1

What does it mean to Wolf & Badger to be a B Corp?

The B Corp movement mirrors Wolf & Badger’s own mission to support independent, ethical businesses. Like B Lab UK, we are building a community of purpose-driven brands and connecting them with conscious consumers. 

Many of our brands are micro-businesses who lack the resources to participate in the B Impact Assessment. Through our accreditation, we welcome them into the B Corp fold and act as a knowledge-sharing partner, supporting them to improve their impact. Customers, in turn, can shop with purpose thanks to the confidence that a B Corp-endorsed marketplace and our Guarantee Index instills. 

We are also appreciative of our fellow B Corp community, who keep us accountable for driving continuous improvements. They are an inspiring bunch.

In short, being a B Corp is more than just a badge for us - it’s a reflection of our core belief that commercial growth can and should be powered by ethical, responsible choices. 

2

How does Wolf & Badger feel about your recertification? Do you have any plans to celebrate?

The recertification is a huge milestone in our impact journey. Our score improvement (+34%!) reflects our entire team’s dedication to improving our impact and staying true to our purpose, even as our business grows. 

We had a team celebration in the office last week where, fuelled by cake and our favourite B Corp treats (we love you Candy Kittens), we asked the team for feedback around what being a B Corp means to them as individuals, to us as a business and what they would like to see more of going forward. 

We will follow this up with a part 2 next month where we will be joined by Chloe, our B Lab UK Engagement Manager, who will attend to talk to us about B Corp’s overall mission and strategy. We will also share our plans for the new B Impact standards, using insights from our team’s feedback to inform our strategy going forward.

Our goal is for each and every one of our team to understand the importance of their personal contribution to our B Corp score and to feel empowered to improve our impact.

3

B Corp announced new standards this year - what is Wolf & Badger’s view of them?

For us, the changes have come at the perfect time. We have just celebrated our recertification with a new score of 108.8 and are now ready to turn our attention to the new requirements. We have already begun to use them as a framework for our sustainability roadmap and the updates present a timely opportunity to refresh our understanding of B Impact and encourage engagement across our team.

Over recent months, we have seen the rhetoric around brands exiting the B Corp community citing complaints around over-saturation and inconsistent values. Our hope is that the new standards will go some way to quashing these critics as they demonstrate B Corp’s renewed emphasis on rigor. 

We also welcome the new requirement for businesses to show meaningful engagement with living wage calculations. We are already committed to the Living Wage Foundation ourselves having pledged to pay all of our direct employees a real living wage. 

Social responsibility is central to our core value of ‘fairness’ and we encourage our brand community to uphold this through our mandatory Happy Worker guarantee, which ensures that workers involved in the manufacturing of goods sold on our platform have access to fair remuneration and safe, secure working environments.

4

How do you plan to respond to the new standards? Have you made any changes to your approach?

We are lucky to have a dedicated sustainability team which allows me to commit my time and resources to understanding the new standards and devising a roadmap for driving improvements. I work across both operations and marketing ensuring we are primed for both real-time strategising and implementation in response to the standards, as well as engaging our audiences with our efforts.

However, to ensure we are fully ready to respond to the new requirements we have already adapted our approach through establishing a new internal ESG Committee. This will bring key stakeholders from across the business together to encourage shared accountability and ownership over the impact areas and associated metrics. The standards take a holistic view of our operations and so we need, now more than ever, to adopt a holistic approach. We believe that cross-functional collaboration will be the key to unlocking success under the new standards and would suggest this approach to all brands looking to tackle them, regardless of size.

5

Can you explain the Wolf & Badger Guarantees Index and how it helps customers make informed shopping choices?

The ‘say-do’ gap between consumer intention and action has been well publicised, particularly when it comes to making more conscious purchasing decisions. This gap hinges, in part, on a business’ ability to effectively communicate their efforts when it comes to ethics and responsible supply chain management, making it easier for customers to identify the more ethical choice. Cue the Wolf & Badger Guarantee Index. 

Our award-winning Guarantees empower consumers to shop with purpose, based on the ethical credentials that matter most to them. Our index of 15 icons was designed to align with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and allow customers to easily-identify a brands’ efforts to improve their environmental and social impact, whether through using re/upcycled materials or committing to charitable donations equivalent to at least 1% annual sales.

Through our Guarantees vetting process, we do the due diligence to support our brands’ claims. This enables us to talk, with confidence, about their credentials to our consumers. Brands apply for Guarantees by answering a series of questions and submitting evidence (including certification) via our secure data-collection platform. Evidence is then reviewed by our sustainability team and once approved, the Guarantees appear on our brands’ landing pages alongside their products.

6

What advice would you give to consumers who want to make more conscious choices but don’t know where to start?

Our advice is simple: love it, longer. It is no secret that retail has an overconsumption problem and we are constantly inundated with messaging encouraging us to buy more, more often. With so many textiles ending up burned or buried at landfill, a simple mindset shift is to consider the lifecycle of your purchases.

Before purchasing, ask yourself questions like how many different outfits can you style a new piece with? Will it last you beyond the next trend cycle? And once you are ready to let it go, what options will be available to you for keeping it circulation - think repair, resell or recycle?

This is where our belief in the power of small, independent brands to make a big difference comes in. There is a natural connection between craftsmanship and product lifespan - whether passed down to future generations or passed on to a new home, well-crafted products are made to be used and loved, longer.