A year ago today, Seismic was born. We had a vision of helping 10 million people work for companies that are a force for good, with a passionate, top class, start-up team who wanted to help make the seismic shift we all so urgently need.
And today on our first birthday, as we conclude B Corp Month, we are thrilled to share that we are a certified B Corp! This is the proudest day of our careers!
It is hard to put into words how ecstatic we are that Seismic is now a B Corp, and what it means to our growing number of stakeholders: our inspiring and forward-thinking clients, our outstanding and tenacious team, their families and dependants, our few but very important suppliers, our wise and caring advisors.
We are here for them all and seek to do our best for them each and every day. Thank you all for your support.
We have made some courageous choices for such a young business; to invest to the extent that we have in our people, our vision, our values and our client’s experience.
From day one we have been thinking “like a B Corp”. As B Corp advisors we have the benefit of in-depth knowledge on our side – we know what it takes to be B Corp. But don’t think we didn’t hold our breath when we submitted our B Impact Assessment (BIA) for verification and let out a huge cheer when we received the certification email from B Lab! Certifying is hard work, even for companies like us who know the BIA like the back of our hand, but it is so worth it.
Our company articles were submitted with B Corp front-of-mind. Our policies were created knowing the intent of the BIA, to create and communicate meaningful commitment that would be embedded into our team and company culture. We used it as a framework for how to establish our business. So we couldn’t be more proud that we can now say that Seismic is a certified B Corporation, joining a global movement of 4,800 businesses.
So, is it party time?
Yes and No.
We have been privileged to serve the 70 incredible clients that we have across the UK and Europe, we love the work that we do and we are making a dent in our 10 million people goal. We are putting into place a three-year programme to ensure we deliver excellent value and experience to our clients and our growing team and we are energised to see more of our clients “IRL”!
But, we have so much to do. We created Seismic to help solve the growing and increasingly urgent environmental and social challenges that we face – and the horrific news from Ukraine and the latest IPCC report are two major reminders of that. We need more action on a seismic scale – there is much to do.
And we will continue to focus on our own growth and impact.
Seismic certified with 99 points on the BIA. It’s not perfect, but we are proud of certifying with this score a year after we launched Seismic.
We had a tough decision to make when completing the BIA. We considered committing to making a 5% pro bono commitment, which seemed like something we “should” do, and would also have given us an additional 12+ points. But we did not want to make a commitment like this about being a tick box exercise. Instead, we chose to softly launch our pro bono offering and ratchet it up from there. We did this because we believe that our greatest impact will come from helping more and more businesses on their own sustainability, B Corp and Net Zero journeys – we made the tough strategic decision to reinvest more profits in growth in 2022 in order to scale our impact.
A warm welcome from B Lab
We’ve been very touched by the warm welcome we’ve received from our friends in the B Corp community:
Chris Turner, Executive Director of B Lab UK, says “We are delighted that Seismic is now a certified B Corporation. This is a movement of companies who are committed to changing how business operates and believe business really can be a force for good. Our friends at Seismic champion this movement every day, and they are an important addition to the B Corp community.”
“Welcoming Seismic is an exciting moment because they have already helped many businesses to certify as B Corps and trained many B Leaders – and now they can wave the B Corp flag too. Seismic’s commitment to doing business differently will be an inspiration to others and really help spread the idea that we can redefine success in business to be as much about people and planet as it is about profit”.
Katie Hill, CEO of B Lab Europe, shared “You have so many B’s to be proud of: your first Birthday, a certified B Corp, all celebrated in B Corp month. It was meant to B! Congratulations on a fantastic first year and many more to come.“
What’s next
A certified B Corp is required to publish an impact report in the first year of certifying. We’re already working on this and hope to publish our first impact report next month. Watch this space!
We’re up for the challenge now to improve on our score. We see B Corp as a framework to improve, using it to set up processes and scale our impact to make our business better.
Congratulations to our team!
Our team back in November 2021. Since then, we’ve added four more changemakers to our team!
A huge thank you to our wonderful team of Seismic change makers. We’ve doubled in size over the last year and truly believe that our people are what make this business thrive. Their commitment to helping us change society and fix our planet allows Seismic to scale its impact and work towards achieving this mission. B Corp gives us the framework to do this, and our clients are shining examples of businesses that act with purpose. Thank you to everyone who joins us on this journey!
