Why real estate is ripe for B Corp certification

COMMENT Every day I want to go to work feeling good about what I do. As a former civil servant, one of the points that initially drew me to start WiredScore in Europe was the opportunity to create public good as part of a private organisation. Life in the corridors of Whitehall often felt removed from the reality of people’s lives, and making change was a slow and laborious process. By joining a start-up that could be nimble and innovative on a topic that affects everyone everyday, I hoped I could continue working in the public interest. At WiredScore, we care about driving improvements in the built world and firmly believe that seamless connectivity shouldn’t be an occasional luxury, it should be as regular as the oxygen we breathe. Our mission is to make the world’s buildings smarter and better connected, to enable a more collaborative, innovative and dynamic future. We achieve our mission by improving digital connectivity and, more recently, the outcomes smart buildings deliver to all users of real estate. I’m proud that over two-thirds of the buildings we work with have improved their digital connectivity. This isn’t just a statistic; it reflects the lived experience of the more than 6m people who, in normal times, work in WiredScore-certified buildings. Driven by sound values But beyond our mission, the way we organise our company matters. How we treat our teams, especially those who aren’t (yet) in positions of authority, how we choose and interact with our suppliers, how mindful we are of our impact on the environment all add up to what we are. WiredScore is a values-driven organisation, which means doing far more than posting a loose “values” page on our website. At WiredScore, we are constantly living and celebrating our values, admitting when we fall short of them, and recruiting and evaluating our team based on them. This is an important goal in and of itself. While I would love to say that you can’t succeed in business while treating people badly, there are too many prominent counter examples for that to be true. Last week, I was proud to announce that WiredScore is committed to being a certified B Corporation. A concept that originated in the US, it has since hopped the pond and is gaining in popularity. The basic idea is that a company formally recognises that it exists to benefit a much wider set of stakeholders than just its shareholders, and legally commits itself to consider the impact of its decisions on its workers, customers, suppliers, community and the environment. As a certification business ourselves, we are very familiar with the benefits a certification brings. Rating ourselves against the certified B Corp standards uncovered areas for quick but important improvements. One area where we took action was WiredScore’s carbon footprint. We eagerly set about achieving a net zero carbon footprint in 2020 via carbon offsetting, and we will continue to work to improve our sustainability performance. In the future, our commitment to B Corp certification will keep us accountable to continued improvements as we maintain our certification. By achieving and maintaining the exemplary standards of business practice set by, and upheld within, the B Corp community, WiredScore will be able to attract and retain talented and equally committed colleagues – essential when the best people can work anywhere. This industry has long used the rhetoric of working on behalf of the communities in which we exist. But there has certainly been a gap in the minds of the general public, whether real or perceived, between that rhetoric and reality. Aiming high Since we made our announcement, I have been thrilled not just by the enthusiasm from our team, but by how many other companies have got in touch to ask how we made the decision to become a certified B Corp, and whether or not they should do so as well. Pursuing B Corp certification is a clear way of driving improvements and showing the progressive nature of companies. And for the biggest asset class in the world, that feels like a necessary step in the right direction. In WiredScore’s future, one thing I’m certain of is that we aren’t going to get everything right as we try to scale the company while meeting the high standards set by the B Corp certification. There will be difficult trade-offs, both within and among those aims. But we are going to try, because we want to be more than a great company; we want to be a good company too. William Newton is president and managing director of WiredScore