Help! Why is B Corp asking me about animal welfare?

So you've started working on the new B Corp requirements and you've spotted this one and it's left you scratching your head:

ESC 1.6 - The company monitors the animal welfare conditions in its operations.

You are not alone! This requirement appears for all businesses (except those without any workers), regardless of industry or type of business.

If this requirement doesn't feel relevant to you, here's what you need to do:

1. Open up Word or Google Docs and prepare a short statement declaring that your company is not directly involved in raising, transporting, and slaughtering of animals.

2. Sign and date the statement.

3. Convert into a pdf and attach this as evidence to the requirement on B Impact.

4. Mark it as 'Done: Evidence Ready'

If you don't do this, then it will impact the backend of your assessment where B Lab monitor how ready you are for audit.

Wait a minute, it could be relevant 🤔...

If you are unsure about whether the requirement is relevant or not, it probably means your company is linked in some way to animals. Maybe you sell pet food, maybe you sell chicken shampoo, maybe you serve meat on your menu. If you don't handle the animals yourself (raising them, transporting them and/or slaughtering them) then this requirement is still not applicable to you. The welfare of animals in your supply chain or downstream as your customers, is covered in another requirement, e.g. ESC 1.7.

So why are we all seeing it?

It's a legitimate question! B Lab tends to cater your assessment so that it is relevant to your size, sector and depending on whether you are a service or not. One of the great upgrades with this new version, is that the requirements are much more standardised. Just because the requirement feels a bit left-field to you, remember, some service companies may test on animals (e.g. to support the cosmetics or medical industry), may train animals (e.g. guide dogs) or care for animals (e.g. vets or groomers).

If you have more questions like these as you work through the B Corp standards, get in touch!

Commonplace helps companies of all shapes and sizes prepare for B Corp certification and recertification. Reach out to learn more about how we can help you figure out the workload, get your head around the details and manage the project all the way through audit.

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