86 Businesses Honored as 'Best for Communities' for Improving Quality of Life in Communities Across the U.S. and Around the World

WAYNE, Pa., July 22, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, 86 companies worldwide were recognized for creating the most positive impact for their community by the nonprofit B Lab with the release of the third annual 'B Corp Best for Communities' list. This analysis includes metrics regarding supplier and workforce diversity, volunteerism and charitable giving, local and fair trade supply chains, and the products/services' direct impact on social issues including health, education and economic opportunity.

The 'B Corp Best for Communities' list honors businesses that earned a community impact score in the top 10% of all Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment, a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of a company's impact on its workers, community, and the environment. Honorees were recognized among micro, small, and mid-sized businesses.

Highlighted companies include d.light design, supplier of affordable, renewable energy to 30 million people in 60 countries, Greyston Bakery, which provides job opportunities regardless of work history through their open hiring policy, and Minnesota's Sunrise Banks, which invests in projects to develop strong communities that provide homes and jobs to their residents.

The 'Best for Communities' companies come from over 35 different industries such as consulting, educational support services, retail and financial services. A quarter of honorees are based outside North America, with 25% of companies operating in emerging markets including Chile, the Republic of Korea and Kenya. (Full list at http://bestfortheworld.bcorporation.net/2014-best-for-the-world-community-honorees.html)

"B Corps around the world are taking the extra step to build thriving communities," said Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder B Lab. "The Best for Communities Honorees stand as the gold standard to help inspire any company to start using business as a force for good and improve the quality of life of those around them."

Each honored company is a Certified B Corporation. They use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems and have met rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. In fact, B Corporations are 30% more likely to give workers time to volunteer than other sustainable businesses (B Analytics). Today there are over 1050 certified B Corporations, across 60 industries and 34 countries, unified by one common goal: to redefine success in business.

B Lab released the "Best for the World" list (overall impact) in March and the "Best for the Environment" list (environmental impact) in April. The 'Best for Workers' (employee impact) list will be announced in the fall.

Visit http://bestfortheworld.bcorporation.net/2014-best-for-the-world-community-honorees.html for full list.

B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement to redefine success in business so that all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world.

B Lab drives this systemic change through a number of interrelated initiative: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between "good companies" and good marketing; 2) passing legislation to accelerate growth of social entrepreneurship and impact investing (25 states have already passed benefit corporation legislation); 3) developing B Analytics, a customizable platform for investors to benchmark and report the impact of their global private equity portfolios; and 4) providing free, powerful tools for businesses to measure, compare and improve their social and environmental performance (more than 16,000 businesses use B Lab's free B Impact Assessment).

For more information, visit www.bcorporation.net.

Executives from all B Corps available for comment. For more information contact Katie Kerr at [email protected], (610) 293-0299

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SOURCE B Lab