Regulatory consultancy Pathlight joins the B Corp movement
Pathlight Associates has announced it has obtained certification as a B Corporation. The firm joins a growing group of consulting firms looking to demonstrate their ESG credentials.
Pathlight Associates is a consulting firm specialising in providing governance, risk, regulatory, and compliance advisory services. With a core focus on helping businesses to enhance their operations and meet regulatory requirements, B Corporation status was surely a must.
Certified B Corporations, or B Corps, are companies verified to meet the standards of non-profit B Lab’s standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. Based on stakeholder input, research, and established best practices, B Lab’s evaluation is said to be the basis for B Corp Certification requirements, while also informing the network’s programmes and collective action initiatives.
Pathlight offers a range of services, tailored to their clients’ needs, working across governance and risk management, regulatory compliance, corporate culture, financial crime prevention and business conduct. In achieving certification, Pathlight said in a release that it had met high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability, alongside a commitment to goals beyond shareholder value.
John Higgins, CEO at Pathlight Associates, commented, “This is a really exciting moment for the Pathlight team, and I’m delighted to see the hard work we have put into the certification come to fruition, as well as the recognition of our efforts to have a positive impact on all our stakeholders and the planet. We regularly work with clients on issues such as transparency, company culture and effective governance, and it is important to be able to show them that we follow our own advice. Becoming a B Corp is an important signal that as an organisation we care about more than just profit, and it is fantastic to be joining a community of like-minded businesses.”
B Corp credibility
The financial services sector has come under scrutiny for its performance on issues such as sustainability and transparency, particularly since the introduction of the Sustainability and Disclosures Regime (SDR) by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). According to Pathlight, its B Corp certification signals its support for greater accountability and transparency in the sector.
Similar motives have seen a growing number of the advisory sector’s biggest names signing up to be evaluated by B Lab. Many have met B Lab’s criteria in that time; Enfuse Group, Kin + Carta, Bip, OC&C Strategy Consultants, and Campbell Tickell among them.
However, debate about what being a B Corp actually means has grown steadily in recent years. Some member firms argue that seeing it as a ‘movement’ is a mis-step, and that it is not a front for “systemic change”, but simply a means of showing a business’ existing ESG credentials. Others argue that it has been seen for too long as a “box-ticking” exercise, and needs to move beyond being an end in its own right. Elsewhere, the certification has endured several damaging PR knocks.
Recently, this reached a head, when Dr Bronner's exited the B Corp scheme after a decade. On its exit, the family-run soap business singled out its continuing opposition to coffee capsule brand Nespresso getting B-Corp certification in 2022.
Owned by Swiss food giant Nestlé, in 2020 Nespresso was hit by accusations that some of its coffee suppliers in Guatemala were employing young children. While Nestlé said at the time by saying that it "had a zero tolerance of child labour" and would act "immediately", B Lab has since said that while it defends Nespresso's membership, next year it is introducing new "more rigorous" certification standards.
