Derek Moore, CEO and co-founder of Coffee & TV explains what B Corp is and what it means to his business
B Corp. For some it is a label which brings a sense of trust – that its owner is fair, green and moral – while, for others, it is of unknown importance.
For us at Coffee & TV, it’s part of who we are and we’re proud to be a certified B Corporation.
The B Impact Assessment forced us to measure the impact of our decisions on our staff, suppliers, clients and partners, our industry and the environment, and that was no walk in the park.
After two years of adapting, we made enough progress to reach certification and then the real journey began.
Our goal now is to encourage more companies from the broadcast and media industries to join us.
“I know you could be thinking B Corp is some sort of cult, and we’re out planting trees rather than making telly.”
I know you could be thinking B Corp is some sort of cult, and we’re out planting trees rather than making telly, but I hope by the time you have read this, you’ll think differently.
It took us 18 months to address each question in the B Corp assessment, which consisted of 142 questions across five main categories.
These covered governance, community, workers, environment, and customers and each question changes depending on your answer, meaning all questions are relevant to your business.
From these questions it is clear where your points lie and where you need to make changes in order to succeed at the minimum score of 80.
It’s not just the case of answering a question, every answer needs to be backed up with evidence.
So not only will you need to polish up on your policies, you will need to show evidence of implementing these over time and create a hefty filing system to keep everything in the right place.
As challenging as this was, especially due to the added pressures of covid (meaning we had to re-answer a lot of our questions when staff were at home and the studio was closed), we can safely say it was all worth it.
Certification in 2021 has brought a whole wave of unexpected challenges and triumphs.
“It has opened our eyes to the climate crisis and the challenges we face in the broadcast industry.”
It has opened our eyes to the climate crisis and the challenges we face in the broadcast industry. It has engaged us with our community and driven us to raise questions on diversity, equality, inclusion and the importance of climate justice, and it continues to ignite the fire within us to be the best for our team, the industry and the world.
We know we are one small business. Our carbon neutral studio and ambitious Net Zero 2022 goals are only one tiny cog in the chain. However, if we can encourage more companies within the broadcast and production industry, that’s big and impactful.
At a recent Net Zero pension summit I heard Richard Curtis share the idea that we should be reinventing our lives, businesses, and government strategies to align with nature as we come out of a global pandemic and work towards a Net Zero future.
Quite frankly, it’s the only future.
Through the B Impact reassessment, we look forward to seeing the effect of these changes in our improved score. You have to re-submit your assessment every three years to keep up the high standards, so now is not the time for us to sit back and relax.
I am aware of our responsibility to do more than create world class visual effects. If we can help just a few people to see the bigger picture, then we’ll have achieved another goal.
It all comes down to the B Corp triple bottom line – people, planet, profit. Each in harmony with one another and of equal importance. It is clear to me that this is the future of business and I encourage others to do the same.
Derek Moore is CEO and co-founder of Coffee & TV
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