Spring Bank has been recognized as being among the companies creating the most positive overall impact on its customers based on an independent, comprehensive assessment administered by the nonprofit B Lab. Honorees are featured on B the Change, the digital Medium publication produced by B Lab.
Spring Bank is honored in the Best for Customers list, which includes businesses that earned a Customer score in the top 10 percent of more than 2,100 Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment. The full assessment measures a company’s impact on its workers, community, customers and environment. To certify as B Corporations, companies like Spring Bank must complete the full assessment and have their answers verified by B Lab.
The Customer portion of the B Impact Assessment measures the impact a company has on its customers by focusing on whether a company sells products or services that promote public benefit and if those products/services are targeted toward serving underserved populations. The section also measures whether a company’s product or service is designed to solve a social or environmental issue (improving health, preserving environment, creating economic opportunity for individuals or communities, promoting the arts/sciences, or increasing the flow of capital to purpose-driven enterprises). Honorees scoring in the top 10 percent set a gold standard for the high impact that business as a force for good can make on consumers around the world. Spring Bank made the list thanks to exceptional practices like micro lending, small business lending, and financial inclusion.
The 174 Best for Customers companies come from 63 different industries and 29 countries. B Lab simultaneously released separate lists recognizing B Corporations as Best for the World (overall impact), Best for the Environment, Best for Community, Best for the Long Term, Best for Workers and Best for the World: Changemakers.
Additional 2017 Best for Customers honorees include: AltSchool; Revolution Foods; and Warby Parker.
“Companies like Spring Bank are proving that business can be a force for good for all stakeholders,” says Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab. “We’re proud to share their achievement in a meaningful way. Best for the World is the only list of businesses making the greatest positive impact that uses comprehensive, comparable, third-party-validated data about a company’s social and environmental performance.”
A total of 846 Certified B Corporations were named 2017 Best for the World Honorees, including: Patagonia; Seventh Generation; National Co+op Grocers; and Business Development Bank of Canada. Forty-eight countries are represented, including Afghanistan, Kenya, Nicaragua and Turkey. The selection criteria for Best for the World honorees are available here.
Today there are more than 2,100 Certified B Corporations across more than 130 industries and 50 countries, unified by one common goal: to redefine success in business.
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ABOUT SPRING BANK
Spring Bank is a community bank and the first Certified B Corp bank in New York City. As the first bank to headquarter in the Bronx in 35 years, Spring Bank has been serving the under resourced for the last decade. Its vision is a world where all people have the equal opportunity to build wealth for themselves and their families.
Spring Bank drives systematic change by: 1) financially empowering people in the Bronx who typically have never banked before or have been exploited by cash checking and pay day loans; 2) creating micro loan products which help customers save money and build credit; 3) partnering with local nonprofits and other organizations focused on financial inclusion 4) driving the growth of small businesses in NYC.
For more information, visit www.springbankny.com
ABOUT B LAB & B the Change
B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world and society will enjoy prosperity for all for the long term.
B Lab drives this systemic change by: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and good marketing; 2) passing benefit corporation legislation to give business leaders the freedom to create value for society as well as shareholders; 3) helping businesses measure, compare and improve their social and environmental performance with the free B Impact Assessment; 4) driving capital to impact investments through use of its B Analytics and GIIRS Ratings platform.
B the Change is a Medium publication, produced by B Lab in collaboration with the community of Certified B Corps and the movement of people using business as a force for good.
B the Change exists to inform and inspire people who have a passion for using business as a force for good in the world. Because we believe that storytelling is an essential element in the transformation of business and society, we commit ourselves to telling the most compelling stories possible to the largest audiences possible to propel the movement of business toward its destiny as a powerful force for good. We want to dramatically broaden and deepen engagement with entrepreneurs, managers, employees, investors and citizens in one of the most important discussions of our time.
