Trash Panda is a Certified B Corp!

Kelle here, Trash Panda’s Head of Experience 👋

 

As Trash Panda’s B Corp expert and savant (self proclaimed of course), I’m here to share more about our experience becoming a certified B Corp and what the process was like.

 

Enjoy!

 

A little over one year ago to the day, Trash Panda Disc Golf became a certified B Corporation! 

This was a dream since Trash Panda’s inception, so to say we are so proud of this accomplishment. 

But what exactly is B Corp and what does that mean for us as a business? If you’re asking those questions, you’ve come to the right place 😉

What is B Corp?

Before diving into this process, I assumed B Corp was only focused on positive impact towards the planet. But I was very wrong! 

It encompasses literally every aspect of a business.

“Certified B Corporations are leaders in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.” B Corps are a standard that businesses are held to, to ensure they are serving their communities, customers, and the planet with intent and purpose. 

Each business must commit to 3 main area standards: 

Purpose requires business to ensure they are positively impacting the environment, their communities, the people that work for them, and their customers. 

Accountability ties the mission of the company to the impact the business has on, well, everything. I like to think about it as the business having to put its words to action and follow through with what they say. 

Transparency is exactly what it sounds like. Every Certified B Corp is required to report their progress both internally and to the public. Plus, they must recertify every 3 years to make sure the direction the company is growing or moving in, aligns with what the original mission and purpose of the company was. 

This actually gets right to the heart of why we wanted to certify all along:

As a company, we can tell you we’re doing good things. But having an outside company vet us according to those three pillars validates that we’re actually walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

What was the certification process like?

The certification process is quite a rigorous process that can take up to 2 years. 

The certification process begins with an assessment of the company which includes 5 key components: 

 

Governance: policies, practices, and ethics 
Workers: Employee financial, physical, and professional well-being
Community: Economic and social well-being of the community we operate in
Environment: Environmental stewardship
Customers: Improving the value we offer to customers

Each area has 20 - 30 questions all which require thorough documentation to support what we are saying we do on a daily basis. For example, we provided documentation on the type of recycled plastic we use, where we get the plastic, our processes to ensure there’s no waste to our manufacturing process, how we handle customer data, etc. 

Once we were able to wrangle up the needed documentation for every question and submitted our assessment, a representative from B Lab (the company that creating the “Certified B Corp” distinction) analyzed our assessment with a fine tooth comb. Over the course of a few months, they would come back to us with requests for additional documentation or more information. 

In order to become a certified B Corp, your company needs to score above an 80 on the assessment with the highest score being 200. For smaller businesses, every point you win is a victory so getting above 80 is a challenge. B Corps have a little under 40% acceptance rate which goes to show how competitive the assessment process is. 

But in August of 2023, over 6 months after we began the process, Trash Panda officially became a Certified B Corp! 

We’re also proud to be the first ever disc golf company to achieve that certification, but hopefully not the last.

How does being a B Corp affect our business?

One of the biggest benefits to becoming a B Corp and working through this assessment was it forced us to get ‘our house in order’ as the saying goes. 

For example, one of the projects we worked on was creating a detailed, 23-page Employee Handbook. As a tiny (but mighty) team of 4 at the time, an employee handbook had never been a priority to write out because of how organic our team came to be and how interconnected we were. 

But creating an Employee Handbook was the perfect exercise to really tease out our internal policies and practices to make sure the Trash Panda employees are safe, respected, and treated fairly. 

Of course the benefits went much further than that. We are a company that prioritizes sustainability out of most things. But becoming a B Corp keeps us accountable to ensure we are striving to build all areas of our business to have a positive impact on the Earth and our community. 

We still have a long way to go and grow into. 

We have goals to continue to improve our sustainability like finding a recycling facility that will correctly recycle the backing of the shipping labels we use (we still have every single one and they’re taking up a lot of space) or to achieve carbon neutrality across the company as a whole.

And maybe this is the best thing about being a Certified B-Corp. We have specific targets ahead of us to continue to become the best company that we can be. In 2 years, we’ll be required to take a new assessment to keep our B Corp certification. I personally can’t wait to see how far we’ve grown as a company within that time!

- Kelle

Trash Panda Disc Golf was officially certified on August 9, 2023 with 91.6 points! You can view our profile here: 

https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp/company/trash-panda-disc-golf/