I am excited and proud to announce that Ethical Ocean is a Certified B Corporation™.

B Corporations, or ‘B Corps,’ are a new kind of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.

More specifically, they are group of registered corporations that meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance who have also legally expanded their corporate responsibilities to include consideration of stakeholder interests. This is actually quite innovative. The classic corporation is, in effect, forbidden to consider stakeholders outside of basic shareholder value.

How did we earn our certification? Put simply, we scored more than 80 points on the B Corp Impact Report. The Report is the result of an extensive assessment of Ethical Ocean—one that considered how we affect both people and the planet. The B Corp framework describes Ethical Ocean as an enterprise that “increases the flow of capital to fair trade and organic certified organizations that do good for the world.” I like that. That is what we do.

And it goes back to why we started Ethical Ocean in the first place. I wanted to consume responsibly, always. I wanted to be proud of the companies and brands that I supported, always. But that was, and continues to be, difficult. The marketplace for ethical products is fragmented. Quality ethical goods are hard to find, hard to verify, and hard to buy. Ethical Ocean exists to fix this problem, and clearly, we do.

Working for Ethical Ocean is a positive thing, and getting B Corp certified has been a positive experience too. Not only because it forced our team to look inwards, at our company norms and policies, but also because it forced us to better articulate, and quantify, the type of impact we have on the world.

Ethical Ocean’s B Corp Impact Report will soon be available on B Lab’s website, where you can also learn more about the assessment process, and about B Lab itself. I’m proud to play a role in this group of companies, each of them helping pioneer a newer, smarter, greener, and more compassionate way of doing business.

One of our sellers is also a B Corp. Check out Autonomie Project – a very cool fair trade fashion company selling on Ethical Ocean. Their impact is intertwined with how they make their products and where they get their materials – and when we help them connect with new buyers, we help expand their impact.