Kim Jordan, the cofounder of New Belgium Brewing, recently traveled to Asheville, which will soon be home to the company’s second brewery. She had a busy schedule on her visit: she checked in on the progress of the new brewery under construction, she spoke to community members at the opening of New Belgium’s 141,000-square-foot distribution center in nearby Enka, and she also made time to give the commencement speech at Warren Wilson College.
In between all of that, Jordan found a few extra hours to attend a Friday lunchtime gathering held at New Mountain AVL, a local music establishment owned by serial entrepreneur Adrian Zelski. It was the latest in a series of events promoted by the group B Local to help educate local businesses owners about the growing B Corp movement, which was started by B Lab, a nonprofit based in Wayne, Pennsylvania, that has given more than 1,200 companies around the world a way to brand the fact that they believe business can be a force for good.
Jordan made time to attend the event, and field questions for about an hour from the eager audience, because she’s a big believer in the B Corp community, which New Belgium has been a certified member of since 2013. As she told the attendees: “Let’s continue to spark this nascent movement of progressive business in this country.”
While there are a handful of certified B Corp companies in the Asheville area today, including Big Path Capital and Highland Craftsmen, there are dozens of companies who believe in similar values and who remain interested in pushing forward with their own certification, including New Mountain Music. There’s also momentum within the state of North Carolina to allow companies to officially incorporate as Benefit Corporations, like they already can in states like Delaware, California, and Vermont.
In the years since New Belgium became a certified B Corp, it has been something of a rock star: In 2013, B Lab named New Belgium as one of the best companies in the world in how it treats its co-workers and, in 2015, it named it as one of its “Best for Environment” honorees.
While receiving those awards gave the company ample reasons to celebrate, signing on to the B Corp movement was really about, “validating the values and mindset we were already practicing,” says Katie Wallace, the company’s assistant director of sustainability.
For example, New Belgium has long embraced the idea of employing environmentally sustainable and energy efficient practices in its Fort Collins brewery.
The company is also owned by its employees and prides itself on promoting its “High Involvement Culture,” where all of the company’s co-workers are taught not just think like owners but act like them as well. (Which is a topic we’ll come back to in a future post.)
That combination of doing the right thing for its people, the community it operates in, and the environment isn’t just about feeling good, says Wallace, it’s also the foundation for building a financially sustainable business. “We know we are profitable not in spite of our social and environmental efforts but because of them,” she says. “Business has an immense impact in the world and we are seeing that it is not only possible, but financially viable to use that influence as a force for good.”
There’s growing evidence to support Wallace’s point that employees wants to work for companies that believe in a larger purpose than simply pursuing profits and that consumers also want companies they support to be socially conscious. Adding factors like those together means that while it can seem more expensive in the short term to, say, invest in using biogas and solar panels to power a brewery, or take on debt to enable the company to be owned by its ESOP, they can actually lead to long-term cost savings but also having more engaged co-workers and customers. “We have found the investments we make in our people and in protecting the environment pay us back in spades,” says Wallace.
Put another way, New Belgium believes they are financially sustainable because of their efforts to invest in their people and the environment. That’s a message they’re hoping to spread not just in Fort Collins and Asheville, but also to other business owners around the world. And that’s why the New Belgium team has become such staunch believers in the power of the B Corp movement because it is trying to change people’s perception about what’s possible in business, says Wallace.
“Can you imagine how energizing it is to know that our hard work is not only providing for our quality of life and our families, but also benefitting the world?” she says. “It’s a beautiful win-win scenario that we are working toward.”
