Today marks a milestone that's both personal and profound for Council Fire: for the sixth time, we've successfully earned B Corporation certification. For fifteen years, this certification has served as both compass and catalyst, helping to fuel our evolution from a regional consultancy to a global change agency while keeping us anchored to our foundational belief that the private sector can and must be a force for a better future.

But this isn't just about another certification milestone. It's about what sustained commitment to the highest standards of social and environmental responsibility looks like in practice—and why that leadership matters more than ever in 2025.

Honoring a Legacy of Leadership

Our recertification comes at a poignant moment for the B Corp community. This past Sunday’s passing of Andrew Kassoy, one of B Lab's co-founders, reminds us that the movement toward stakeholder capitalism isn't just about policy or frameworks—it's about visionary leaders who dared to imagine business as a force for good and proceeded to build a community and movement grounded in care and courage. Andrew's legacy lives on in every company that chooses transparency over opacity, accountability over greenwashing, long-term value creation over short-term extraction, and the thousands of friendships and collaborations he facilitated in his lifetime.

For Council Fire, Andrew's vision has been personal and transformative. The belief that he and his co-founders, Jay Coen Gilbert and Bart Houlahan, shared that a high-bar sustainable business certification could drive systemic change inspired our original commitment in 2010 and continues to guide our approach every day. In a world of murky corporate commitments and sometimes questionable motives, Andrew knew that a community built on real accountability - third-party verification, legal commitment, and public transparency - close collaboration, and deep caring for all in our business ecosystem could and would drive real change. His clarity of purpose, steady hand, and heartfelt friendship will be sorely missed.

The Private Sector Imperative

We recertify at a critical inflection point. With democratic institutions under pressure worldwide and shrinking public sector resources, the private sector faces an unprecedented opportunity—and responsibility—to lead the transition to a more sustainable, just, and equitable future. The challenges of our time—climate disruption, systemic racism, institutional breakdown - cannot be solved by governments alone. They require business leadership at scale.

The data validates this imperative and B Corps are leading the way. Today, nearly 10,000 Certified B Corps employ nearly 1 million workers across 105+ countries, demonstrating that stakeholder capitalism isn't just an aspiration—it's a proven model.

Yet too many companies remain trapped in outdated models that prioritize short-term shareholder returns over long-term stakeholder value. The B Corp movement represents something fundamentally different: a community of businesses willing to be held accountable not just for what they extract from the world, but for what they contribute to it.

This isn't idealism—it's pragmatism. Research from the University of Oxford analyzing 2,400 companies found that B Corps outperformed traditional businesses across environmental impact, social impact, and financial performance. Companies that embrace authentic stakeholder governance build resilience, attract top talent, and create sustainable competitive advantages. The evidence is compelling: over 95% of B Corps studied remained operational through recent disruptions, while only 88% of comparable non-B Corps achieved the same stability.

The Discipline of Transparency

Among the many things that set sustained B Corp companies apart isn't their initial certification - it's a willingness to subject themselves to continuous scrutiny and improvement. Every three years, we open our books, policies, and practices to rigorous third-party evaluation. We answer extremely detailed questions about how we treat our team, engage our communities, steward the environment, and serve our clients.

This isn't comfortable. It requires confronting gaps between aspiration and practice. It demands continuous evolution of systems that most companies prefer to leave unchanged. It means making public commitments that create accountability pressure most businesses actively avoid.

But this discipline of transparency has been transformative for Council Fire. It's forced us to codify values we might otherwise leave implicit. It's pushed us to create policies that ensure equity and sustainability aren't just leadership priorities but operational requirements. It's connected us to a global community of businesses committed to using their operations as vehicles for positive change.

The High Standard of Leadership

B Corp certification isn't a participation trophy—it's a rigorous standard that compels advancement. The assessment evaluates not just intentions or commitments, but verifiable practices and measurable outcomes. Companies must amend their legal governing documents to protect their mission. They must commit to public transparency about their impact.

For service-based companies like Council Fire, this standard can be particularly demanding. We can't point to revolutionary products or manufacturing innovations. Instead, we must demonstrate impact through how we operate, who we hire, how we engage communities, and what value we create for all our stakeholders—not just those who pay our bills.

The results speak for themselves: B Corps are 55% more likely to cover employee health insurance costs and 2.5 times more likely to provide paid volunteer time. Women hold 33% of executive positions in B Corps compared to just 21% in traditional businesses. According to the 2021 B Corps Community Survey, 98% of certified companies felt that B Corp status contributes to their future success.

Meeting this standard consistently for fifteen years represents more than business achievement—it represents a commitment to leverage our power to change the world.

Community as Catalyst

Most importantly, B Corp certification connects us to a movement that extends far beyond individual company improvement. The B Corp community functions as laboratory, support network, and accountability system for businesses committed to stakeholder governance.

This community has been invaluable during moments of organizational challenge and growth. When we've faced difficult decisions about growth strategies, team policies, or client relationships, the B Corp framework has provided clear guidance rooted in stakeholder value rather than short-term financial optimization.

We've also learned from other B Corps facing similar challenges. How do you maintain culture during rapid growth? How do you balance profitability with purpose during economic uncertainty? How do you measure community impact when your work is primarily advisory? The amazingly collaborative B Corp community of which we are a part consistently provides the guidance, care and comfort that Andrew spoke of when describing how movements succeed.

Redefining Profit in Practice

Our tagline "Redefining Profit" isn't marketing language—it's operational philosophy meets transformative impact. Traditional consulting models optimize for billable hours and scope expansion. Our approach optimizes for client capacity building, community strengthening, and game-changing systemic impact that extends beyond individual engagements.

As a 1% for the Planet member, we also commit a minimum of 1% of annual gross revenue to environmental causes—but our actual philanthropic investment dramatically exceeds this baseline. We view this approach not as charity but as a core business strategy that strengthens the ecosystems we depend on.

Turning Challenge into Opportunity

As we enter our latest certification period, we're not just maintaining current standards—we're pushing toward new possibilities for business leadership. The crises of 2025 demand more from companies than compliance with existing frameworks. They require continuous innovation in how we create value, measure impact, and build systems that serve multiple bottom lines simultaneously.

Council Fire’s contributions are rooted in pioneering new approaches to regenerative business practices, collaborating with other purpose-driven organizations, and using our platform to advocate for systemic change in how business operates. We acknowledge and act upon the reality that individual company improvements, while necessary, aren't sufficient to address the scale of transformation required.

Our challenges are global in scope and massive in scale but they also present the greatest economic opportunity of our time. Multi trillion-dollar markets in energy, transportation, food, infrastructure, and finance are all in play. A recent study by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission found that meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, everything from tackling climate change to eliminating hunger and providing livelihoods, could unlock trillions in value and create hundreds of millions of jobs this decade. B Corp certification provides one framework for this transformation and our community is helping to lead the way.

An Invitation to Lead

We view our certification as an invitation to other businesses to examine not just what they do, but how they do it and who benefits. An invitation to clients and partners to expect more from their collaborators than technical competence alone. An invitation to policymakers to create incentives that reward stakeholder governance rather than just shareholder returns.

Most fundamentally, it's an invitation to keep redefining what profit means in an era of planetary boundaries and social upheaval. Not profit at the expense of people and planet, but profit that emerges from creating value for all stakeholders. Not profit that extracts from communities, but profit that builds community resilience. Not profit that depletes systems, but profit that regenerates them.

This is the future Andrew Kassoy envisioned—business as a force for good, accountable to rigorous standards, connected to community, and committed to caring for everyone in the system. This is the leadership the private sector must provide when public institutions stumble. This is the transformation our moment demands.

Council Fire is proud to answer that call, every day.

Council Fire is a certified B Corporation and 1% for the Planet member working at the intersection of sustainability, justice, and economic transformation. We move ideas to action and translate big visions into system-level results.

Redefining Profit, Again: Council Fire & the B Corp Movement