The new B Corp Standards are live

It's the moment you've been waiting for...the new B Corp Standards launched on 8th April 2025. And with the standards alone at ~1000 pages (excluding supporting documents), you're probably looking for a handy, plain-English summary!

In this article, we'll take a look at what the new standards look like overall, before diving into carbon management under the new Climate Action Topic.

What’s changing with the new BIA – a snapshot

Before we dive into emissions management, lets answer some quick FAQs on the new BIA as a whole. You can check out more detailed FAQs here.

Where can I read the new standards?

The new standards, the 7^th revamp in B Corp history, were published on the 8th April 2025 and are available to read here.

When will the new BIA come into place?

The answer is - it depends.

If you're recertifying, the following rules apply:

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If you're newly certifying:

• SMEs - encouraged to submit their certification in 2025 if they plan to certify on the old standard (V6). From 2026 onwards, B Corp intends to review newly certifying B Corps on the standards.
• Large businesses and above - must submit under the new standards (V7) unless your certification application has already been processed, in which case you can carry on with the steps to prepare for certification, submitting for verification by December 1, 2025.

Why are the B Corp standards changing?

B Corp aims to periodically update its assessment criteria to ensure that certified companies stay at the forefront of social and environmental performance.

Does the new BIA look much different?

In a word – yes. The new Impact Assessment include some big changes and is overall more complex than the rules currently in place.

How is the new BIA different from the old standards?

There are 3 main changes to the BIA.

A 2-stage process – Foundation vs. Impact Topic Requirements

Prospective B Corps will now go through a 2-step process, first being evaluated versus some ‘foundational requirements’ before getting into the detail of the assessment. The idea is that this ‘foundation’ stage will shift some checks upfront (e.g. eligibility checks, willingness/ability to adopt B Corp’s amendments to Articles of Association). This should save time (and money) by letting those that would ultimately fail to meet the requirements know sooner rather than later, as well as better preparing teams for the rest of the assessment.

 Once the foundation stage has been completed, teams will then be evaluated against the new look Impact Topic Requirements.

Revamped topics – the new Performance Requirements

The current system of 5 impact areas (plus ‘disclosure questionnaire’ now covered under Foundation Requirements) will be replaced by 7 ‘Impact Topics’. Whilst there’s obvious continuity with the old performance criteria, the new draft is more rigorous and detailed. Here are the 7 topics:

• Purpose & Stakeholder Governance
• Fair Work
• Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
• Human Rights
• Climate Action
• Environmental Stewardship and Circularity
• Government Affairs and Collective Action

New assessment system – saying goodbye to scoring and the 80-point minimum

B Corp has moved away from the 80-point minimum scoring system for the Impact Topics; in fact, it's gotten rid of scoring all together. Instead, B Corp's will have to satisfy minimum requirements in each of the Impact Topics. So, whereas before you could achieve zero points in a given section (Environment for example) and still get certified as long as you picked up your 80 points elsewhere, in the future teams will have to meet minimum acceptable criteria across categories. The idea is to raise the acceptable minimum standard, asking businesses to be more well-rounded, and to prevent cherry-picking.

How does performance recognition and continuous improvement work under the new standards?

At this point, you may be thinking:

How does continuous improvement work without scoring - how can I know I've improved without seeing a score that increases over time?

B Corp's answer to this is that they've introduced a phased approach. To achieve initial certification, companies must meet what's called 'Year 0' sub-requirements. After this, you'll then need to make improvements to comply with additional Year 3 and Year 5 sub-requirements. You can read more about B Corp's new phased performance assessment here.

Currently, there's very little detail on B Corp's new performance assessment approach. And as we'll discuss later with specific reference to the Climate Impact topic, for SMEs Y3 & Y5 reuquirements are no different from Y0, effectively requiring no improvement...

B Lab says it is:

'Committed to exploring ways to recognise strong impact performance.'

For now, it looks like all certifying B Corp's will receive the same level of recognition - frustrating news for those who exceed B Corp's minimum requirements.

Carbon management in the old standards - a quick recap of Version 6

Let's start with a memory refresh. Under the old B Corp Standards, measuring your carbon footprint and offsetting emissions were an optional part of the Impact Assessment under the Environment section. Getting to grips with emissions added to your score, making it easier to meet that initial 80-point threshold, or helping you to pick up points when it came to recertifying. Ultimately though, emissions measurement was optional, and a minor part of the BIA.

Splitting out the old Environment section

We’re now going to get stuck into the focus of this article: changes to rules around B Corps measuring and managing their carbon emissions. First thing to note is that the the old ‘Environment’ section will be split into 2 Impact Topics.

The new Climate Action topic covers emissions management (quantifying your carbon footprint, and setting targets and strategies to reduce it overtime). ‘Environmental Stewardship and Circularity’ covers what is more traditionally thought of as ‘environmental management’, aligning with the sorts of topics covered by ISO 14001 certification. Let’s dive into the Climate Action topic!

The new B Corp Climate Action Topic

The Climate Action Topic (abbreviated to CA in the new draft standards) can be read in detail (all 100 pages of it) here. In summary, it consists of 3 broad ‘sub-requirements’ as shown below:
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A key feature of the new standards is that within Climate Action (as with each Impact Topic), the goals or ‘sub-requirements’ that need to be met differ by company size and sector. By doing this, B Corp aims to recognise that businesses face different operational barriers in meeting B Corp’s criteria (a large organisation with an in-house sustainability team vs. the more limited resources available to an SME for example). Here’s a table that shows B Corp’s company size boundaries under the new standards, so that you have it to hand. This is a departure from relying solely on employee numbers.

The New Climate Impact Topic in summary

The new Climate Impact Topic (which you can read here) is a lengthy document at ~100 pages, and packed with detail. It's a lot to get your head around! Here's a summary of the key requirements. You'll need to check the detailed document for any caveats specific to your sector. The year column shows the year in which each sub-requirement applies; this is the phased application that B Corps aims to use to allow for continuous improvement.

Summary - what's changed for SMEs when it comes to Climate Action

For businesses classed as medium sized or below, not much has changed. You'll need to develop, publish, and update what B Corp are calling a 'Climate Action Plan' - essentially a list of emissions reduction initiatives (such as reducing energy consumption) you plan to implement, with detail on how you plan to go about it. Here are the specific requirements:

• Commits to supporting the global ambition to limit global warming to 1.5°C
• Includes specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) targets for performance and impact
• Specifies how the company will allocate human, technical, and material resources for implementation
• Outlines how the company will engage and work with stakeholders
• Is approved by the highest governing body

As you can see, this is a plan to reduce emissions, but without emissions data to back it up. You'll need to commit to 'supporting the global ambition to limit warming', but measuring your carbon footprint, setting a Net Zero target, or quantifying the impact of the changes you plan to make, aren't required. It's quite the softening versus the original draft that B Corp published.

Large SMEs will need to implement a robust plan, backed by data and a Net Zero target. This plan is called a Climate Transition Plan, and we've written a detailed guide here.

Wrapping up - how Seedling can help

At Seedling, we've got you covered when it comes to the Climate Action Topic of the new B Corp standards. We help teams to measure a full-scope carbon footprint, set SBTi-aligned Net Zero targets, and build actionable climate transition plans, easily, affordably, and with one-to-one support from an expert. Any questions, we'd love to chat!