SVT Group Honored as Best for Customers & Best for the Long Term Recipient, Creating Most Positive Impact for Customers and through Governance Practices

September 15, 2017: Silicon Valley CA

SVT Group has been named a B Corp 2017 Best for the World honoree again! This is the second time SVT Group has been acknowledged for our outstanding customer impact and the first time we have been recognized for our exceptional governance practices that protect the integrity of our business for the long term. Our ratings are based on an independent, comprehensive assessment administered by B Lab. 
 
The Best for the World award means SVT Group ranks among businesses that earned Customer and Governance scores in the top 10 percent of more than 2,100 Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment. 

“Impact management isn't about ‘being perfect,’ it's about ‘getting better’– better at what you do and how you do it, and understanding why,” says SVT Founder Sara Olsen. “That's what this is all about and B Corps are leading the way. We’re thrilled to be a part of this movement.”
 
The Customer portion of the B Impact Assessment measures the impact a company has on its customers by focusing on whether a company sells products or services that promote public benefit and if those products/services are targeted toward serving underserved populations. The assessment also measures whether a company’s product or service is designed to solve a social or environmental issue (improving health, preserving environment, creating economic opportunity for individuals or communities, promoting the arts/sciences, or increasing the flow of capital to purpose-driven enterprises). 
 
The Governance portion of the B Impact Assessment 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. This section assesses employee access to financial information, customers’ opportunities to provide feedback, and the diversity of the company’s governing bodies. 
 
Honorees scoring in the top 10 percent each of these categories set a gold standard for the positive impact that business as a force for good can make around the world.

“Companies like SVT Group are proving that business can be a force for good for all stakeholders,” says Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab. “We’re proud to share their achievement in a meaningful way. Best for the World is the only list of businesses making the greatest positive impact that uses comprehensive, comparable, third-party-validated data about a company’s social and environmental performance.”    
 
A total of 846 Certified B Corporations were named 2017 Best for the World Honorees alongside SVT, including: Patagonia; Seventh Generation; National Co+op Grocers; and Business Development Bank of Canada. Forty-eight countries are represented, including Afghanistan, Kenya, Nicaragua and Turkey. The selection criteria for Best for the World honorees are available at http://bit.ly/29ZYRSp.
 
Today there are more than 2,100 Certified B Corporations across more than 130 industries and 50 countries, unified by one common goal: to redefine success in business. Any company can measure and manage social and environmental performance at http://bimpactassessment.net. 
  
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SVT Group is “your outsourced Chief Impact Officer,” a social and environmental impact management firm for organizations with a bold vision and a business metabolism. SVT provides advisory services and training, and has trained some 9000 individuals in person in impact management skills since 2001. Our clients have ranged from CalPERS to the Rockefeller Foundation and Yo Yo Ma.

SVT believes that when people have the information, tools and skills to account for social, environmental and financial value, they will compete to ensure an equitable future for everyone - and ultimately make it pay to do good. 

For more information visit www.svtgroup.net. 
 
B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good.  Its vision is that one day all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world and society will enjoy prosperity for all for the long term.  
 
B Lab drives this systemic change by: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and good marketing; 2) passing benefit corporation legislation to give business leaders the freedom to create value for society as well as shareholders; 3) helping businesses measure, compare and improve their social and environmental performance with the free B Impact Assessment; 4) driving capital to impact investments through use of its B Analytics and GIIRS Ratings platform.

For more information, visit http://www.bcorporation.net.

B the Change is a Medium publication, produced by B Lab in collaboration with the community of Certified B Corps and the movement of people using business as a force for good. 

B the Change exists to inform and inspire people who have a passion for using business as a force for good in the world. Because we believe that storytelling is an essential element in the transformation of business and society, we commit ourselves to telling the most compelling stories possible to the largest audiences possible to propel the movement of business toward its destiny as a powerful force for good. We want to dramatically broaden and deepen engagement with entrepreneurs, managers, employees, investors and citizens in one of the most important discussions of our time. 

Read all B the Change stories at http://www.bthechange.com.