This article is part of an editorial collaboration with BCorporation. The BCorp Series can be found here. The original publication can be found here.

Businesses Baking their Social and Environmental Mission Into Their DNA

Governance may not be the sexiest of business topics, but it arguably one of the most important. Building the social and environmental mission and values of a business into its bylaws and operating agreement, and having transparent communication with shareholders and stakeholders, can make the difference between mission alignment and mission failure. This list of Best For The World: Governance honorees is a collection of leaders in protecting the long-term vision of their businesses.

To earn placement on the Best For the World: Governance list, honorees must score in the top 10 percent of B Corps in the Governance section of the B Impact Assessment. This section evaluates a company’s overall mission, ethics, accountability and transparency. It measures whether the company has adopted a social or environmental mission, and how it engages its employees, board members and the community to achieve that mission.

The Governance portion also assesses employee access to financial information, customers’ opportunities to provide feedback, and the diversity of the company’s governing bodies.

All 2018 Best For The World: Governance Honorees

The following table shows the winners: the award category they won, the type of industry, the country and state or province. For more information about each company, go to each honoree’s B Corp profile page.

The United States reaped the largest number of awards, followed by Canada and Europe (France, U.K., Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain), Australia and Latin America (Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina). Remarkably, no German or Scandinavian company won any award and neither did any Asian company. Next time, to be sure, we’ll see new winners from new corners of the world.