around five categories integral to any business — Governance, Workers, Community, the Environment, and Customers as defined below. Each category contains questions and answers that are assigned a weighted point-value based on your practices.

• Governance: “Governance” evaluates a company’s overall mission, engagement around its social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency.
• Workers: “Workers” evaluates a company’s contributions to its employees’ financial security, health and safety, wellness, career development, and engagement and satisfaction.
• Community: “Community” evaluates a company’s engagement with and impact on the communities in which it operates, hires from, and sources from. Topics include diversity, equity and inclusion, economic impact, civic engagement, charitable giving, and supply chain management.
• Environment: “Environment” evaluates a company’s overall environmental management practices as well as its impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity. This includes the direct impact of a company’s operations and, when applicable, its supply chain and distribution channels.
• Customers: “Customers” evaluates a company’s stewardship of its customers through the quality of its products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels.

A business must meet the collective 80 pt minimum requirement to submit their assessment and be queued to continue their certification. To put this into perspective, the median score for an ordinary business is 50.9 pts. From there, your business will be assigned an Account Manager via B Labs to help audit your assessment and answer any outstanding questions.

The auditing process timeline varies based on your company size and documentation. Once your answers are validated, assuming you stay above the 80 pts minimum, you continue to your official certification! Of course there are t’s to cross and i’s to dot to confirm your certification, but if you make it this far be sure to pat yourself on the back — Around 60% of companies that submit their assessment in hopes of becoming certified do not end up meeting the requirements needed to gain certification.

Tip: If your end goal is certification, gather the documentation justifying your answers as you go through the assessment, organizing per category. This will help you when you are being audited and are asked to provide proof of your answers. (And we mean proof. Like, highlighting specific verbiage in your handbook or in contracts, sharing a photo of your compost bin in the office, proof.)

Why go after certification?

As a business that walks-the-impact-walk and talks-the-impact-talk, why give time and resources to an assessment that will solely confirm what you are already doing? Becoming a Certified B Corporation, like any other certification, award, or recognition, provides an unbiased opinion of your company’s values and mission. A business can say they are a positive influence, but having those practices validated through a third-party gives the company a level of credibility simply stating you are “out here doing the work” does not. This certification not only shows your business practices are rooted in being positive, but further shows there is a balance between being profitable and bettering the world at large through that success.

Not only does the B Impact Assessment provide a business with a benchmark of their impact, but it also provides a tangible cheatsheet of how to be and do better.

Joining the B Corporation community is not just a strategic move; it’s a declaration of purpose. It’s an acknowledgment that profit and purpose are not mutually exclusive, but rather, they’re essential partners in shaping a brighter future.

Ellen Caviglia Clark

What’s next?

If you know Tonic, you know our mission of “Work with Impact,” and our focus on delivering positive change for clients, our team, and communities. By becoming a Certified B Corporation we now have a seat at the table of thosing changing the world for the better. It is inspiring to see how other businesses have leveraged their voice and impact. We’re excited to continue to grow our impact and change the tech industry for the better — And we are just getting started.