Be it assessing the quality of working conditions and employee satisfaction, respect for professional equality or overall environmental, social and governance performance, all international HR and CSR labels share the same objective, namely to attest to an organisation’s virtuous practices. They act as a token of trust for customers and suppliers, as a means of attracting and retaining employees, and as a way of standing out from competitors. “More and more people want to work for a company with values. If they come to us today, it’s not just to work in finance, but also to work where it means something to them. Our employees are proud to belong to a B Corp label business,” underlines Ebba Lepage, Group Head of Corporate Sustainability at wealth and asset manager Lombard Odier (2,720 employees), which has just been re-certified as a B Corp and awarded the Edge Move label for the second time in 2022 for its progress with and commitment to n gender equality.
Label vs certification: what are we talking about?
Certification refers to standards issued by a public body, such as the ISO. The procedure attests to the compliance of a company’s practices and commitments to these standards. In contrast labels are aspirational and commit the organisation to meeting specific criteria. Labels are based on a specific set of standards established by a public or private body, such as an NGO (e.g. B-Lab for the American B Corp label).
