Ranking: 2
Industry: Cosmetics
Mission: A global personal care cosmetics group aiming to create products that promote the harmonious relationship of the individual with oneself, with others, and with nature. Through responsible sourcing, ecological packaging, and fair-trade ingredients in their 2,000 products, they are committed to combining growth with respect for and preservation of the planet.
Ranking: 55
Industry: Marketing
Mission: A marketing agency that through marketing, printing, websites, and strategic guidance helps businesses and nonprofits all over the world to intentionally develop their brand and identify their purpose. They work with companies to understand their current culture and how they’d like it to evolve. Supporting more than 3,000 nonprofits and small to mid-sized businesses across 5 continents.
What 3 words best describe your company culture?
Authentic, Relationship-Focused, Fun
What quote best exemplifies your company?
“I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness I can show, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” — Stephen Grellet
How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?
Firespring understands the unique challenges and responsibilities nonprofits and businesses face and commits to being a great steward in our community through our Power of 3 program. As Nebraska’s first Certified B Corporation, we create an abundance of positive social impact by leveraging our people, products and profit to do more good. We give:
Total Power of 3 Financial Impact in 2019: $2,893,947
What is your company’s vision for the future?
Firespring exists for the purpose of accelerating client prosperity so we collectively do more good. Pair that with our belief that there’s more to success in business than profitability — organizational success is also about creating a healthy company culture that nurtures and attracts employees and clients, and ultimately affects our communities.
Firespring is pioneering the Do More Good Movement — one in which we are aligning our beliefs and operations with a global evolution that elevates businesses beyond their bottom line. Our mission is to inspire other companies to evolve on their path to purpose by helping them form and execute on their strategy to make a positive mark in their industries, their communities, and the world.
Ranking: 106
Industry: Food Production
Mission: A manufacturer of certified organic, additive free, and allergen friendly snacks for kids. They support small farmers and encourage more sustainable food systems, producing nourishing food while helping to make the world a healthier and happier place for kids. Expanding their influence globally by working towards the goal that no child skips breakfast.
What 3 words best describe your company culture?
Caring. Friendly. Conscious.
What quote best exemplifies your company?
“Healthy Products. Healthy People. Healthy Planet.”
How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?
All our products are developed using only Certified Organic ingredients and meet strict nutritional criteria that is set by our in-house nutritionist in conjunction with Parents and Kids to ensure that we are meeting not only the immediate needs of our customers, but importantly, the taste of their children.
We source certified organic produce from Australia and New Zealand where possible and work with a range of Australian, New Zealand, and global manufacturers to ensure we are producing the highest quality products with as minimal processing as possible.
Our core purpose at Whole Kids is to help parents create happy, healthy lives for their kids. While we are a food manufacturing business, we exist to make an impact beyond the food we make and it is the programs we have put in place to support our core purpose that underpins everything we do at Whole Kids. These programs include:
We believe passionately in healthy kids and a healthy world and that the actions we take can make a real and significant difference to the future of our children. Demonstrating our commitment to using business as a force for good, Whole Kids is also founding member and the first food company in Australia to have been certified as a B Corporation — an international certification recognizing companies that are using business to effect positive social and environmental change.
What is your company’s vision for the future?
In the future we see Whole Kids firmly positioned as a thought leader in kids’ health, nutrition, and education. We continue to see ourselves as agents for change within our industry and will continue to lobby for greater regulation around issues we care about such as the use of food additives in children’s food and junk food marketing to children. We see ourselves entering new categories and new markets.
Key strategies for future growth include increasing our market penetration locally and internationally, continuing to grow our brand awareness and engagement with our customers, continuing to innovate in product development and to expand our share of the existing category as well as disrupt other children’s categories to help achieve our mission of creating a happier, healthier world for kids.
Alongside this, we will continue to advocate for kids and to strengthen and grow our community partnerships to show that there is a better way to do business that is based on principles of strong values, conscious leadership, ethics and transparency in business and that considers all stakeholders and the future of the environment and our impact on future generations.
Ranking: 54
Industry: Impact Investing
Mission: Committed to creating scalable, sustainable solutions to help solve pressing socioeconomic and environmental challenges through investing. They harness the power of capital markets to solve pressing socioeconomic and environmental challenges. Have financed enterprises in 37 developing economies, resulting in the support of over 42,000 permanent jobs.
Ranking: 99
Industry: Financial Services
Mission: An impact investing platform providing innovative financing solutions to catalyse lasting impact. They bridge the gap between seed and growth-stage funding, aiming to improve the world’s most marginalised communities while delivering strong financial returns. Investments have positively impacted over 184 million lives and support more than 45,000 jobs in over 30 countries.
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.
Ranking: 63
Industry: Real Estate
Mission: A green real estate, urban planning, and investment firm that helps metropolitan regions become more resilient, competitive, and equitable. They develop diverse, green, transit-accessible buildings and neighborhoods enriched with social, cultural and educational networks. Maintain over 12,000 units of affordable housing and save 3.6 million pounds of carbon output each year.
What 3 words best describe your company culture?
Regenerative, Collaborative, Kind
What quote best exemplifies your company?
“The poor distribution of opportunity, environmental quality and health are fundamental misallocations of justice. If we are to create a fair and just society, then it is our moral imperative to overcome them. We believe that housing-centered Communities of Opportunity are the platform to achieve social, environmental and racial equity.”
How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?
Communities of Opportunity begin with safe, green, stable, affordable housing. Our goal is to expand upon this base, to buy or build affordable and mixed income housing in lower income communities and provide or connect the transportation, health, education, social, cultural and other elements of opportunity to the residents so that they and our staff can become empowered partners with us and their cities in the transformation of their own neighborhoods. We aim to co-create communities in which all of our residents, employees, neighboring not for profits, government agencies, foundations and others can thrive, collectively generating safety, ecological and personal health, cultural vitality, collective efficacy and educational and economic opportunity regardless of their zip codes.
What is your company’s vision for the future?
We envision a world in which every community is an ecologically thriving landscape of opportunity, unleashing its residents’ opportunity to contribute to a better world, and to benefit from it.
Ranking: 79
Industry: Tech/Fundraising
Mission: A fundraising agency that provides active engagement and long-term support to non-profit organizations. They empower and engage individuals through face-to-face conversations on behalf of their charity partners, and are changing the face of fundraising forever to ensure that every partner fulfills their purpose. On a mission to change the way America gives.
Ranking: 93
Industry: Sustainable Apparel & Home
Mission: Offers eco-friendly style and apparel. They use biodegradable organic fibers, low-impact dyes, and fair labor practices, supporting textile manufacturing that enriches biodiversity and seeks to reverse the traditionally negative impacts of the fashion industry. Elevating everyone along their farm-to-finished fashion supply chain.
What 3 words best describe your company culture?
Positive, Collaborative, Transparent
What quote best exemplifies your company?
“Styling the world of change, while changing the world of style.” — Marci Zaroff
How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?
We are deeply committed to expanding organic and regenerative agriculture, while mitigating climate change, as well as reducing water, waste, energy, and chemical impacts in fashion and textiles. Our products are certified to the GOTS standard from farm to finished product — utilizing only organic and sustainable fibers/materials, low impact dyes, ethical manufacturing, fair labor, and safe working conditions.
What is your company’s vision for the future?
Our mission is to revolutionize the fashion industry through education, inspiration, innovation and collaboration, while connecting organic food to fiber, making sustainable fashion affordable, accessible, and authentic.
Ranking: 62
Industry: Accounting
Mission: A public accounting firm offering holistic financial strategies to address clients’ financial goals and circumstances. They offer global expertise with a regional focus, helping people reach their goals and rest better knowing that they have someone on their side. Work with 20 partners and support global business needs in over 88 countries.
What 3 words best describe your company culture?
Innovative, Inclusive, Supportive
What quote best exemplifies your company?
“At Sensiba San Filippo we believe that we should never lose focus on what is important in life. That’s why we believe in Family, Community, and Firm… in that order.”
How is your product or service having a positive social and/or environmental impact?
A good example of a positive social impact was our firm’s ability to quickly pivot to help small and medium size businesses navigate the Paycheck Protect Program. We provided our clients, and anyone who called for help, free consultations to help understand the PPP and if it was the right choice for the business to apply. We helped hundreds of business apply for the loan and are now helping hundreds more figure out if they should apply for forgiveness or not, based on their tax situation. This has helped many business be able to stay in business and pay their employees.
What is your company’s vision for the future?
We are very optimistic. We recently launched the beginnings of our Sensiba Center for Sustainability to help companies move to a purpose-driven, sustainable business model that includes social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. It is unlike any other accounting firm’s sustainability practice and offers services that are not just financial or compliance-driven and provide options of different ESG frameworks to find what best suits an organization.
