OMG we did it! BidCraft is a Certified B Corporation™

When we set up BidCraft, the idea was simple: build a company we can be proud of. One that bids well, treats people properly, and tries to leave things better than it found them. For a while that existed mostly in our heads and in how we behaved day to day. Even though we knew what B Corp was and loved the idea, we didn’t think it was for companies like ours – it was for amazing coffee shops and the best breweries. Then Moorhouse got it – a professional services consultancy with intent. And BearingPoint. It’s possible. Let’s do it.

And because the companies we work with (bidding into government) are increasingly asked to demonstrate social value and ethical practice in the bids they submit, we think it’s important to hold ourselves to the same standard we help others articulate. It really makes you review a Social Value response in a new light with far more awareness of the difference between theory and reality…

B Corp gave us a framework to make our intent real and measurable, and to be held accountable by something external to us. We wanted the difficult questions, not just the nice story. The B Impact Assessment gave us both in abundance. That’s why it’s taken YEARS!

What exactly is a B Corp? B Corps are companies verified as meeting B Lab Standards for social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. And as a B Corp in the consulting industry, we’re counted among businesses that are leading a global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy.

We won’t pretend it’s easy. It isn’t. The B Impact Assessment is thorough in the way that makes you realise how many things you’ve been doing informally, instinctively, and how hard it is to demonstrate those things with evidence when someone asks for it properly. There’s also a realisation that some of the hippy approaches need to grow up a bit and get structured.

We found things we’ve never thought of. We found things we were quietly proud of that we’d never written down. We found places where good intentions weren’t yet good practice. That’s the growing pain, and it’s worth it because finding the gaps is exactly the point.

If you’re a small company thinking about starting the journey: yes, it takes real time and focus. But it sharpens the way you make decisions in a way that nothing else quite does.

We’ve worked with transformacy since their early days, partnering for client work, and now their support through the B Corp process has been genuinely invaluable. Amy guided us through the assessment with patience, expertise, and a refreshing willingness to tell us when something wasn’t good enough yet.

That kind of honest, expert partnership is exactly what you need when navigating something this substantive. If you’re looking for a critical friend for anything around sustainability, then talk to them.

Earlier this year we published our first Impact Report covering the areas that matter to us: fair work, JEDI, human rights, governance, climate, and our role in the broader bidding profession. It was a backwards-looking start (because you have to start somewhere), but it gave us baselines we can now actually improve against.

The good stuff is real. From pay to conscious choices. A team with diverse backgrounds and genuine care for each other. A growing network of Bobs (our Buddies of BidCraft) who share our values. A referral rate that tells us clients trust us enough to send their people our way and gives us genuine imposter syndrome.

But the process also made clear where we need to go further. And the biggest problem to tackle next is our impact on the environment.

We’re a remote-first, small services company. Our footprint is limited but it isn’t zero and right now, we don’t have a full emissions baseline. Working out exactly what it is gives us severe confused face… We offset assumed emissions through ecologi and make better choices where we can (trains over planes, refurbished kit, print-on-demand merch). But that’s not the same as actually measuring what we produce.

What we’re committing to next:

• Agree a credible method to measure our most material impacts based on the latest thinking for companies like us, and set a baseline to improve upon
• Tackle Scope 3 emissions honestly and transparently
• Build a carbon plan that isn’t just a commitment to a number in 2050, but a set of real actions we can report on year by year.

I know the whole ‘it’s the journey, not the destination’ thing sounds like a massive cliché, but it totally is the truth. Being certified means we’ve agreed publicly and formally to keep doing this properly. The certification is retested every three years, the bar moves, and we have to move with it.

That suits us fine. Standing still was never really the plan. Be more pirate.

If you want to talk about any of this, whether you’re thinking about B Corp yourself, want to know more about our journey, or just want to ask a question – we’d love to hear from you.