Ricola and Rituals among first B Corps certified under new standards

Nine companies have become the first businesses to be certified as B Corps under new, more robust global standards introduced last year.

The companies, announced yesterday by non-profit organisation B Lab which oversees the B Corp certification, include Enharmonic Encounters, a Black-owned interpretation business in the US, publicly-listed Italian hotel group Xenia and UK jewellery studio Wanderlust Life. The cohort also numbers Swiss sweet maker Ricola, and Dutch cosmetics brand Rituals.

By achieving certification, the companies have been verified to meet B Lab’s standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. B Corps must also make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

We believe that we need to be at the fore of this transition and set an example for our ecosystem – Jeffrey D Stewart, Enharmonic Encounters

These nine companies did not certify as B Corps for the first time – they all went through recertification (which B Corps must undertake every three years), having been B Corps for a number of years – but it is the first time they certified using the new standards. 

The new B Lab standards, published in April 2025, were described by the organisation at the time as “the most significant evolution” in its history, and were made intentionally more stringent. Companies must now meet minimum performance requirements across seven social and environmental criteria (including climate action, human rights and fair work), verified by third-party auditors, to achieve certification. Previously, the assessment followed a points-based system where poor performance in some areas could be compensated by better performance in others, and had faced criticism after some controversial multinationals achieved certification despite well-documented negative impacts.   

• Read more: B Corp launches new standards as ‘complete reimagining’ of certification of businesses for good

Jeffrey D Stewart, founder and executive director of Enharmonic Encounters, said: “We believe that we need to be at the fore of this transition and set an example for our ecosystem, to alleviate the fears and anxieties that many of us are feeling around the new requirements and to demonstrate that compliance is indeed a realistic and worthwhile pursuit – even for the smallest of companies.”

'An increasingly sophisticated benchmark'

In a statement, B Lab said both consumers and regulators had growing expectations of the social and environmental impact of businesses and the new standards were designed with that in mind. 

“The new B Corp standards set an increasingly sophisticated benchmark for organisations committed to operating with transparency, accountability, and verifiable outcomes,” said Ercolino Ranieri, CEO of Xenia. “Xenia chose to adopt them from the moment they were introduced, in line with its role as a publicly listed Benefit Corporation, for which impact measurement is an integral part of both business operations and decision-making,” he added.

There are now more than 10,800 certified B Corps across 102 countries, collectively employing more than 1m people. 

Clay Brown, chief standards officer at B Lab, said: “Great leadership is not defined by what a company says, but what it is willing to be held accountable for. As B Corps, these companies are demonstrating that higher standards, independent verification and continuous improvement are achievable in practice. 

Great leadership is not defined by what a company says, but what it is willing to be held accountable for

“Yet the challenge ahead is bigger than any one company. The defining test of this decade is whether businesses can move beyond individual action and raise the bar collectively on the issues that matter most to people and the planet.”