Why we became B-Corp

BakerWilcox was born during a year of travelling in 2002. After working in London agencies for a number of years, Richard and I knew we wanted to build a business that reflected our own values.

From the very beginning, transparency has been at the heart of everything we do. To us, that means having honest, direct conversations with our clients. No account managers, no middlemen, no hidden costs and no selling services that you simply don’t need. We believe in building relationships based on trust, and that has been our way of working for over 20 years.

Travelling changed the way we looked at the world. Like many people, we’ve travelled to far flung countries around the globe and that in itself provides perspective. Seeing these incredible places first-hand makes us appreciate just how beautiful our planet is, but also how fragile it can be.

Thinking back, I’ve always cared about the environment. Even at primary school, whenever we were asked to choose a project, I’d always pick something about nature, pollution or Greenpeace. Looking back at my nine-year-old self, I remember wondering why anyone would choose to damage the world around us. I don’t think that part of me has ever really changed.

As BakerWilcox has grown, we’ve naturally made decisions that reflect those values. We introduced flexible home working long before the pandemic because it made sense for both our team and the environment. We offer ethical pension options and flexible working hours because we believe people do their best work when they have a healthy balance between work and home life.

The journey really started when I met the lovely Jenny Kitchen, a B-Corp Ambassador. As it happened, our daughters were in the same class at school. Jenny ran a workshop explaining what B-Corp was all about, and it immediately felt like the right fit. It wasn’t something we had to become. It felt like we’d finally found a community of businesses that thought the same way we did.

Like many small businesses, our clients always come first, so we brought in Caitlin from Transformacy to help us through the application process and make sense of some of the terminology. Thankfully, because so much of what we already did matched the B-Corp values, the process was far more straightforward than we expected.

Once you submit your application, everything is independently assessed. Every piece of evidence is checked, and then you have a review call where they can ask questions or request more information. Richard, Caitlin and I joined the call with our assessor, Drew. I’ll be honest, I was quite nervous because I had no idea what to expect.

I didn’t need to worry. Drew completely understood our business and why B-Corp was such a natural fit for us. Afterwards, Caitlin told us she’d worked on hundreds of B-Corp applications and had never heard an assessor finish a review by saying everything was good to go. That was a really proud moment.

Since becoming a Certified B-Corp, we’ve become even more determined to use our business as a force for good. One of the things I’m most proud of is seeing our team giving their time to local charities, supporting community projects and helping organisations make a positive difference. Seeing those stories come together in our annual Impact Report gives us a real sense of achievement.

For us, business has always been about more than making a profit. We believe it should create value for people, the planet and the communities around us as well.