Sipsmith Gin

Sipsmith’s journey as a premium craft gin brand has evolved to put sustainability at its heart. They are on a mission to create the best gin in the world, for the world. They identified B Corp as the best way to help them on their impact journey and are now champions for the movement, recognising its value as a framework for change.

Challenge

Solution

Outcome

How to identify improvements to certify as a B Corp and embed sustainability

Sipsmith has a dedicated B Corp team working across departments. This ‘Kaizen team’ (Kaizen means continuous improvement in Japanese) had worked really hard on completing the B Impact Assessment (BIA), which is B Corp’s online certification tool. They were sitting at just under 75 points on their BIA, unable to identify further points to reach the 80 required to achieve certification. They were looking for additional confidence in their responses prior to submitting their assessment.

Seismic consulted with all of Sipsmith’s different departments and conducted a rapid review of their BIA answers to check they were correct and that their evidence would align with B Lab’s requirements. The team at Seismic then worked to identify additional improvements to improve Sipsmith’s score.

If you’re looking for help to improve your B Corp score, take a look at our B Corp services.

“When you get to a certain number of points in the BIA – for example around 70 points – it can be difficult to get an overview of how you can access those last points. An objective review of your BIA can help to identify ways to get over the 80 point threshold which may not have been previously apparent.”

– Andy Schmidt, Cofounder and Chief Community Officer at Seismic

Continuous Improvement using the B Corp framework

After identifying an improvement plan for B Corp certification, in line with Sipsmith’s mission and vision, the improvement goals were shared between their different departments. For example, diversity and inclusion, learning and development, and improvements on employee benefits were the HR department’s part of the project.

Sipsmith successfully certified with 83.2 points in May 2021.

“Working with the Seismic team has been an outstanding experience. In addition to providing a unique breadth and depth of sustainability expertise, they embody what it means to be a purpose led business by continually looking for ways to help Sipsmith accelerate its own sustainability journey while creating value for the business.”

– Sam Galsworthy, Cofounder and Chairman of Sipsmith.

Outcome – A continuous improvement success story

Sipsmith are a fantastic example of a company who have maintained their integrity throughout their scale-up. They are now rolling out a robust impact roadmap to further establish themselves as sustainability leaders in the spirits industry. They’ve set out a 5 pillar strategy, ‘crafting a better future’, to achieve their goals:

Better than Net Zero
Better Resource Use
Better Sourcing
Better for our Swans (people)
Better for our Community

“We have a goal that’s called 25 by 25 – we need to score 25 more points on the B Corp assessment by 2025. And we’ve got a plan about how to cascade up to achieve that goal. It is not going to be easy, but I think a lot of it now is continuous improvements about listening, learning, assessing, and acting. We are all agents here. There’s no silver bullet.”

– Sam Galsworthy, Cofounder, Sipsmith.

Influencing an industry to join the movement

When Sipsmith were acquired by the world’s third largest spirits company, they chose to take B Corp to the leadership of Beam Suntory and engage other brands across their portfolio – fast forward two years and their efforts paid off as Makers Mark, a huge global whiskey brand, have recently certified.

“We have a seat at the leadership table of Beam Suntory, helping with the sustainable journey that they’re on, called ‘Proof Positive’. We’ve helped shape it. We’ve had a real influence from the bottom up… By being a B Corp, we’ve made people sit up and listen. I like to think we’ve influenced some of the other brands in Beam Suntory to look at B Corp as well.” Sam Galsworthy, Sipsmith Cofounder.