B Corp 认证 | 室内设计行业的新趋势

Should you want to dress head-to-toe in responsible fashion (and don’t we all, really?) it’s made all the easier thanks to the rise of B Corp-certified fashion brands – hello Veja, Birdsong and Wolf & Badger, just for starters. When you see that ‘Certified (B)’ logo you can be confident that the brand in question has been through a rigorous examination of not just its environmental practices, but also how it treats its staff and supply chain workers, how its board is structured, and even where it invests its money.

And if a brand is not up to scratch, it will be booted out of the B Corp club.

Interiors, as so often is the case, is now following fashion. ‘2022 was the biggest ever year of British interiors companies being B Corp-certified,’ says James Ghaffari, director of growth at B Lab UK, the non-profit certifying body for B Corporations. ‘Of a total of 25 UK interiors brands now with B Corp certification, 17 of them were certified last year’ – among them, Lick, ProCook, Emma Bridgewater, Coat and Ian Snow.

British fabric house Romo is mid-assessment for B Corp certification Romo, Zinc Textiles

Another nine are mid-assessment, including makers of cashmere throws Begg x Co and British fabric house Romo. ‘Typically, you'll find that certification of a significant player leads to more and more companies in that sector also working on certification,’ says Ghaffari. ‘There’s always a lag, because the process is lengthy.’ (Certification takes upwards of a year.)

That significant player was arguably the luxury homeware company House of Hackney, certified in 2020. Founded by husband-and-wife duo Javvy M Royle and Frieda Gormley, House of Hackney was ‘started with Mother Nature at heart,’ says Gormley, previously a fashion buyer for Topshop. ‘Having worked on the high street, I had a rising consciousness of not wanting to work in mass production.’

That meant ‘building a company that looked after its people like family; we wanted our suppliers to be an extension of our team.’ Their products are designed and built to last, and predominantly manufactured in Britain by small, generational factories. As well as ensuring suppliers and staff are paid fairly, its employees work a four-day week in summer, and finish at 4pm the rest of the year (‘We need more rest in winter,’ explains Gormley).

House of Hackney is just one of a wave of recently B Corp-certified interiors brands House of Hackney x Craven Dunnill Jackfield

This is what it can mean to be B Corp-certified. What it doesn’t mean, however, is that these companies are 100% sustainable (for example, House of Hackney’s wallpaper still entails chopping down trees – though they’re working on that, says Gormley). ‘We never say B Corps are perfect companies,’ explains Ghaffari. ‘It is about a continual journey of improvement.’ Every three years, all B Corps are required to re-certify, and repeat the same arduous process.

Getting and keeping that accreditation is easier if the will to be sustainable is embedded into a company’s DNA. The decorating startup Lick, which launched in 2020 and was certified last October, was ‘built from scratch to be aligned to B Corp requirements,’ explains its co-founder Lucas London.

‘We knew from day one that it was a great accreditation, a great community, and a great showcase to our customers.’ All Lick’s paints are water-based, low-VOC and made in the UK; their paints and wallpapers are made to order to reduce waste; and their paint trays and brushes are either compostable, biodegradable or recyclable.

More generally, however, sustainability is still not high on the agenda in the interiors world – these B Corps are the thin end of the wedge inching that door open.

‘You’re dealing with very large, established companies and supply chains,’ notes London, which can be hard to modernise. ‘For us, sustainability is one of the top three reasons people purchase from us,’ he adds, ‘but the majority of big paint businesses are traditionally chemical companies as opposed to consumer-first brands. Around 50% of the market is trade, meaning there’s less demand for sustainability – though that is definitely growing.’

Design-led estate agents The Modern House are planning to introduce a sustainability filter on their website The Modern House

It’s complicated, explains Emma Mansell, managing director of the design-led estate agency The Modern House, which along with its historic homes cousin Inigo, achieved B Corp status in September 2022. ‘We are seeing a momentum, but interior design will always be about material consumption. And it’s always going to be driven by consumer demand and knowledge. Consumers have to agitate that change to continue.’ To ease the quest for sustainable interiors, The Modern House is planning to add a sustainability filter on its directory of architects, interior designers and interiors suppliers.

Behind-the-curve brands should not be deterred, however – really, B Corp status is about demonstrating a desire to improve (as well as actually improving): ‘It’s not a ‘one and done’ situation,’ explains Ghaffari, adding that many companies don’t pass first time – the median assessment score is just 55 out of 200.

Sustainability is a never-ending journey, Gormley and London both concede. ‘Initially, we were sourcing from Asia,’ explains London, ‘as Europe wasn’t as flexible, so that automatically made us less sustainable. But as we grew, we could influence the supply chain and start investing in our own infrastructure so we could be zero waste.’ Similarly, early House of Hackney cushions were filled with feathers, admits Gormley. ‘But it’s such a cruel practice so now we use certified wool from The Woolkeepers’ (a network of British farmers producing traceable, fairly-traded wool that ensures positive animal welfare).

Ultimately, it’s consumer power that will blow open the door to more sustainable interiors. As London puts it, it’s about ‘building a good company that resonates with the modern consumer.’ bcorporation.net

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The A-Z of B Corp

What’s in a certification? We break down the five areas of B Corp assessment

THE ENVIRONMENT This assesses a company’s levels of pollution and emissions, water and energy use, and recycling and recyclability. The ideal? A 100% circular, carbon-negative product.

WORKERS Do employees have fair pay, a safe workplace, a feedback forum, and adequate access to career development and health benefits? The ultimate aim is for them to love being at work.

COMMUNITY This is about how a company looks after its wider community – does it use local suppliers and ensure fair pay and decent working conditions? Best practice is that everyone benefits from being its neighbour.

GOVERNANCE Ideally, every decision a company makes considers people, planet and profit. To get here, it needs a strong code of ethics, an adequate whistleblower policy, ethical financial investments and transparency.

CUSTOMERS This part examines whether a company is truly listening, and if feedback is being used to improve the overall product. Happy, returning customers are a win for everyone.