Commitment with CSR by training B-Corp companies
“Be the Change” is the slogan of the worldwide B Corp movement, which is comprised of companies and institutions that are furthering a new way of doing business based on contributing value to society. There are already over 1,000 companies from 35 countries that have joined this movement and they serve over 40 million consumers. Instead of solely focusing on maximising economic profit or return for their shareholders, they seek to create wealth for society as a whole through initiatives that have a large social and sustainable impact.
EADA, from very early on has committed itself to social and environmental initiatives – both from the point of view of its own internal organisation and the relationship with suppliers and partners as well as by imparting best practices on all its training programmes. What’s more, since 2008 it has actively participated on the United Nations ‘Global Compact’ project and has now decided to join the B Corp movement as well. To this end it has signed a collaboration agreement with Roots For Sustainability (R4S), a social company that Represents Spain in B-Lab Europe –the world body that awards companies B Corp certification– and whose main mission is to help companies to obtain this distinction once they have incorporated strict social and environmental standards.
As Pablo Sánchez, a founding partner of R4S, explains “B Corp is much more than a certification for companies. It is a powerful management tool for measuring and managing the organisation’s economic, social and environmental results”. In his opinion, “it is a way of doing business in tune with people, the planet and making profit and, it also represents a movement of visionary leaders who use the company as a tool for social transformation”.
From left to right, Manuel Marín, director of the EADA Center for Entrepreneurship, Pep Tarifa and Pablo Sánchez, founding partners of R4S, Miquel Espinosa, general director of EADA and Pau Roig, EADA’s Corporate department director.
EADA’s contribution
In order to accomplish this challenge Sánchez points out that “EADA is a perfect ally for spreading these values through the corporate world, given that the school was set up by business people for business people and that it emphasises socially responsible business management on all its programmes”. And he goes on to add: “We need to transform the business world from the world of education by identifying in the classroom the commitment we all have to changing society
EADA will be promoting the B Corp concept in three ways: by inviting R4S to take part in forums, events and venues in order to explain the movement, by giving courses and training modules to B Corp companies and by offering the chance to students to take internships by working on developing B Corp in Spain. According to Manuel Marín, director of the EADA Center for Entrepreneurship, “this B Corp movement reinforces CSR in a practical way and puts forward ways of carrying it out and evaluating it using metrics, which ties in with Dr Elisabet Garriga’s research work on measuring and quantifying the impact of CSR actions”.
In this sense, Marín stresses “EADA’s responsibility so that the future executives it trains take decisions in the future that are responsible and sustainable with employees, the environment and society at large” and he goes on to add, “this will be our legacy as an institution and our contribution to the society we live in”.