Ranking: 30

Industry: Food

Mission: A school meal provider solving America’s food crisis with a wide range of nutritious, chef-crafted, culturally relevant school and community meals. Their kid and nutritionist-approved meals empower students to make smart food and lifestyle choices. Design, produce, and deliver 2 million meals per week to 2,500 school and community sites nationwide. 

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“It is more critical than ever to ensure all students, regardless of their income status, have access to high quality nutritious meals at school. Many of the schools we partner with are serving the students and families at highest risk of obesity, diabetes and other diet-related diseases. Proper nutrition and healthy food can drive positive academic outcomes and can be the ultimate tool of empowerment and a key ingredient to helping children achieve their true potential.”  — from our CEO & CIO

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

At Revolution Foods, we are on a mission to create lifelong healthy eaters by making kid-inspired, chef-crafted food accessible to all. We believe everyone deserves access to real, high-quality food made with carefully considered ingredients, and we are committed to transforming citywide wellness by making healthy food accessible to all. We believe proper nutrition and healthy food can drive positive academic outcomes and can be the ultimate tool of empowerment and a key ingredient to helping children achieve their true potential. A recent impact assessment conducted by KKS Advisors on behalf of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation found schools that serve Revolution Foods saw an improvement of 13.1% in English Language Arts (ELA) test results. We work alongside best-in-class partners as an FoodCorps and Stephen & Ayesha Curry’s Eat. Learn. Play Foundation to engage students in nutrition education and other integrative food activities beyond the cafeteria.

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Ranking: 35

Industry: Health & Wellness

Mission: A medicinal herb manufacturer that cultivates health and wellbeing by connecting plants and people. They use organic methods from seed to shelf, and incorporate regenerative farming practices to conserve their surrounding ecosystem. They further pursue sustainability through philanthropy that supports social and environmental impact in the communities where they work.

What 3 words best describe your company culture?

Intentional, Genuine, Collaborative

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“Nature holds many values that can be applied to business – both require regeneration at every level to create a thriving system.” — Angela McElwee, Gaia Herbs

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

Our purpose as a business is connecting people, plants and planet to create healing. Thus, we consider our impact holistically — including people, planet, communities reached, and even our capital structure. As a Certified B Corporation, we are committed to operating our business as a force for good. We consider not just shareholders in our decision making, but all stakeholders — employees, the communities we source from, and the ecosystems that enable us to do this work. We do this by examining our operations at every level and seeing where we can take action.

As we find ourselves in the second half of what may be the most challenging year many of us have faced in recent memory, and with COVID-19 and racial inequities coming to a head, our sustainability and social impact work have become even more important.

The Gaia Herbs Roots Initiative (Gaia Roots), which was formed in 2018, is the social impact program of Gaia Herbs. This year, we expanded the focus of our social impact work to provide help where it is most needed — giving more access to herbs and herbal supplements. While some people can readily purchase herbs and herbal products, for others this access is much more limited. Recognizing this disparity, this year our Gaia Roots Small Grants Program will be awarding four $5,000 grants to organizations prioritizing projects that expand herbal access in underserved, minority, and economically disadvantaged communities.

Our 2020 work has also included the following projects:

HAND SANITIZER PRODUCTION: When the critical need for hand sanitizer became clear, it was an easy decision to use our expertise and help our local community by manufacturing Certified Organic hand sanitizer. We donated our entire first production run, which included 217 one-gallon bottles and 3,000 two-ounce bottles, to those in our area who are helping others, including health care workers, emergency responders, and farmworkers.

ORGANIC VEGETABLE & HERB DONATIONS: Ten acres of our Certified Organic farm was used to grow produce for employees, food banks, and community organizations this year. To date, we have donated over 16,500 vegetable and medicinal herb starts to organizations including Hunger Coalition of Transylvania County, Bountiful Cities, Eliada Homes, as well as to our own Gaia team members.

HERBAL PRODUCT DONATIONS: We have donated and continue to give Gaia Herbs’ products to support herbal mutual aid projects and community resiliency programs. To date, herbal products have been delivered to organizations including Blue Ridge Healers Without Borders, Bountiful Cities, and the Nap Ministry.

GIVING THANKS WITH NOURISHING FOOD: Our healthcare workers and first responders are on the front lines, keeping our communities safe. To show our appreciation, our culinary team cooked 90 meals for the employees of Pardee Hospital, one of our local hospitals in Western North Carolina.

SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITY FOOD BANKS: With the need greater than ever, we have provided approximately 20,000 meals to vulnerable and at-risk populations through our donations to local and national food banks such as Sharing House, Bread of Life, MANNA Foodbank, and Feeding America.

EMPLOYEE VEGETABLE PROGRAM: Earlier this year, Gaia team members volunteered their time to work on the farm planting vegetables for our Wellness program. This opportunity provided employees a deeper connection to Nature while also increasing our vegetable output, enabling us to donate 20,250 pounds of fresh vegetables and herbs to date.

What is your company’s vision for the future?

For over thirty years, Gaia Herbs has been a trusted herbal brand connecting people, plants, and planet to create healing. From our Certified Organic Farm in North Carolina, we use regenerative agriculture practices to grow our herbs with care. We transform Nature’s wisdom into trusted herbal forumlas, combining science and traditional herbal knowledge to create blends rooted in purity, potency, and integrity. We are a leader in sustainable sourcing, sharing complete transparency on all ingredients through meetyourherbs.com, the world’s first herb traceability program. Through this program, customers can take a deeper dive into each herb in our products — learning where it came from; how it was grown, harvested, and extracted. Why? Because people deserve the highest quality, safe, pure, and effective herbal products to support their health and well-being.

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Ranking: 29

Industry: Banking

Mission: A socially responsible community bank that solves social and environmental problems and sparks community development. They provide financial solutions that help their community thrive, helping community partners realize success through sustainable innovation. Operating from 8 branches to serve the greater Twin Cities community, and offer further services to customers nationwide. 

What 3 words best describe your company culture?

Entrepreneurial. Mission-focused. Innovative.

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“Our success relies on the success of the communities we serve” — David Reiling, CEO of Sunrise Banks

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

Sunrise Banks is empowering financial wellness through accessible and affordable financial products that help low-to-moderate income consumers build credit and escape predatory debt cycles.

As a Community Development Financial Institution, Sunrise Banks makes 60% of its loans in low-income census tracts; in addition, the bank has expanded its mission nationally and globally through its fintech (financial technology) partnerships division. Sunrise partners with like-minded fintechs that help consumers obtain financial wellness through streamlined user experiences and convenient access to financial products.

Examples of Sunrise Banks’ impact include:

• A partnership with Aeon, the Minneapolis Foundation, the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, and the Frey Foundation that created a Community Development Corporation (CDC) fund to retain approximately 600 units of affordable housing in the Twin Cities.
• Successfully using five prior rounds of New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) allocations — a total of $243 million — to finance projects in impoverished urban communities.
• Helping more than 95,000 individuals build their credit through our partnership with Self, a fintech focused on building consumers’ credit history.
• Committing to monitoring the greenhouse gas emissions created by our loan investments over a period of three years as a member of the Climate Change Commitment through the Global Alliance for Banking on Values.
• Donating a minimum of 2% net income to charitable organizations every year as part of the banks’ continued support of local nonprofits.

At its core, Sunrise Banks is a mission-driven institution that looks to effect positive change in underserved communities.

What is your company’s vision for the future?

Sunrise will continue working to provide financial products that are accessible and affordable for all. We hope to be able to create just as much — if not more — positive change in the next ten years as we have over the last decade.

In particular, we’ve set a goal of changing 250 million lives by 2028. How do we do this? Through continued innovation that emphasizes equality and financial empowerment. By our count, we’ve currently impacted around 40 million lives.

We define changing someone’s life as creating a positive outcome for them. This could be through an Individual Tax Identification Number mortgage loan for a recent immigrant to the United States; it could be providing a Paycheck Protection Program loan to a struggling small business; or it could be packing a lunch to be served to the homeless. Our goal of changing 250 million lives is a lofty one, but we’re confident we can follow through on it. And we look forward to doing so.

Sunrise will also continue to leverage responsible technology to better serve our clients. Every industry, including banking, is shifting to a digital-first landscape and we will continue to create fintech partnerships in order to keep up with technological trends and provide the best service possible locally and across the globe.

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Ranking: 89

Industry: Physical Education

Mission: A youth development organization providing positive experiences through sports and creative play. They organize programs and activities outside of the classroom and teach kids the importance of health and fitness as a way of life. Working with over 25,000 kids in dozens of communities around New York City.

What 3 words best describe your company culture?

Committed, Inclusive, Ambitious

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than government in breaking down racial barriers.” — Nelson Mandela

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

We believe that sports and creative movement are a vehicle to learning life’s greatest lessons. By providing equal opportunity to all kids to engage in productive physical activity programs we believe that we can foster a positive sense of self in kids, bring people together of all backgrounds, and ultimately empower the next generation of leaders. We currently work with kids from over 75% of New York City’s zip codes and over 50% are living in low income districts. By closing the opportunity gap now, we believe in a bright and more equitable future for all.

What is your company’s vision for the future?

Our vision is to encourage active lifestyles and character-building, to develop the integrity of a generation. We see our impact as more than just a school year, a sports season, or a session of summer camp, but rather as a long term investment of our future. Our hope is to provide our kids with skills that translate to all aspects of life and empower them to go out into the world and continue to create positive change.

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Ranking: 31

Industry: Beverages

Mission: A beverage company that introduces reusability with a new hybrid, combining purified water in a reusable bottle. They are forging a path to end single-use plastics with their easy to refill, 100% recyclable, BPA-free aluminum bottle and convenient, affordable water. Diverting the use of millions of plastic bottles to change how the world consumes water. 

What 3 words best describe your company culture?

Passionate, Driven, Optimistic

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

The bottled water industry is recognized as the single largest contributor to the single-use plastic crisis. Whereas many companies have tried to institute sustainable solutions for bottled water, each solution seems to carry problems of its own. Water canteens like Hydro Flasks are refillable, but they have a steep price tag that not everyone can afford. Other solutions like Boxed or Canned Water are all single-use; a half-baked solution to this global crisis.

PathWater is the first and only solution that tackles all of the above. They come pre-filled with purified drinking water, making them a great on-the-go savior for someone looking for bottled water in-store. They’re made to be refilled for years to come, and they’re affordable — less than $3 — making sustainability an option for everyone.

Although PathWater’s core mission revolves around sustainability, the team is not one to shy away from taking a stand on a variety of other societal issues. PathWater frequently initiates campaigns to benefit spheres including public health and environmental preservation.

What is your company’s vision for the future?

Experts say that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Here at PathWater, we aim to rewrite that narrative and prove that we CAN have a future that is independent of single-use plastic. At the end of the day, our mission really boils down to incentivizing sustainability: helping people recognize the simplicity of making a positive impact. We are working to phase out single-use plastic bottles everywhere we can — airports, corporate campuses, retailers, restaurants, etc.

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Ranking: 39

Industry: Investment Advising

Mission: A venture capital firm that provides equity and debt financing to established and emerging companies located in communities underserved by conventional sources of capital. They invest in small businesses and help grow local economies. Have fostered over 780 companies across a diverse array of industry sectors, including manufacturing, technology and business services.

What 3 words best describe your company culture?

Collaborative, Entrepreneurial, Accountable

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“Through strategic investments in small businesses located in underserved communities — and by financing affordable housing in those same neighborhoods, along with access to renewable energy — our focus is on strengthening communities, equalizing opportunities for household financial security, and growing local economies.”

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

Advantage Capital creates a platform for economic security in low-income communities across the county. We do so, in part, by investing in the growth of companies that can create and retain good-quality jobs. Through our investments and non-financial support and guidance, the companies in which we invest have largely expanded and prospered, supporting more than 60,000 jobs in low-income communities across the country. We also finance affordable housing in these same communities, creating even more positive and lasting change in neighborhoods, and for families and seniors. To further strengthen communities and equalize access to capital and growth, we finance renewable energy projects, for the benefit of planet, people and economic growth.

What is your company’s vision for the future?

We fundamentally believe that capital can change lives. We have infused investment capital into 244 highly distressed census tracts across the country. We see continued focus on strengthening communities, by staying true to our investment philosophy of delivering much-needed capital to small businesses that can create and preserve good jobs in some of the nation’s hardest-hit communities. We envision serving nearly 500 communities, more than doubling our footprint in historically distressed neighborhoods, erasing blight and chipping away at the factors which have led to their decline, neighbor by neighbor, family by family, block by block.

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Ranking: 71

Industry: Investment Management

Mission: A leader in global impact initiatives dedicated to the pursuit of financial return and social change. Their clients share a common conviction in sustainable enterprise and a commitment to ethical standards that carry from their missions to their investments. Aligned with 12 Sustainable Development Goals, with the largest contribution towards Climate Action.

What 3 words best describe your company culture?

Authentic, Inclusive, Engaged

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“We analyze opportunities from a wholistic perspective and activate capital with our investor voice, incorporating Environmental, Social, & Governance drivers to enhance traditional assessments of growth, competitiveness, and profitability.”

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

We integrate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) considerations into every step of our investment process. We seek leaders on ESG issues and avoid investing in companies with unsustainable business models. We look at areas such as the environment, employment practices and labor relations, human rights, and marketing safe and sustainable products and services. The result is portfolios of high-quality, long-term oriented companies with strong sustainability characteristics and significantly smaller portfolio carbon footprints versus respective benchmarks.

We have helped create industry standards in emerging ESG areas, such as climate risk in the financial sector, human rights, access to nutrition, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, access to medicines, human trafficking, renewable energy, hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas operations, and chemical safety. Through our active ownership and engagement initiatives, we seek to improve our portfolio companies’ financial performance and reputations by improving the long-term sustainability of their products, processes and policies. Leveraging our issue expertise and thoughtful engagement approach, we help build and lead investor coalitions engaging companies, industries, and policy makers on ESG issues. Ultimately, we seek to identify key ESG risks and best practices and then raise overall industry ESG practices and investor expectations.

What is your company’s vision for the future?

Boston Common is dedicated to the pursuit of financial returns and societal change, with a commitment to be an ESG/Impact firm where employees, clients, partners, and vendors are inspired to create social change through the deployment of capital, shareowner engagement, and forward-looking integration of ESG and activism.

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Ranking: 42

Industry: Furniture

Mission: A furniture manufacturer that produces standing desks, chairs, and ergonomic furniture to keep people moving, engaged, and loving how they feel at work. Their furniture helps create a healthy, supportive workplace and incorporates sustainability into the design, manufacturing, packaging, and shipping of all products. Keeping people moving, minds engaged, and energy flowing.

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“When we feel better in our bodies, we feel more connected to ourselves, to our work, and to the people and world around us.” — David Kahl, Founder

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

At Fully our work is about being better at being human. We know that the divide between “work” and “life” is an illusion, and that healthy living depends on a healthy workspace. We believe this should be available to every person, from the basement studio to the downtown office. We understand the connection between healthy body, healthy mind, healthy business and a healthy world.

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Ranking: 43

Industry: Personal Care

Mission: A manufacturer of personal care products made with active botanicals and scented with pure essential oils. They use ethically sourced ingredients in a certified organic, zero-waste facility and push sustainability initiatives in their industry. Offering affordable products at over 6,000 stores in the U.S., and in 11 more countries around the world. 

What 3 words best describe your company culture?

Good Intentions, Hard Work, Changing

What quote best exemplifies your company?

“Work is love made visible.”

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

Founded in 1995, EO Products is a certified B Corporation, and makes all decisions in respect of its customers, its employees, and the planet, and imagines and manufactures products in a zero-waste, certified green facility in California. The EO Products factory is a solar-powered, certified organic plant that utilizes post-consumer recycled packaging and an environmentally preferred supply chain policy to honor the well-being of people and the planet we share. EO Products uses non-GMO ingredients and infuses its products with the best-quality, pure essential oils and food-grade extracts that are available while never using parabens, sodium lauryl sulfate, synthetic fragrances, aluminum, propylene glycol, polysorbates, phthalates, or artificial colors and dyes.

What is your company’s vision for the future?

A unified sense of belonging, internally and with our community at large.

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Ranking: 27

Industry: Investment Management

Mission: Arowana is an award winning global B Corporation that has a number of operating companies and investments, including in electric vehicles, renewable energy, vocational education, technology and software venture capital, and impact asset management.They invest in, and operate enterprises that serve a real purpose–working directly with companies that have a positive impact on all stakeholders. They do not critique from the sidelines, nor do they disengage from the businesses they invest in when the going gets tough. Instead, they tackle challenges alongside founders and management teams, with an understanding that growth follows a non-linear trajectory.

What 3 words best describe your company culture?

Humility, Solidarity, Tenacity

How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?

We have a long-term commitment to building strong, sustainable businesses that will have a positive impact on economies, industries, and the people they employ.

What is your company’s vision for the future?

We grow people, companies, and value.

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