Welcome to your roundup – a monthly selection of news hand-picked to keep you up to date with what’s going on for businesses wanting to create positive impact.
In this roundup you can find out what’s new in the B Corp, social enterprise, and impact investing spaces, amongst others, collated under helpful headings. We’ll also share links to resources and information that our expert lawyers have selected as being useful to you and your networks.
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Corporate purpose
3000 companies are now signed up in support of the Better Business Act campaign. The campaign, launched in 2021, calls for the amendment of Section 172 of the Companies Act 2006 to give all UK companies the flexibility to align their shareholder interests with those of employees, customers, local communities, and the environment, and raise the bar for all businesses to work towards long-term sustainability. B Lab UK’s press release notes that the campaign’s coalition of supporters now includes Iceland, Tony’s Chocolonely, Oddbox, Olio, Bloom & Wild, The Guardian, Charlie Bigham’s, Danone, Virgin Group, Little Moons, World of Books, Gü, Divine Chocolate, ELEMIS, the Institute of Directors and the RSPB.
Fashion Declares and Bates Wells have collaborated to launch a new white paper, The Future of Fashion Regulation in the UK. Fashion Declares is a movement that aims to raise awareness of climate, ecological and social breakdown and support individuals working towards a sustainable and regenerative fashion industry. The paper highlights three key policy recommendations to help shift the fashion and textile industry onto a more sustainable and level playing field.
Harnessing the mutual sector’s potential for growth. Commissioned by the Mutuals and Co-operatives Together group, WPI Economics has published a report setting out economic and societal benefits of mutuals, as well as key barriers to growth (press release). Key findings include that mutuals generate £35 billion in direct gross value added and support more than 1.5% of the UK economy, although they represent only 0.2% of businesses. The report makes recommendations to government, stakeholders and policy makers, centred around removing financial barriers to the growth of the UK mutuals sector.
B Corps
B Lab has launched its new standards for B Corp certification. Currently, certification is awarded on a points system that requires companies to achieve a minimum aggregate score of 80 across a range of questions. Under the new standards, businesses must meet performance requirements across seven ‘impact topics’: purpose and stakeholder governance; climate action; human rights; fair work; environmental stewardship and circularity; justice, equity, diversity and inclusion; and government affairs and collective action. Businesses will also be required to assess their impact on their value chains and take steps to prevent or reduce negative impacts, as well as committing to continuous improvement that will be measured by meeting milestones after three and five years. In its press release, B Lab UK explains that businesses recertifying this year, under the current standards, should submit their B Impact Assessment on or before 30 June. After this, recertifications will be subject to the new standards.
For more, Grace Son, Senior Standards Manager at B Lab, was interviewed by B The Change about the Foundation Requirements of the new B Corp certification standards, which set the baseline for all B Corps.
B Lab’s Forces For Good podcast considers what it means to “Go Purpose” with business ownership, in conversation with Greg Curtis, Executive Director of the Holdfast Collective (which stewards Patagonia’s purpose) and Mark Hand, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington (19 mins). The discussion explores alternative ownership structures, including highlights from Patagonia’s experience of its stewardship model, and approaches to employee ownership (Spotify, Apple).
Climate & biodiversity
The UK government has launched a set of six principles to help businesses engage with voluntary carbon and nature markets, with the aim of strengthening these markets and supporting the trading of credits. By 2050, it’s estimated that carbon and nature markets could be worth up to $250 billion and $69 billion, respectively. The principles and accompanying guidance are subject to consultation until 10 July 2025.
The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and national standards body BSI have launched the “BSI Flex 701 v2.0 Nature Markets – Overarching Principles and Framework”, which sets out requirements for the design and operation of high-integrity nature markets, including processes to generate, trade and store nature credits (Defra press release). The framework aims to further the UK’s environmental goals through building confidence in nature markets and tackling greenwashing.
Bates Wells is a supporting partner for a new report, The Business Case for Nature, capturing learnings and case studies from the ‘Landed 2025’ gathering, co-hosted by the Founders Forum Group, Tech Nation, and the founder of DIRT Charity, Arizona Muse. The report considers various topics, including nature capital, fixing the food system and sustainable fashion, with examples of businesses and others taking action in these areas. For more, Sammy Fry, Head of Climate at Tech Nation, shared some headline points on LinkedIn.
Climate TRACE, a coalition initiative including AI specialists, data scientists, researchers and NGOs, has begun reporting monthly greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) data with a stated lag time of only 60 days, for key GHGs in every major sector and subsector, country and state, more than 9,000 urban areas and over 660 million individual sources. The initiative aims to provide the world’s most comprehensive and up-to-date database of GHG emissions. In Forbes, Ingmar Rentzhog, founder and CEO of We Don’t Have Time, described the Climate TRACE inventory as a “Bloomberg Terminal for Earth’s health”, providing the necessary transparency for investors, regulators, insurers and policymakers to know who the big emitters are and to tackle greenwashing.
Impact investing
Better Society Capital (BSC) has announced that, during its lifetime, over 3,750 UK charities and social enterprises have been supported through £1 billion of investment from BSC and £2.9 billion in co-investment from others. BSC calculates that nearly £4 billion has been made available to organisations tackling social issues such as housing, employment, education, health, and financial inclusion. The press release also reflects on three key aspects of BSC’s work and its focus for the next stage of its mission.
UK impact investor British International Investment (BII) and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have published a report on scaling blended finance, aiming to provide a toolkit to help strengthen the design, assessment, and mobilisation of blended finance funds (see also report landing page and press release). The toolkit, which includes a typology of fund archetypes and a scorecard, is designed for asset managers, investors, and donors and other providers of concessional capital. BII has also published Net Zero Target Setting Guidance, which sets out different types of targets and recommended engagement actions, to help fund managers set “credible, science-aligned” net zero targets (press release).
Members of the team at the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) write for the Stanford Social Innovation Review about GIIN’s work to evaluate the effectiveness of global investor practices using impact performance data. The article highlights two findings: a link between engaging with investee companies on impact guidance and an increase in job creation, and a negative correlation between job creation and investors sitting on the board. The authors also call for more focus on data collection, to continue work to identify the most impactful investment practices.
Toniic, a global community of impact investors and philanthropists, has published Cruising Altitude, the latest report from its T100 Project, which is a longitudinal study of impact investors’ practices and portfolios (press release and report highlights). Findings from the report include an increase in allocations where the investor takes an active role in contributing to the impact of the investment, that investors favour enterprises within their own geographic areas, and that there are key market gaps including an estimated $2 trillion investment gap in water and sanitation.
Social enterprise
UK social impact investor Resonance has announced that it is committing £800k to Big Solar Co-op, a not-for-profit organisation, to fund the installation of rooftop solar panels across the UK. Backed by the Resonance Community Developers fund, the investment aims to reduce carbon emissions by “working towards a goal of 100MW of solar panels on commercial and community buildings by 2030” and help businesses and community organisations in light of rising energy costs.
The Euclid Network has published a detailed thematic report based on data from the European Social Enterprise Monitor: Women in Social Enterprise: Observations on the State of the Sector in Europe (press release and summary). The report is based on data from 21 European countries including the UK. Among its findings, women-led social businesses are often smaller and younger organisations operating at a local level, they focus more on social impact than on environmental issues, and have a greater level of beneficiary engagement. These businesses often struggle to obtain the funding they need and generate lower revenues, as well as facing other challenges. The report also clarifies the need for further research, to fully understand the role of women in social enterprise and how to better support this group.
The Future is Collective: Advancing Collective Social Innovation to Address Society’s Biggest Challenge. The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, in collaboration with its community of collective social innovators, has published a report on how advancing social impact can unite diverse stakeholders for large-scale social change. The report considers values, strategies and organising models that can enable multistakeholder collaboration, presents case studies, and calls upon funders, policy makers and change makers to work together. Alongside the report, the foundation has also published details of the case studies considered.
ESG
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published its new guidance on unfair commercial practices, which reflects the coming into force of provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) that give the CMA, among other points, greater enforcement powers in relation to practices that could mislead consumers (press release). Although the DMCCA does not specifically refer to “greenwashing”, this is covered by the unfair commercial practices regime. The guidance includes reference to the CMA’s Green Claims Code and examples of information that may be necessary to enable a consumer to understand ‘green’ claims, and is a reminder for organisations to take care when making claims about their environmental credentials.
Reed pledges to “end throwaway society” working with business to slash waste, boost growth and clean up Britain. Environment Secretary Steve Reed announced plans to cut waste across industry, as part of the Government’s ‘Plan for Change’. In response to businesses’ calls for more government leadership, the independent Circular Economy Taskforce is expected to start work on five priority sectors announced by government – textiles, transport, construction, agri-food, and chemicals and plastics – to provide roadmaps for reforming the use of materials, alongside creating a new Circular Economy Strategy expected to be published in the autumn.
The UK Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is conducting research on how directors and company secretaries view Section 172(1) of the Companies Act 2006 (s.172) and its effect on decision making and value creation over the long term. The research includes a survey that aims to build data to improve understanding of the impact of s.172 and the requirement that directors of large companies prepare a ‘s.172 statement’, which sets out how the directors have complied with their s.172 duty. The DBT seeks a range of views, including from directors, company secretaries, lawyers, accountants, and anyone with knowledge and experience of s.172. The survey will close on 30 May 2025.
Balancing Flexible Working and Office Working: Lessons from Gill v BDW Trading Ltd. Bates Wells’ Thérèse Rankin and Paul Jennings consider a recent Employment Tribunal decision that found that the removal of flexible working arrangements at short notice was indirectly discriminatory on grounds of sex. Although each case will depend on its circumstances, the decision serves as a cautionary tale on the legal risks employers face when removing existing flexible working privileges.
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