In a follow-up to his piece last week, SLR raises further concerns around London’s banking scandal and it’s fallout. After the recent resignation of CEOs from NatWest and Coutts, concerns about decision-making inside major corporations are growing. A deeper look into B Corp certification, an American program promoting social and environmental credentials, reveals claims of greenwashing and divisive strategies. While some champion B Corps as a path to social change, critics argue it undermines merit-based recruitment and fosters insincere behaviours. SLR ponders whether this program a genuine effort for positive change, or just another corporate scam?
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London’s banking scandal part 2 – it gets worse
By Simon Lincoln-Reader
Further to events resulting in the resignation of the respective CEOs of UK banks NatWest and Coutts last week comes more evidence suggesting that decision-making forces inside major corporations have completely lost their minds, hate their customers and genuinely believe it is their duty to agitate social change.
You may not know what a B Corporation, or B Corp is, but if the de banking scandal in London outraged you, or you’re concerned that something similar could happen to you in future, then you should research this awful program. Two years ago Coutts became a B Corporation.Â
B Corp certification is an exercise in which a private company consciously amplifies its social and environmental credentials, or invents them to order. The program comes out of the USA and is managed by one B Lab, a curious NPO founded by 3 friends in 2006. Central to B-Corp certification is the theory of stakeholder – not shareholder – engagement.
Similar to justified criticism of ESG, there is substance to the claim that B Corp is actually a self-defeating scam: analyse the material that is used throughout the enhancement process and you’ll discover typical California psychobabble – about thoughts and feelings – along with contentious claims about the environment and platitudes on racial justice. Diversity, inclusion and equity (DIE) practitioners are using similar resources in schools gullible enough to believe that their breathtakingly expensive, insidious initiatives contribute meaningfully. Unsurprisingly, Ben and Jerry’s is a B Corp. Allbirds and Patagonia too. Along with Coutts, all three companies became notably more combative and boisterous since achieving B-Corp status, which suggests that hostility and division are encouraged as strategies within the transformation. This makes the program, which boasts no legal accreditation anywhere, political, and strengthens suspicions that B Corp certification is the ultimate form of corporate greenwashing.Â
B Corps in London are championed by elites. Private member’s clubs here host white B Corp gin makers who moan about a lack of diversity and female representation. Similar profiles whose money has been made the old-fashioned way – inheritance – have cottoned on, encouraging B Corps to go further and announce their commitment to de-growth or reparations on the landing pages of their websites. Martha Lane-Fox, or Baroness Lane-Fox of SoHo, a co-founder of lastminute.com is mad about it. But the Baroness was also a director of Twitter during an era when the social media company was suspected of colluding with intelligence agencies to censor users for wrong-think; when the board was dissolved, she reportedly walked away with $2m. It’s hard to think of someone more elite within today’s elite.
Then there is the logical structure. If a company resets its purpose, then every single component will be affected – but none more so than its recruitment policies. That way merit is dismissed, and the HR division, which generally leads the B Corp program, is more likely to entertain a candidate who pronounces their virtues over their skills. That inverted mess is then leaked into the wider recruitment industry, which starts urging candidates to behave in oddly advantageous but insincere ways.Â
Read more: SLR on NHI – Foreign influencers and private companies: A concerning trend in South Africa
Serious companies in countries serious about their objectives do not appear to possess the same enthusiasm as the UK or US. Only 32 companies in China have signed on as B Corps since 2016, and 3 of those are subsidiaries of B Lab’s anchor client, Danone (part owned, naturally, by BlackRock). Combined, the US and the UK account for just under half the 6917 certified B Corps globally. South Africa has 8, which – under the current management of the economy and the pig-headed continuation of legislated discrimination – is already too many.
Technically, a company must be able to hire, strategise, and choose as they wish – in the same way a perfectly healthy individual has the choice whether to spike their arm, or not, with a syringe they’ve just encountered in the park. But many once-perfectly normal companies are choosing to spike themselves with ridicule, or alienate their customers. For what exactly?Â
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*Follow SLR on Twitter: @SiLincolnReader
