Becoming a B Corp was an important milestone for Hassell, a chance to reinforce existing commitments and values, but also to identify any blind spots and areas for improvement. Managing Director Liz Westgarth describes the rigorous certification process, the motivation for seeking B Corp status, and the attendant benefits and challenges.

Values and benefits

B Corp Certification is closely connected with Hassell’s purpose – to create a better future by designing the world’s best places, places people love. It provides us with independent validation of that purpose and our impact. The Certification holds us accountable to our commitments and we’re able to use the recognised framework to measure, assess and benchmark our social and environmental performance.

It is also going to guide us on our performance and identify the areas where we can improve. It will differentiate us from our peers and enhance our reputation, and we know this will help us attract top talent while developing our customer loyalty.

Joining the B Corp community allows us to collaborate with other like-minded organisations that share our vision for meaningful, authentic change.

Motivation

As designers, it’s our responsibility to embed sustainability and regenerative design in everything – people and nature need to thrive together. We want to inspire, advocate and demonstrate leadership in tackling the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges.

Becoming a B Corp was an important milestone for Hassell, as we continue to shift our thinking and our processes from sustainable to regenerative. We’re able to strengthen our capabilities across different areas of our business while reinforcing our existing commitments such as gender equity, First Nations reconciliation, climate action, tackling modern slavery, and sustainable procurement.

We’re now connected to a global network of businesses using their influence for good, and we’re eager to learn from those who have led the way and share insights from our own journey.

The certification process

The certification process comprises several stages, starting with an evaluation of our business structure and initial eligibility. We then undertook a rigorous verification of everything, from our business policies and procedures to the impact of our projects. The process also required a review of the client sectors in which we operate against B Lab’s evolving risk standards.

This process gave us an independent understanding of where we were doing well and the areas where we could improve. The assessment was truly valuable in shining a light on some blind spots that needed attention, which we’re now incorporating into our re-certification strategy.

For us, the hardest part was simply access to data – every day we create positive impact through our projects but complying with B Lab’s data requirements for the sector-specific questions on architecture design and planning highlighted an opportunity to improve our systems.

Projects and decision making

We became a B Corp so we could access and utilise an independent and recognised framework that would allow us to measure and assess Hassell’s own impact as a business. The Certification provides external validation of how we stack up to our purpose, and our alignment with other purpose-driven organisations. It is a means to provide transparency and authenticity in how we make decisions as a practice and helps us to understand and stay on top of best practices.

When it comes to our work as designers, the projects we choose to work on are guided by our purpose and our values. We’re now able to use the B Corp risk standards as a framework to guide our decision making on potentially sensitive and controversial industries. They’re a valuable resource to help us select the projects that best align with our purpose.

Timeframes and necessary changes

Joining the B Corp community has been on our radar for some time, but for us we really started exploring the certification and what was required in late 2022. We submitted our B Impact Assessment in early 2023. From then it was just over a year and a half until we certified in August 2024. We know the process takes time, so the timeframe was well within our expectations.

The standards of B Corp Certification are high. So, we had to perform a thorough feasibility study and gap analysis of our existing practices compared to these standards. We identified some initial areas for improvement, such as reviewing and amending some of our policies, but otherwise we were pleased to receive credit for some of the initiatives we had put in place – from our environmental management system and carbon neutral status to our gender equity framework and practices for a positive and equitable working environment. So, in some respects the certification process was very validating of the impact we were already having!

One of our bigger changes, and one we’re most proud of, is completing the B Corp purpose and stakeholder governance requirement, bringing our company governing documents into alignment with our policies and processes as a purpose-led business.

B Corp impact

Hassell’s B Corp Certification was only just received in August of 2024, so it’s very early days for us! As B Corp is a long-term commitment, we expect to see ongoing positive changes as we join the B Corp community and learn from others. So far there has been a lot of interest and curiosity from our clients and collaborators, as well as our people, and we’re excited to incorporate B Corp’s mission alongside our values over time.

Now issued, our B Corp Certification is valid for three years and we will be required to re-certify in 2027. Over this period, we will implement our B Corp improvement plan, to increase not only our level of positive impact, but also our assessment score.

We know that stakeholder expectations of what is considered ‘good’ are constantly changing across different industries. We’re keeping a close eye on B Corp’s standards as they continue to evolve. We’ve already started preparing our re-certification strategy, building in B Lab’s proposed new standards – which are a much higher benchmark of impact for new and existing B Corps.

At Hassell, embedding our Sustainability Framework in both our practice and our projects is a business priority, and so maintaining our B Corp Certification is aligned and complementary to this objective and the 2030 Framework targets we have set for ourselves. The re-certification process is a ‘status check’ for us and will provide validations that we’re moving in the right direction and are making progress towards a regenerative approach being business as usual by 2030.

Initiatives

Hassell’s strategic Sustainability Framework informs and guides our approach for creating positive social and environmental impact, for both our projects and our practice – and complements our ongoing commitment to B Corp Certification.

As a business, some of our other key initiatives include:

  • Climate Active – we have achieved carbon neutral status under the Australian Government’s Climate Active program, for our studios globally. This is a near term step in our broader climate strategy, which we will continue to develop and implement in coming years.
  • Gender Equity Framework – we have made a commitment to achieve gender balance (45:45:10) across all levels of the business (within all disciplines and at all levels of seniority) by 2028.
  • Social Impact – through our Design for Good program we recognise the value of design in creating positive social impact and continue to partner with organisations such as Architects Without Frontiers to improve the built environment of communities in need, offering our skills on a no or heavily subsidised fee basis.

For the first two of these initiatives, our progress is disclosed publicly through Climate Active and the Champions of Change Coalition respectively. For our commitment to social impact and environmental impact, we’re currently devising an organisation-wide method to collect, analyse, evaluate and report on social and environmental data. We will use a structured approach that allows us not only to monitor our progress, but also to inform a meaningful and authentic format to disclose our impact externally on a periodic basis. This is currently in development, and we’re excited to set this in motion.

Advice for others

We encourage all aspiring B Corps to be patient, to take their time working through the BIA and be honest about their current level of impact – it’s not uncommon to see the point score move up and down throughout the process.

And speak to your leadership about the purpose and stakeholder governance requirement early on!

Hassell is a leading international design practice with studios in Asia, Australia and the United Kingdom. The practice works across a wide range of client sectors, project types and scales – from interiors, buildings and public spaces to precincts, health, education, transport, public and cultural infrastructure – and even designing for outer space. Hassell combines strategic insight with creative design to unlock the social, cultural and economic value of places for clients, customers and stakeholders, the communities where they work and future generations. They collaborate with the best minds in research, industry and design worldwide and they’re committed to making a positive impact on communities and our environment.

Photos: Alanna McTiernan, David Chatfield, James Campbell @Catch Create, Roman Deguchi