Copy Secrets #48: We're B Corp Certified

A story 20 years in the making

Martha Moger

Oct 10, 2024

Join hundreds of other subscribers below.

Welcome to Copy Secrets #48 by Martha Moger at The Stitch Writer & Co.

HUGE NEWS.

Last week, after 12 months of work, The Stitch Writer & Co became a certified B Corporation.

I am EXTREMELY excited about this.

If you’re not familiar with what a B Corp (Benefit Corporation) is, watch this video to find out, or in B Lab’s own words:

“Certified B Corporations, or B Corps, are companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.
Our most challenging problems cannot be solved by governments and nonprofits alone. By harnessing the power of business, B Corps commit to positively impact all stakeholders - workers, communities, customers and our planet.”

In my own words:

The Stitch Writer & Co, this small-but-perfectly-formed-more-than-freelance-but-less-than-a-copywriting-agency joins the likes of Patagonia, BrewDog, The Body Shop and around 9,000 other businesses worldwide in putting not just profit, but people and planet first.

Our biggest commitment is to help our local community in multi-cultural Leicester thrive by donating 5% of annual revenue to provide English classes. We’ve done that for the last 7 years and even changed our legal structure to make it formal.

But our B Corp journey didn’t start in Leicester.

It started in a factory in Sri Lanka.

THANKS so much for reading. If you’re enjoying it, please come and say hello here.

Wind back the clock. It’s circa 2006 and me and Dad are on the outskirts of Colombo.

AirBnB has not yet landed and after arriving at some less than salubrious accommodation I manage to upgrade us to a slightly better option with a pool.

At this point, I’ve spent the last few years sourcing shoes for huge UK fashion retailers and the short story is, I’ve seen some horrors in the supply chain.

So, along with Shiran, my compadre from the factory in Sri Lanka, and Dad to add a little gravitas, we’re looking for a smaller supplier who’s going to treat people fairly and pay decent wages.

Dad is turning out to be an excellent travel companion and it’s a good job. Two days later we’ll move our search to India and arrive in Mumbai with not much more than a phone number on a bit of paper.

It’s a risky move but it does work out fine, as does the bumpy internal plane ride where we meet the Indian “Navy Gang” and an adventure on Chowpatty Beach where we first try to cross a Mumbai road.

Dad and Shiran, back and front of car, circa 2006

My goal is to build a “fair trade” business. Over the course of the next couple of years I work with various small suppliers and eventually end up moving to India for 6 months to make it all happen.

But that’s a story for another day.

Need a hand with words?

LET'S TALK

So why did I give up a sensible job in the fashion industry and try to start a fair trade business at the age of 28?

Because back then, I could.

Because I’d stood in the sweltering heat on a factory production line, seen firsthand how the UK fashion industry worked and could not believe there wasn’t a better way to treat people.

I suppose that before B Corp existed, I believed in the principles of B Corp - to use business as a force for good.

The bag business did not last but it taught me plenty of great lessons, especially about marketing and eventually, copywriting.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So what have we done to become a B Corp?

Spent the last 12 months working through the in-depth B Impact Assessment which combs through five areas of a business: governance, community, workers, environment and customers. In each area we’ve gone into detail about our approach and been scored accordingly. We eventually certified with 80.4 points, meeting the certification threshold of 80 points by just a whisker.
Donated 5% of revenue to help facilitate English lessons in Spinney Hills, one of Leicester’s (and the UK’s) most deprived areas, with a large majority of migrants.
Volunteered our time and resources to help run a children’s holiday club in the same area and volunteered 20 hours to help an up-and-coming illustrator in Leicester’s creative community.
Created an advisory board for The Stitch Writer which draws on decades of expertise from the worlds of business and social enterprise.
If you’d like to read more in our very first impact report, it’s here.

And what are we going to do next?

Work on sustainability. We’re already in conversations with the local council about how to help Leicester city reach net zero and we need to personally work to understand and reduce our own digital carbon footprint.
Work with more B Corps, sustainable businesses or those with a heart for social good.

Honestly, there is PLENTY to do and I’m excited about how it will all shape up and pan out but for now, as the wonderful author Ursula le Guin once said,

“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end”.

If you need a hand with words…