The 2014 case illustrates about the U.S. nonprofit organization B Lab and its assignment to support and help instigate investment capital toward private enterprises that 1) aim to supply societal and environmental benefits, and 2) have responsibility towards stakeholders (such as workers and their community) as well as their equity investors. B Lab created robust tools for assessing the effect of these enterprises so the social and environmental Return on Investment could be measured and evaluated in a transparent, comparable and consistent manner. The tools are predicated on a 200 point assessment scheme called the B Impact Assessment.
In further addition, B Lab made a certification labelled as "B Corp," which identified business that evaluated distinct stakeholder interest in the definition of corporate and fiduciary responsibility. B Lab also developed and specialized anew legal form, the Benefit organization, which bolstered those organizations. Through these activities, B Lab played a crucial role in the relatively new practice of impact investing, which seeks to create favorable environmental or social value alongside fiscal returns.
In 2014 the eight-year old firm was at a strategic crossroads. Many organizations found the B Lab appraisal process to be burdensome, as well as the investment markets were showing a lack of interest, or even resistance to, using B Lab's measurement systems. Many market participants wanted to put emphasis on particular parts of B Lab's assessment, or desired more customized tools to satisfy data collection for their own existing metrics. Nevertheless, enabling investors to do that would allow it to be more challenging for B Lab to create common standards - a key portion of the assignment of the organizations. The leaders of B Lab were grappling together with the problem of how far to visit meet the marketplace with services and highly customized products that investors were demanding, versus how much B Lab should lead the marketplace for measuring impact, to some higher bar.
PUBLICATION DATE: August 10, 2014 PRODUCT #: SM220-PDF-ENG
This is just an excerpt. This case is about LEADERSHIP & MANAGING PEOPLE
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