B Corp Certiﬁcation
Guide for RelatedEntities
How related entities and subsidiaries
can become Certiﬁed B Corporations

Contents

1

Introduction toRelated Entities
How B Corp Certiﬁcation
works for related entities
and their parent companies.

4

Affiliated Entities with
the Same Name
Without a Common
ParentWhat to expect for affiliatedentities without a common
parent company.

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Parent Company

3Subsidiaries© B Lab 2021

with Subsidiaries
What to expect for parent
companies withsubsidiaries.

5Franchises
What to expect for franchises.

What to expect for
subsidiaries.

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Introduction to B Corp
Certiﬁcation for Related
Entities31

Introduction to B Corp
Certiﬁcation for Related
Entities

Overview
Certifying subsidiaries and other corporate units gives new and existing
Certiﬁed B Corporations more opportunities to scale or exit while
maintaining a high level of social and environmental performance,accountability, and transparency.
B Corporation Certiﬁcation entails both a performance requirement — B
Corps must complete the B Impact Assessment and earn a reviewed minimumscore of 80 points — and an accountability requirement to legally considerstakeholders in the company’s decision-making. Since only entities can meetthe dual requirement of performance and accountability, B Lab only certiﬁesentities, not business divisions, brands, or units individually.
If your company is or has a Subsidiary, Franchise, Division, or other affiliatedentities, review the guidelines below to determine next steps towards B
Corporation Certiﬁcation.

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Parent Companywith Subsidiaries

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Parent Company with Subsidiaries

Parent Company with Subsidiaries
As B Corporation Certiﬁcation is designed to assess a company across the entire
scope of its operations, companies pursuing Certiﬁcation that own subsidiaries must
include all wholly- or majority-owned subsidiaries in the Certiﬁcation process.
Parent companies are not eligible for Certiﬁcation unless these subsidiary entities
are included in their certiﬁcation process, in one of two ways:
Certify Separately
Each operationally independent subsidiary can take their own B Impact Assessment
and have their own proﬁle page on www.bcorporation.net if certiﬁed. In thisscenario, each company must meet the performance requirements, fulﬁlltransparency requirements, and pay separate Certiﬁcation fees.
The parent company may then certify once all subsidiary entities have achieved the B
Corp Certiﬁcation, or are included in the scope of the parent company’s B Impact
Assessment.
●For $5B+ parent companies, at least 95% of the business’s operations must be
assessed and veriﬁed using the B Impact Assessment with a bottom up
approach, earning a weighted average overall score of greater than 80 toqualify for the certiﬁcation.
Certify Together
In this case, the company would have a single Certiﬁcation with only one proﬁlelisting on bcorporation.net. The company’s structure will determine how many B
Impact Assessments are necessary.
If aspects of the company like governance, procurement, and other operations arecentrally managed with easily aggregated data, the company may be eligible tocomplete one collective B Impact Assessment. If the reverse is true, subsidiaries
should complete their own B Impact Assessments and complete the review process
separately. The overall combined score for the entire entity will be a weighted
average based on revenue or number of employees. In order to certify, the weighted
average must be 80 or above. Subsidiaries that would not meet the 80-point bar on
their own will likely not be eligible to use the Certiﬁed B Corp logo and intellectualproperty.
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2Parent Company with Subsidiaries

The B Corporation Certiﬁcation annual fee includes the review and veriﬁcation of one
B Impact Assessment. There will be an additional veriﬁcation fee for each additional
assessment review required for the Certiﬁcation. The annual Certiﬁcation fee will bebased on combined revenue. Standard veriﬁcation cost per subsidiary Assessment isbased on the subsidiary’s annual revenue, with pricing determined at the discretionof the local B Lab or Sistema B partner organization. Reach out to our team in yourregion.
Veriﬁcation fees for companies undergoing B Lab’s Large Enterprise Approach tocertiﬁcation are determined by B Lab based on the company’s size and the number ofassessments that were veriﬁed in the review.
Branding Guidelines for Parent Companies
The B Corporation Intellectual Property, including but not limited to the name
Certiﬁed B Corporation™ and the B Corporation™ Logo, can only be used by theentities that are Certiﬁed and not by any non-Certiﬁed parent, subsidiaries, orrelated entities, including those that share the same name. Use of the B Corp
intellectual property should be clearly applied to the distinct Certiﬁed entity.
Example: Ace Solar UK is a Certiﬁed B Corporation
Example: Ben & Jerry’s is a Certiﬁed B Corporation, but their parent company,Unilever, is not.
Brands, divisions, and affiliated entities (including subsidiaries) of a parent company
that is a Certiﬁed B Corp with a different name than the Certiﬁed parent may only use
the Certiﬁed B Corp Intellectual Property if they meet the minimum veriﬁed
performance requirement independently.

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Subsidiaries

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Subsidiaries

Subsidiaries
Subsidiaries can sometimes certify independently of their parent company if
the parent is not interested or able to certify immediately. Subsidiaries areeligible to certify on their own if they are able to demonstrate that they areoperationally complete and distinct from their parent and/or siblingcompanies. This requirement is in place as the B Corp Certiﬁcation isfundamentally intended to holistically assess the social and environmental
performance of a complete business.
In certain cases, maintaining a subsidiary’s B Corp Certiﬁcation comes withrequirements for the parent company.
A subsidiary’s ability to certify independently depends in part on whether or
not the subsidiary shares the same name as its parent company. If you’reunsure of how your company’s name affects your pursuit of B Corp
Certiﬁcation, get in touch with B Lab at support@bcorporation.net.
Company Headquarters that are distinct subsidiaries are not eligible to certify
on their own.
Subsidiaries with the Same Name as their Parent
Subsidiaries with the same name as their parent company may certify
independently if the company demonstrates, and B Lab approves, thesubsidiary is complete and distinct.
However, in order to alleviate brand confusion or risk the credibility of the B
Corp Brand, <$1B revenue parent companies with the same name as B Corp
Certiﬁed subsidiaries need to commit to Certiﬁcation themselves, and maketheir commitment public in three years and achieve certiﬁcation in six yearsof the certiﬁcation date of their ﬁrst subsidiary that shares the name. Parent
companies with greater than $1B in annual revenue must be a B Movement
Builder (or equivalent program as determined by B Lab) within three years of
the certiﬁcation date of the ﬁrst subsidiary with the same name.

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Subsidiaries

Subsidiaries with Different Names from their Parent
If the subsidiary has a wholly different name from their parent (e.g. Ben &Jerry’s and Unilever), then the subsidiary may certify independently, provided
the subsidiary operates as a complete and distinct business. Parent companies
with different names from their B Corp Certiﬁed subsidiaries do not need topursue Certiﬁcation to maintain their subsidiaries’ Certiﬁcation.
Transparency and Veriﬁcation Guidelines
Wholly-owned subsidiaries, majority-owned subsidiaries with a parentcompany that earns >$1B in annual revenue and public companies with a>$100M market capitalization are required to make non-sensitive answers of
their full B Impact Assessment transparent on their the company’s B Corp
Proﬁle Page. To ensure the information on the assessment is accurate, B Lab
requires that these companies undergo a more rigorous review process,regardless of size. This requirement is in place in order to balance the fact thatthe B Corp legal requirement to adopt stakeholder governance may be lessmeaningful for a wholly-owned subsidiary that typically has a single
shareholder. Public transparency provides the company with a tangible
mechanism to be accountable to interested stakeholders.
Wholly-owned subsidiaries, majority-owned subsidiaries with a parent
company that earns >$1B in annual revenue, public companies with a >$100Mmarket capitalization and private companies that earn >$1B in annual revenue
are subject to a mandatory Site Review each 3-year certiﬁcation term at thecompany’s expense. For subsidiaries that generate greater than $500 MM inannual revenue, this Site Review will be conducted prior to the companies
initial certiﬁcation. Site Reviews are conducted at B Lab’s discretion andtypically occur during a company’s initial certiﬁcation and recertiﬁcation
years.
If the parent company has revenues in excess of $1 billion and the subsidiary
applying for Certiﬁcation has the same name, but is not wholly-owned, it issubject to the same transparency requirements as wholly-owned subsidiaries.

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3Subsidiaries

Branding Guidelines for Subsidiaries
The B Corporation Intellectual Property, including but not limited to the name
Certiﬁed B Corporation™ and the B Corporation™ Logo, can only be used by
the entities that are Certiﬁed and not by any non-Certiﬁed parent,
subsidiaries, or related entities, including those that share the same name. Useof the B Corp intellectual property should be clearly applied to the distinct
certiﬁed entity.
Example: Ace Solar UK is a Certiﬁed B Corporation
Example: Ben & Jerry’s is a Certiﬁed B Corporation, but their parent company,Unilever, is not.
If a B Corp Certiﬁed subsidiary sells products or services outside of its distinct
geographic location of operations and there is an affiliated company with thesame name where the company’s products/services are sold, the B Corp
Intellectual Property can only be used in the geographic location of thecompany that is Certiﬁed. This applies to affiliated entities without a commonparent, subsidiaries of the same parent, and franchises of a non-certiﬁed
franchisor.
Example: If all of Ace Solar UK’s products are sold and labeled for the UK, thesubsidiary may use the Certiﬁed B Corp seal on its products in the UK.
However, if Ace Solar UK also sells products in Spain, and Ace Solar products
sold in Spain are also sold by a different Ace subsidiary that is not Certiﬁed,
Ace Solar UK may not use the Certiﬁed B Corp seal on products sold in Spain.

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Affiliated Entities with theSame Name Without a Common
Parent124Affiliated Entities with the Same Name
Without a Common Parent

Affiliated entities with the same name without a common parent can certify
independently only if the entity seeking certiﬁcation has a separate website
and is located in a geographically distinct region from its related entities thatshare the same name.
Brand Guidelines for Affiliated Entities
The B Corporation Intellectual Property, including but not limited to the name
Certiﬁed B Corporation™ and the B Corporation Logo™, can only be used by
the entities that are Certiﬁed and not by the affiliated entities. Use of the B Corp
intellectual property should be clearly applied to the distinct certiﬁed entity.
Example: Ace Solar UK is a Certiﬁed B CorporationIf the certiﬁed company sells products or services outside of its distinct
geographic location of operations and there is an affiliated company with thesame name where the company’s products/services are sold, the B Corp
Intellectual Property can only be used in the geographic
location of the company certifying.
Example: If all of Ace Solar UK’s products are sold and labeled for the UK, it
may use the Certiﬁed B Corp seal on its products in the UK. However, if it sells
products in Spain as well, and there are Ace Solar products sold in Spain byaffiliated companies that are not Certiﬁed B Corps, Ace Solar UK may only use
the Certiﬁed B Corp seal on products sold in the UK.

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Franchises

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5Franchises

Franchisors are eligible to certify.* If the Franchisor has geographic
distinction and operates stores or operating entities, they can use theCertiﬁed B Corp IP at those sites; otherwise, they can only use it at theCorporate level and on the Corporate webpage. If the Franchisor is a Certiﬁed
B Corporation, any franchisee can pursue independent B CorporationCertiﬁcation.
*Please note: B Lab has determined it will conduct a process to review
Franchisor certiﬁcation eligibility and branding rules in 2022, and thisinformation is subject to change. If your company is a Franchise, pleasecontact your local B Lab or Sistema B organization.
Independent Franchisee Certiﬁcation
The B Corporation Intellectual Property, including but not limited to thename Certiﬁed B Corporation™ and the B Corporation™ Seal, can only be
used by the entities that are Certiﬁed and not by any non-Certiﬁed parent,subsidiaries, or related entities, including those that share the same name.
Use of the B Corp intellectual property should be clearly applied to the distinct
certiﬁed entity.
Example: Ace Solar UK is a Certiﬁed B Corporation
Example: Ben & Jerry’s is a Certiﬁed B Corporation, but their parent company,Unilever, is not.
Brands, divisions, and affiliated entities (including subsidiaries) of a parent
company that is a Certiﬁed B Corp with a different name than the certiﬁedparent may only use the Certiﬁed B Corp Intellectual Property if they meet theminimum veriﬁed performance requirement independently.

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