One year as a B Corp: Not a destination, but a direction

March 2025. hummingbirds receives its B Corp certification. A moment of pride – and, already, a moment of humility.

Because here is what we quickly understood: becoming a B Corp is not the finish line. It is, in many ways, the starting gun.

More than a label, a lens

B Corp Certification verifies a company’s social, environmental, and governance impact against a globally recognised framework, spanning everything from climate action to human rights, from worker well-being to community engagement. Passing that assessment feels like an achievement. And it is. But what it really does is hand you a mirror.

For us at hummingbirds, the certification process forced a discipline we now find invaluable: thinking systematically about externalities. Every decision, how we structure a partnership, how we engage local communities on our projects, how we hire, how we travel, carries an impact beyond the immediate transaction. Being a B Corp means internalizing that reality, not just acknowledging it.

It is a mindset shift as much as a governance shift. Before asking “is this good for business?”, you ask “who else does this affect, and how?” That question, applied consistently, changes how a team operates.

A framework for perpetual improvement

B Lab is working towards a more inclusive, equitable, and fair economic system – and the standards it holds companies to are deliberately not static. In April 2025, B Lab launched the biggest update to its standards in its history, raising the bar for what responsible business practices look like. That is not a bureaucratic inconvenience. It is the point.

One of the most honest things about the B Corp framework is that it does not let you rest. Your score at certification is a snapshot, not a verdict. Every three years you recertify- and the expectation is that you have improved. The movement’s logic is one of continuous progress: measuring where you are, identifying gaps, closing them, and raising the ambition again.

At hummingbirds, this resonates deeply. Our entire model is built around the belief that nature-based carbon projects must keep getting better – in their science, their community engagement, their governance. B Corp simply extends that same logic to how we run our company.

What the first year has taught us

Being a B Corp has sharpened conversations internally. It has made us more deliberate about how we grow, who we partner with, and what we optimize for.

The B Corp movement unites over 10,000 companies on six continents, working towards a shared goal of transforming the global economy to benefit people and the planet. Joining that community has also connected us to peers who take these questions seriously – businesses where purpose is not a communications strategy, but an operating principle.

We do not claim to have it all figured out. That is rather the point. B Corp is not a certificate you frame and forget. It is a commitment to keep asking harder questions of yourself – about your externalities, your accountability, your ambition.

One year in, we are grateful for the discipline it demands. And we are only getting started.