Why We’re Saying No to B Corp Certification — Even After Passing

At Friendly Soap, we’ve always believed in putting ethics over profit. That’s why, three years ago, we began the process of applying for B Corp Certification, an accreditation awarded by B Lab to companies that meet its standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. 

In B Lab’s own words, the B Corp movement is built on the belief: "That we must be the change we seek in the world. That all business ought to be conducted as if people and places mattered. That, through their products, practices, and profits, businesses should aspire to do no harm and benefit all."

That mission resonated with us, especially as a business that has always prioritised ethical responsibility and doing right by people, animals, and the planet. Since we were already practising the majority of what B Corp requires, applying felt like a natural step for us to join a community of like-minded businesses with a shared goal of doing good.

The B Corp process has been a three-year journey of research, audits and assessments. It demanded time, energy, and real commitment from our team. To qualify, a company must score at least 80 out of 200 points across five key areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers. We crossed that threshold and passed with a final score of 84.4.

And yet, despite this, we have chosen not to accept the certification.

Why? Because the integrity of B Corp has been compromised.

Large multinationals, including Unilever Australia, Nestlé Health Sciences, and Nespresso, have been awarded B Corp status, despite well-documented histories of serious human rights violations, animal welfare concerns, and environmental destruction. Yet Nestlé Health Science achieved a B Corp score of 89.1 – 4.7 points higher than ours! This raises the uncomfortable yet important question: How can companies responsible for so much harm be awarded a badge meant to symbolise positive impact?

A Flawed Scoring System

Our score of 84.4 highlights a frustrating paradox, one that we believe points to deeper flaws in the scoring system. Points are awarded for policies and improvements, but for a business like ours, which already operates ethically and sustainably, there’s limited room to show measurable “progress.” Meanwhile, larger corporations with greater resources can create new policies or make surface-level changes to gain points, often without delivering real, lasting impact. In this way, the system can be manipulated as a tool for greenwashing, offering credibility without requiring full commitment to responsible practices. We believe this undermines the integrity of the certification, allowing companies to benefit from the B Corp label while continuing business as usual behind the scenes.

Throughout the process, we were waiting for B Corp to announce its new standards, revisions we hoped would tighten the framework and close the loopholes we held concerns about.  We continued to pursue the B Corp certification in good faith, believing that new standards were on the horizon and that the framework would evolve into one worthy of the values it claims to uphold.

These concerns are not ours alone. In 2022, the Fair World Project published an open letter calling for reform and stronger standards within the B Corp framework. This letter was signed by over 30 mission-driven businesses, including Dr. Bronner’s, the highest-scoring B Corp to date, which has since left the certification altogether after the anticipated changes failed to materialise.

The new standards were finally published on 8th April 2025. Unfortunately, they fell short of what was needed. Despite widespread concern, they failed to introduce the level of stringency required to prevent large corporations from continuing to misuse the certification. In light of this, we decided to act quickly and reject our own B Corp accreditation.

Choosing Integrity Over Accreditation

Even though we passed, even though we respect the many small and independent businesses who remain part of the B Corp community, we can’t, in good conscience, align ourselves with a certification that no longer reflects the values it was founded on. To accept it would be to contradict our mission: to be a business that consistently puts ethics above profit, not just on paper, but in practice.

We hope our decision inspires others to reflect on what B Corp stands for today, and what it should stand for tomorrow. We support our allies who remain accredited and encourage them to keep pushing for the meaningful changes the movement still has the potential to deliver.

When we began this process, we were genuinely excited by what B Corp stood for: a global community of businesses committed to doing better. And while our trust in the certification has faded, not all has been lost. This journey prompted us to make internal changes, such as moving our business structure to prioritise stakeholders, rather than shareholders.

Walking away wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s the right one for us, and one we stand by with conviction. Because doing business responsibly isn’t a milestone, it’s a mindset. And for us, that mindset is what drives us in every decision we make.

The Friendly Soap Team