NEW Online EcoProfile™ Capability Enables Companies To Transparently Share Their Sustainability Story and Green Business Profile
BOSTON, Apr 26, 2021 — The Green Business Bureau, the trusted authority in green business certification and leader in sustainability performance management software, today announced the release of GBB EcoProfile™, an extension of the GBB online platform that enables businesses of any size to transparently share their green business profile and EcoScore with customers, partners, employees and investors. The GBB EcoProfile is securely hosted on GreenBusinessBureau.com and displays a company’s comprehensive sustainability profile including its GBB certification level, EcoScore, the list of completed GBB green initiatives, green mission statement, commitments and accomplishments.
Green Business Bureau members leverage the GBB EcoProfile to tell their complete sustainability story. Telling a green story in the right way to the right audiences improves a company’s reputation, elevates its brand, draws in new customers, attracts great employees and promotes a more sustainable business ecosystem.
Stakeholders visiting the online GBB EcoProfile will understand a company’s sustainability vision, mission, goals and accomplishments. This provides complete public transparency of a company’s sustainability program. It enables employees and customers to engage with the company to celebrate their success and share awards, photos, testimonials which inherently elevates the company’s brand.
“The Green Business Bureau mission is based on the concept that good business and green business go hand-in-hand,” said Tom Permatteo, CEO of GBB. “Companies that are successful balancing profit and purpose should be able to demonstrate their commitment to their stakeholders. Our trusted, secure EcoProfile is the perfect way to do this in a transparent way.”
GBB also offers a Sustainability Performance Management solution that includes the GBB EcoAssessment and EcoPlanner. The Green Business Certification Program is entirely initiative-based where companies earn EcoPoints™ for each and every activity they complete to earn an official GBB seal.
“The Green Business Bureau is the most recognized green business certification program in the industry and our online and physical seals provide credible market recognition for companies’ commitment to sustainability,” said Bill Zujewski, CMO/COO of GBB. “But more importantly, we are empowering businesses to create a green culture and become more sustainable through step-by-step guides for implementing best practices and then demonstrate this commitment via their online EcoProfile.”
EcoProfile™ Feature Overview
The online Green Business Bureau EcoProfile is made up of three elements:
1. Green Story
The EcoProfile Green Story section has two elements: your green mission statement and a list of your highest priority sustainability commitments. These commitments summarize your most important sustainability goals and how you will achieve them.
2. Certification and EcoScore™
The GBB Certification Dashboard is the well-known foundation of GBB’s program. It summarizes your current sustainable business state and progress, and includes the total number of EcoPoints™ accumulated by completing various green initiatives in the GBB library, your GBB Certification level (Member, Aware, Gold, Platinum) and your list of completed green initiatives.
3. Accomplishments
The new EcoProfile Accomplishments section provides an opportunity for your business to proudly highlight its major sustainability accomplishments, including awards and recognition received, participation in 3rd Party environmental organizations, successful completion of major initiatives and commitments, or major ESG milestones like becoming “Zero Waste” or “Carbon Neutral”.
Green Business Bureau Member Examples
Green Business Bureau members continue to amaze the world with their commitment to sustainability and their innovative green and social responsibility initiatives. They lead by example and demonstrate how business can be used as a platform for good. All members are regular companies with businesses to run, and they all do their part in becoming greener, more socially responsible and thoughtful. They’ve created great greener businesses and demonstrated their commitment to sustainability with tangible actions and results. Sharing their accomplishments helps them celebrate their success and earn the business benefits they deserve.
One example is Impetus Digital. This GBB member is Toronto based and offers life sciences companies a robust platform for virtualizing team meetings, co-author working groups, training sessions, advisory boards, conferences, and much more. Through a diverse range of synchronous and asynchronous online tools, their clients are able to facilitate discussions, educate, collect insight, and share data reliably without the need to travel. Here are the accomplishments they recently shared in their online GBB EcoProfile.
Benefits of a Business EcoProfile™
There are many benefits to sharing sustainability accomplishments in the right way. All of them are very tangible in either soft dollars (brand, morale, trust) or hard dollars (increased sales, lower customer and employee churn). The top benefits of sharing your company’s sustainability story credibly include:
- Increased Transparency & Trust – By sharing your completed initiatives and certification level publicly, you demonstrate your commitment to sustainability openly and create a more trustworthy relationship with your stakeholders.
- Universal Understanding – By taking the time to summarize the tenets of your sustainability program and mission and then sharing those publicly, you ensure all stakeholders are on the “same page”, i.e. everyone has the same understanding of your sustainability priorities and goals.
- Improved Reputation – Companies that are greener tend to be perceived as more ethical, reliable and responsible.
- Elevated Brand – Letting people know your business cares about the environment and society will associate “good” with your brand and improve your overall brand identity. Sustainable businesses are also perceived as being more honest, with higher quality products and services.
- Higher Sales – Being known as a green business will attract new customers, specifically consumers and companies who seek out sustainable businesses, products and services.
- Competitive Differentiation – Being sustainable allows you to stand out when competing for business. In fact, it is common today to see requests for proposals requiring sustainability information from competing vendors bidding on a contract.
- Stronger Workforce – Employees, especially of the younger generation, seek out employers who are social and environmentally responsible. Being green and promoting this will attract the best employees and enable you to hire exceptional purpose-driven employees.
- Improved Morale – Employees care about the environment and want to know the company they work for also cares. Your employees will be more fulfilled and satisfied knowing they work for a company that is environmentally responsible.
- Higher Employee Engagement – Employees enjoy participating in projects, programs and events that support causes they believe in, like protecting the planet.
- Purpose-driven Culture – If you are a leader at your company and want to create a purpose-driven green culture, formally communicating your mission and commitments is the foundation that will help accomplish that.
