This document provides an overview of B Corps and the new economy movement. It begins with definitions of key concepts like the blue economy, triple bottom line, and sustainability. It then discusses the researcher's positionality and experience in sustainability. The research question is presented as how business structures can evolve to create a more sustainable economy. Interviews with 50 B Corp leaders will be conducted using constructivist grounded theory. Key findings from the interviews include an end goal of making B Corps unnecessary by changing business generally, imbuing the economy with values like integrity and diversity, and putting people first. The theory developed proposes goals of interconnecting markets through collaboration, using values to direct profit for people, planet and profit, and cult

1. B CORP: INSIGHTS FOR A
NEW ECONOMY
Presented by Shanah Trevenna
November 21, 2016
Dissertation Committee:
Deborah Halbert, Chairperson
Kathy Ferguson
Colin Moore
Manfred Steger
Richard Pratt, University Representative

2. FREE MARKET ECONOMY
SOCIAL GAINS
ENVIRONMENTA
L GAINS
ECONOMIC
GAINS

3. NEW ECONOMY
ENVIRONMENTA
L GAINS
ECONOMIC
GAINS
SOCIAL GAINS
ECONOMIC
ACTIVITY

4. NEW
BLUE
TRIPLE-BOTTOM-LINE
SUSTAINABLE
ECONOMY
• Blue Economy: (Pali, 2010) as opposed to Brown
economy, named for its dependence on burning fossil
fuel resources and characterized by exploiting people
and resources
• Triple Bottom Line: of people, planet and profit
• Sustainable: pillars of environmental responsibility,
social equity, economic health, cultural vitality

5. MY POSITIONALITY
• 1990’s Manufacturing Engineer in Mexico for a multi-
national corporation

6. MY POSITIONALITY
• 1990’s Manufacturing Engineer in Mexico for a multi-
national corporation
• 2000’s academic and non-profit avenues to
implement sustainability
• Developed curriculum and courses around
sustainability
• Help found 501c3 Sustainability Association of
Hawaii

7. MY POSITIONALITY
• 1990’s Manufacturing Engineer in Mexico for a multi-
national corporation
• 2000’s academic and non-profit avenues to implement
sustainability
• Developed curriculum and courses around sustainability
• Help found 501c3 Sustainability Association of Hawaii
• 2010
• 1) academic programs started making considerable
money
• II) SAH decided to focus on green business

8. MY POSITIONALITY
• 1990’s Manufacturing Engineer in Mexico for a multi-
national corporation
• 2000’s academic and non-profit avenues to implement
sustainability
• Developed curriculum and courses around sustainability
• Help found 501c3 Sustainability Association of Hawaii
• 2010
• 1) academic programs started making considerable
money
• II) SAH decided to focus on green business

9. • Certify for-profit companies globally

10. • Certify for-profit companies globally
• Must meet rigorous standards for:
• social and environmental performance, accountability, transparency

11. • Certify for-profit companies globally
• Must meet rigorous standards for:
• social and environmental performance, accountability, transparency
• Operated by the US non-profit B-Lab

12. • Certify for-profit companies globally
• Must meet rigorous standards for:
• social and environmental performance, accountability, transparency
• Operated by the US non-profit B-Lab

13. RESEARCH QUESTION
How can businesses and their power structures evolve
to create a more sustainable economy out of the rapid
changes of the next century?
APPROACH
Interview those who are actively trying to create such
an economy – 50 B Corp leaders.

14. RESEARCH METHOD – (CGT)
CONSTRUCTIVIST GROUNDED THEORY
• Grounded Theory (Glasser and Strauss, 1967)
• does not start with a hypothesis but rather a
phenomenon and research it to build meaning and
theory
• CGT (Charmaz 2008)
• Reflexive role of the researcher
• Strong voice of the research participants
• Acknowledging co-creation of meaning and theory

15. RESEARCH METHOD – (CGT)
CONSTRUCTIVIST GROUNDED THEORY
• Theory – Integrates bits of data reflecting a real
world while recognizing the theory is co-constructed
perspectives and not the entire reality. Theory is
valid only if proven useful when applied to real
world situations.
• Ideology- Comprehensive belief systems comprised
of patterned ideas and values believed to be true by
significant social groups (Steger, Goodman, and
Wilson 2013, 4)

16. End goal for some B Corp leaders is a world where B Corp is not
needed as a certification, because business generally operates
differently
How?
• Influencing their industry and regional sectors
• Measuring up to mainstream metrics
• Involvement with industry organizations
• Being innovative in competitive markets
• Addressing climate change – subtheme of replacing extractivism
with regeneration
MAKING IMPACT/BEING
REVOLUTIONARY

17. I'm not saying that money is not important, my
understanding is that in the last hundred years what has
happened is that values took a back seat to money. So
there's a ton of people who weren't trying to wreck the
planet have gone and wrecked the planet, largely
because they let the money guide their values. So
somehow reasserting values as a core fundamental thing
to the economy is essential (Interview #13S).
IMBUE THE ECONOMY WITH VALUES

18. I'm not saying that money is not important, my
understanding is that in the last hundred years what has
happened is that values took a back seat to money. So
there's a ton of people who weren't trying to wreck the
planet have gone and wrecked the planet, largely
because they let the money guide their values. So
somehow reasserting values as a core fundamental thing
to the economy is essential (Interview #13S).
• Integrity, diversity, inclusivity, democracy
IMBUE THE ECONOMY WITH VALUES

19. • Feel part of something
• Do something that matters
• Be inspired and not drained at work
WORK WITH PURPOSE AND MEANING

20. • Valuing personal over technical communications
• Treating all employees like family
• Sharing profits with employees and community,
democratically
• Work-life balance – flexibility, being integrated
• Benefitting the greater good
• solve an environmental problem
• give something back
• do good for the world
• help communities
• solve social problems
• help underserved populations
PUT PEOPLE FIRST

21. • Talent attraction
• Efficiency and agility in operations
• Branding and marketing
• Ability to impact change
• Agency to influence other businesses
• Ability to get money to scale
• Survive independently without
handouts
VALUING MARKETS AND
MONEY

23. COLLABORATIVE ECONOMY
• Results in longer term and broader results by
interconnecting a network
• Learn from others
• Find your niche in the market
• Not reinvent the wheel
• Work systemically on systemic problems
• Working together paramount for positive work
experience
• “everything is interconnected and should function in
that reality (Interview #42)”

25. 3 Overarching Goals for a Collaborative Economy
1.Interconnect market ecosystems and collaborate
2. Use values to direct profit = benefit the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit
3. Cultivate live – work balance
THEORY FOR THE NEW ECONOMY

26. 3 Overarching Goals for a Collaborative Economy
1.Interconnect market ecosystems and collaborate
2. Use values to direct profit = benefit the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit
3. Cultivate live – work balance
Seven Guiding Principles to Accomplish the Overarching Goals
• Empower instead of exploit
• Act in integrity: transparency and accountability
• Include all real costs in business models
• Democratically include employees and communities as stakeholders in decisions and
profit distr.
• Engage diversity including gender, ethnicity, age, and perspectives in leadership
• Create impact for the greater good
THEORY FOR THE NEW ECONOMY

27. STRENGTHS
• Provides Experiences of encounter that were a proven cornerstones of
engagement in the alter-globalization movements (McDonald 2006, 37)
• A sense of belonging and “having a community of like-minded people (Interview
#6S).”
• Ability of each B Corp to leverage the brand to influence their region and sector
key for the essential evolution of the movement from belonging to owning
(Feldmenn, 2016)
• Sharing ripples internally and through ad campaigns and press
• Differentiate themselves for better customer and employee attraction/retention
ASSESSING B CORP AS A MOVEMENT

28. WEAKNESSES
• # of B Corps is small compared to # of traditional businesses
• Identity
• As it grows “if you become everything to everybody you become nothing to nobody
(Interview #37)”
• Appears a leftist or even hippie organization-would rather be a business organization
• Difficult to articulate
• Very white and privileged, essentially the 1%
ASSESSING B CORP AS A MOVEMENT

29. OPPORTUNITIES
• Market the value of B Corp in mainstream business media and through business
to business campaigns to build the movement’s momentum with other market
players including businesses and customers
ASSESSING B CORP AS A MOVEMENT

30. THREATS
• A company of questionable integrity would somehow get through the
assessment tool and become a B Corp, damaging the brand.
ASSESSING B CORP AS A MOVEMENT

31. POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
B CORP MOVEMENT
Legislation makes triple-bottom-line businesses legally recognized so that their
missions can be legally protected.

32. POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
B CORP MOVEMENT
Report on deterioration of welfare states and public
services in Europe (Avelino, Wittmayer, and Afonso
2015, 8):
Social innovation as a solution for budget cuts, and of
social entrepreneurs being able to replace public
services.

33. WILLIAM CONNOLLY’S
RESONANCE MACHINE
• A resonance machine is not simply a metaphor but is
actually a real force with real processes creating real
outcomes
• Participants of the machine share an ethos
• Ethos – shared spirituality or beliefs, each element
individually cultivated it (not dogma), can be shared across
diverse groups
• The ethos sets the disposition of the machine, informing
the shape and tone of its relations with others
• Its collective power is greater than that of the sum of its
parts as the elements resonate with a common ethos, and
then individually gain power as they promote the
resonance
• Passes back and forth creating reverberation that

34. WILLIAM CONNOLLY’S
RESONANCE MACHINE CON’T
• Evangelical-capitalist resonance machine includes
evangelical Christians, cowboy capitalists, right-wing
media (Capitalism and Christianity, American Style,
Connolly, 2008)
• Ideology within its Ethos: Divine Providence
• Evangelical Christians: step back and let God direct life
without interference for the greater good
• Cowboy capitalist: step back and letting the free market
allocate resources efficiently for society
• “Don’t interfere-something higher is at work”
• Other ethos elements: work, private ownership,
consumption

35. COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE
ETHOS
• Economic life that includes:
• Egalitarianism
• Ecological integrity
• Human diversity
• Worker engagement
• Care for future generations

36. COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE
PARTICIPANTS
1. Conscious Businesses

37. American O rgani zation American Membership
B Lab
1931 certified companies
Fair Trade Federation 952 certified companies
Green America 4000 certified companies
American Sustainable Business Council Members include 200,000 companies and more
325,000 executives, owners, investors,
entrepreneurs, and business professionals
Association for Enterprise Opportunity 176 organizations representing two million
entrepreneurs
BALLE (Building Alliances for Local Living Economies) 87,500 companies
Impact Hub 14 locations,
4200 company leaders
SOCAP (Social Capital Markets) 2000 member companies and investors
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics 1100 member companies
Ceres 16 large companies
Environmental Paper Network 100 member companies
Green Chamber of Commerce 750 member companies
The Green Spa Network 65 member companies
Social Venture Network 500 member companies
Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investing 520 member investors and companies
Conscious Capitalism Chapters in 24 states

38. COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE
PARTICIPANTS CON’T
2. Conscious Consumer Base
•86% of consumers state they would switch their current
brand to a brand that is socially responsible if quality
and price were equal (Makower 2012).

39. COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE
PARTICIPANTS CON’T
3. Millennials
• Almost 70 percent say that giving back and being
civically engaged are their highest priorities. (Erickson
2009).
• Millennials stated their top two goals in finding work
are 1) to maintain their own flexible schedule and 2)
integrate work so that it feels like a part of their life
(Meister and Willyerd 2010).
• 88% of MBA grads would take a 15% pay cut to work
for a company that has ethical business practices
(Makower 2012)

40. 4. General Workforce
• Study of 20,000 employees in 22 markets after 2008
(Baker 2014)
• desire to control one’s work situation (21% in 2008 rising
to 47% in 2009)
• ethical behavior-alignment of what their companies say
and do internally and externally (29% in 2008 rising to
% in 2009)
• 2/3 of employees consider the social and
environmental record of a company in deciding
to work (Makower 2012)
COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE
PARTICIPANTS CON’T

41. 5. Impact Investors
• 18% of all investments tracked in the US screen for
environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria
(US Social Investing Forum 2014, 12)
• Top considerations reported in 2014
COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE
PARTICIPANTS CON’T

42. WHAT IF ALL THE RESONANT GROUPS GOT TOGETHER AND
ORGANIZED?
COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE

43. WHAT IF ALL THE RESONANT GROUPS GOT TOGETHER AND
ORGANIZED?
WHAT IF EVERYONE WORKED TOGETHER TO FINDTHEIR
NICHE IN IMPLEMENTING THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES AND
ACHIEVING THE NEW ECONOMY GOALS?
COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE

44. WHAT IF ALL THE RESONANT GROUPS GOT TOGETHER AND
ORGANIZED?
WHAT IF EVERYONE WORKED TOGETHER TO FINDTHEIR
NICHE IN IMPLEMENTING THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES AND
ACHIEVING THE NEW ECONOMY GOALS?
ONLY IN THIS WAY IS SYSTEMIC CHANGE IS POSSIBLE.
COUNTER ECO-EGALITARIAN MACHINE

45. MAHALO
Shanah Trevenna
Dissertation Committee:
Deborah Halbert, Chairperson
Kathy Ferguson
Colin Moore
Richard Pratt
Manfred Steger, University Representative

46. DRIVING FORCES
FORMING THE FUTURE
• Governments will continue to relax environmental and labor laws
as to be more favorable with global “self-regulating” markets
resulting in ongoing exploitation of both human labor and the
environment, and the continued widening of the economic gap
between wealthy and poor.
• Issues of democracy, social justice and economic colonization will
continue to be center stage for a global network of transnational
activists and organizations that is increasing in size,
interconnectivity and ability to influence.
• Access to the internet and cell phones will continue to grow
around the world, uniting an increasingly mobile global population
and providing access to information and networks in more efficient
and productive ways.
• Millennials will be the first cohort of digital natives to come into
corporate and political power.

47. • Lewis Powell - Corporate lawyer and member of the boards
of 11 corporations
• 1971wrote a memo to his friend, the Director of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce describing a well-organized,
broad-based threat to the private sector
• Round Table representing 60% of US GDP
• Strengthened the free market resonance machine
• Right-wing and anti-global warming institutions such as
the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute.
• Influenced the 1978 decision that invented the right for
corporations to spend unlimited money to influence
ballot questions
• Influenced the Reagan Administration’s hands-off
business philosophy.
POWELL-MEMO

48. FOCUS ON:
FREE TRADE GLOBALIZATION
Justice-globalist critique of globalisms-political
ideologies that endow globalization with their preferred
norms, values and meaning (Steger 2009, 128):
global integration of markets leads to greater social
inequalities, environmental destruction, the escalation
of global conflicts and violence, the weakening of
participatory forms of democracy, the proliferation of
self-interest and consumerism, and the further
marginalization of the powerless around the world
(Steger 2009, 128).

49. TRANSFORM TO:
FAIR TRADE GLOBALIZATION
• Fair product pricing
• Equal pay for equal work
• Globally standardized labor laws
• Globally standardized environmental laws
• Honest advertising
• Financial metrics that include social and
environmental considerations

50. MY SURPRISES
• Republicans are B Corps
• B Corps want their “competition” to be B Corps too
• The movement struggles with its identity and fears
the “other” infiltrating
• Respect for money and markets is considerable and
even a driving force
• B Corps know nothing of the alter-globalization
movement, they resonate only with other business
movements like Fair Trade
• There are more of those movements, organizations,
businesses, investors etc. involved in this paradigm
than I thought

51. OVERARCHING QUESTIONS
FOR B CORP LEADERS
1. What common goals and core concepts emerge from B Corp leaders to
articulate the Blue Economy?
2. What values and beliefs are common amongst B Corp leaders and where did
they gain them?
3. What ideas do B Corp leaders have, and have they implemented, for the
processes, power relations, and structures required to create businesses that drive a
movement toward a thriving, just, ecologically sound Blue Economy?
4. How do B Corp leaders describe the B Corp movement for the Blue Economy?
What do they see as unique about the movement including its strengths,
weaknesses and flaws?
5. What do B Corp leaders believe is the current and potential political significance

53. THINKS/THINKING/THINK
• 40% of the sentences relate to the description of a vision beyond status
quo thinking including new visions for decision-making, revamping
business, growing the B Corp movement and imbuing the economy with
values.
• I began thinking that this is a business model that I can work in my industry
(Interview #7S).
• I think the new economy is already characterized, but I think even more so in
the future, characterized by collaboration as opposed to competition
(Interview #6S).
• 35% of the sentences relate to critical reflections revealing the
understandings entrepreneurs have about their jobs, their industries, the
state of the world, B Corp, or the economy.
• I think the manner in which we measure economic activity is dated (Interview
#31).

54. • By helping other people, I help myself.
I think that if you have these selfish
motivations that helps other people,
it’s great. (Interview #5S).
• The Stirring of the Soul in the
Workplace, organizational
psychologist Alan Briskin:
Logos as the reason that is the
controlling principle in the universe
• Efficiency leaves no time given for
logos. Someone else’s logic or the
system’s logistics displaces the needs
and voice of the soul (Briskin 1998,
139).
WORK WITH PURPOSE AND MEANING

55. CORPORATE STRUCTURES
THAT OPERATIONALIZE VALUES
• Ratio between highest and lowest paid employees
• Distributing profits democratically to community
organizations
• Company policy that has social and/or environmental
criteria for clients and suppliers
• Open company books
• Employees and community reps on governing boards
• Employee voting on contracts and budgets
• Paid time off – sickness, life milestones, maternity/paternity
leave
• Family coverage
• Specific transgender health care coverage
• Published policies on work hours, pay and performance
protocols, grievance resolution processes, and sickness and
leave allowance to provide clarity, consistency and respect
for employees
• Limits on evening and weekend work

56. CORPORATE STRUCTURES CON’T
TBL METRICS
• Environmental - a company’s energy use, waste,
pollution, natural resource conservation and animal
treatment.
• Social – working conditions, paid time off, do
suppliers hold the same values that the company itself
claims to hold? Does the company allow paid
volunteer work?
• Financial - revenue, profit, and the ability to pay
employees consistently and well

57. CORPORATE STRUCTURES CON’T
TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE
• Providing products or services that reduce or provide
alternatives for fossil fuel use
• Only working with other companies and vendors that
use less or no fossil fuel
• Reducing fossil fuel use by their operations and
employees
• Educating and advising others, including the public,
about climate change and solutions

58. “Making money is not like I thought it
would be. This business kills the part of
life that is essential, the part that has
nothing to do with business.”
5 trillion dollars in pension money, real
estate value, 401k, savings, and bonds
had disappeared. Eight million people
lost their jobs, 6 million lost their homes.
The government bailed out the banks
and not the American people. And
business continued as usual.
PUT PEOPLE FIRST

59. Regional Markets Role of
Gov’t
Policy Global
Market
Economic
Actors
Adam Smith
Classical
Economics
(1700’s)
Many small
enterprises in
trade, owners=
operators
Avoid
monopolies
protect
poor,
protect
public from
private
interests
Slavery ok, but a bit
expensive
Mercha
nt
exchang
e on
trade
routes
-act in own self
interest = fair
benefit to
society
Neoclassical
Economics
(1900’s
Industrial
Revolution-
present)
Large corps,
owners
(shareholders)
separate from
operators
No
governmen
- subsidies
for
entrenched
interests
1) Privatization of the
public sphere
2) Business
Deregulation
3)Cuts to public
benefits and corporate
tax cuts
Free
trade
-act in own self
interest
New
Economy
(2050’s)
Companies owned
and operated by
employees
Enforce fair
trade
principles
for a global
level
1)Price on carbon and
other externalities
2)Corporate taxes
funneled to employee
and community
Fair
Trade
-act in
community
interest

60. ADAM SMITH’S
CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM…
• Could concentrate wealth
• Businesses could be motivated toward unfair political influence
• Businesses could have unethical intentions against the public good
(government playing too small a role and not protecting the public,
especially the poor)
• Government playing favorites (government overstepping its role)
• Producer manufactured consumption
• Diminished worker happiness
• Stifled worker freedom (freedom = every man is perfectly free to both
choose what occupation he thinks proper and change it as often as he
would like, so that “every man’s interest would prompt him to seek the
advantageous and to shun the disadvantageous employment”)

61. RECOMMENDATIONS
• Ask the same questions to traditional businesses
• What “B Corp” trends are showing up in mainstream
• What are the main differences?
• Explore employee ownership, employee profit sharing,
community profit sharing, reinvestment of profits in
the company, and the investment of profits in other
endeavors.
• B Corp leaders’ ideas and beliefs around the ethics of
influencing political power, including to what extent,
with what means and to what end.

62. RECOMMENDATIONS CON’T
• What further public good could be accomplished by
the B Corp community.
• Explore B Corp’s ideas on the role of government in
business and vice-versa
• Explore perspectives on marketing, consumption, and
the ethics around what products and services warrant
being categorized as a force for good.
• Deeper dive into what makes people happy in their
work.
• Explore views on freedom and their ability to obtain it
in B Corp companies. This could be contrasted to
traditional companies with the goal of illuminating