The B Corp logo has become shorthand in beauty. It appears on packaging, in investor decks and in retailer buying criteria, and it is widely read as a summary judgment: this company is one of the good ones.
That reading is doing more work than the certification supports, even after a significant overhaul of the standards.
How the Old Aggregate System Worked
For most of B Corp’s history, certification rested on a score.
Companies completed the B Impact Assessment and needed a verified total of at least 80 out of 200 points across five impact areas: governance, workers, community, environment and customers. They also had to amend their legal governing documents to embed stakeholder governance.
The 80-point threshold applied to the overall score rather than to any single area. That was the system’s flexibility and its weakness. A company could perform modestly on environment and still certify comfortably by excelling on workers and community.
Critics called this cherry-picking, and the criticism was fair. The logo told you a total had been reached, not that any particular area was strong.
What Changed Under the 2026 Standards
B Lab rewrote the standards, and the change is structural rather than cosmetic.
According to B Lab UK, the new standards move away from individual point scoring to minimum requirements across seven Impact Topics, and certifications are now verified by a third-party assurance provider, strengthening the rigour and credibility of the certification.
The seven topics cover purpose and stakeholder governance, fair work, justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, human rights, climate action, environmental stewardship and circularity, and government affairs and collective action. Companies must also clear a set of foundation requirements covering eligibility, transparency and risk profiling before those topics apply.
Requirements are scaled to a company’s size, sector and location, and companies commit to an improvement trajectory over time rather than certifying once and standing still.
B Lab UK also notes that the new version was designed to align with other certification schemes and evolving regulation, including the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive.
Most existing B Corps are transitioning during 2026 as their recertification falls due.
Why the New System Answers Earlier Criticisms
Three of the most persistent criticisms of B Corp have been addressed directly.
Offsetting is gone. Minimum requirements across all seven topics mean a weak area can no longer be compensated by a strong one. The cherry-picking objection no longer describes the system.
Verification is external. Self-assessment remains part of the process, but certification now involves audit by an independent, B Lab-approved assurance provider rather than internal review alone.
Improvement is required. Rather than a static pass mark, companies face staged requirements over subsequent years, which makes certification a trajectory rather than a snapshot.
Those are meaningful changes, and any assessment of B Corp written against the old model is now out of date.
What Styling Products Reveal About the Remaining Limits
There is one criticism the overhaul does not address, because it cannot.
Davines, which announced in July 2026 that it had recertified under the new standards and whose public profile identifies Standards Version 2.2 and performance across all seven impact topics, publishes a product range of styling products, and that category is a useful test of the limits, because styling products sit at the intersection of ingredient sourcing, packaging format and use-phase impact that a company-level certification is not designed to report.
Consider what certification of the company does not tell a buyer about any individual item on a shelf.
It does not disclose the origin or land-use impact of specific botanical inputs. It does not report the water intensity of a particular formulation. It does not address propellants where they are used, or whether a specific container is recyclable in the market where it is sold.
None of that is a criticism of any company. It is a description of what company-level certification is structurally incapable of reporting, and B Lab says as much itself.
A company can meet demanding climate and circularity requirements at organisational level while an individual product still has a heavier footprint than a competitor’s. Certification and lifecycle assessment answer different questions.
The wider context reinforces why upstream detail matters. Agricultural inputs are where a great deal of beauty sourcing impact concentrates, and Wageningen researchers note that more than nine million kilos of pesticides are sold in the Netherlands each year, mostly fungicides and herbicides, with export crops among those most dependent on chemical protection.
No company-level certification surfaces that kind of detail for a particular ingredient. Product-level disclosure would.
How the EU Rules Affect the Logo on Packaging
The distinction between company and product is no longer only a matter of good practice. It is becoming a regulatory one.
Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition was adopted in February 2024. Guidance published through the EU Retail Platform sets out that it tackles misleading environmental claims, including terms such as environmentally friendly used without substantiated and relevant environmental performance, and prohibits the display of sustainability labels not founded on a certification scheme or authorised by public authorities.
The same guidance states that labels must meet minimum standards of transparency and credibility, overseen by an independent third party, in alignment with international, EU or national standards.
B Lab’s brand and claims guidelines respond to this directly. The logo may appear on packaging, but companies are required to make clear that it refers to the company rather than the product, to place it near the company name, and to direct consumers to B Lab’s website for further information.
That is the practical answer to a question the industry avoided for years. A logo on a bottle is not, in itself, a product claim, provided it is presented in a way that makes the distinction clear.
What Would Still Close the Gap
Two things would make certification more useful to buyers comparing products rather than companies.
Product-level disclosure alongside company certification. Ingredient origin, water intensity and recyclability by SKU, in the markets where the product is sold.
Accessible topic-level reporting. Under the new model there is no aggregate score to publish, but clear public information on how a company meets requirements in each impact topic helps buyers understand what the certification actually represents.
Neither is radical. Both exist in other disclosure regimes, and the EU framework is moving in that direction.
The Reasonable Position
B Corp certification in 2026 is a stronger instrument than the one most commentary still describes. Mandatory requirements across seven topics, third-party assurance and a required improvement trajectory address the loopholes that earned the label its critics.
What it remains is a company-level certification. It is a meaningful signal about governance, labour practices, climate commitments and stakeholder accountability, and it is not a substitute for lifecycle information about the item in your hand.
The useful response is neither dismissal nor deference. Read the logo as what it is, a statement about the business behind the product, and look to product-level disclosure for the rest.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com
