June 12, 2018
MINNEAPOLIS – Peace Coffee today announced that it has been recognized as one of top 226 companies in the world for supplier relations, diversity and community involvement, based on an independent, comprehensive assessment administered by B Lab, a nonprofit organization serving those who use business for good. Peace Coffee is honored in B Lab’s 2018 ‘Best For Community’ list, which includes businesses that earned a Community score in the top 10 percent of more than 2,400 Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment.
The Community portion of the B Impact Assessment also measures the company’s practices and policies around community service and charitable giving, including whether a company’s product or service is designed to solve a social issue, such as access to basic services, health, education, economic opportunity and the arts. Honorees scoring in the top 10 percent set a gold standard for how business can be a force for good in communities around the world. Peace Coffee made the list thanks to exceptional practices like investing in farmer cooperatives by forming long-term trading relationships, minimizing environmental impact by delivering coffee via bicycle, occupying a green building, composting waste, and using intermodal transit.
“Since our founding, we’ve proven that coffee, though simple in form, can make a positive difference for people and places thousands of miles apart.,” said Lee Wallace, CEO and owner of Peace Coffee. “As the first B Corp Certified coffee company in Minnesota, we proudly consider people, profit and the planet to be equally important to our success, and believe that every business decision we make has the potential to make a positive impact on our world.”
The 226 winning companies on the Best For Community list come from 90 industries and 34 countries. B Lab simultaneously released separate lists recognizing B Corporations as Best For The World Overall, Best For Environment, Best For Customers, Best For Governance and Best For Workers, which can be found at bthechange.com/bestfortheworld. In the fall, B Lab will release the Best For The World: Changemakers and the Best For The World Funds lists.
“With the rise of anger at a system that feels rigged, people are hungry for companies like Peace Coffee, who are changing the system by building businesses that seek to create the greatest positive impact,” says Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab. “Best For The World is the only list of businesses that uses comprehensive, comparable, third-party-validated data about a company’s social and environmental performance. As consumers, talent and investors increasingly demand transparent, values-aligned businesses to buy from, work at and invest in, companies will need to not just the best in the world but the best for the world, and not just to be nice but to be the most successful.”
Nearly 1,000 Certified B Corporations were named 2018 Best for the World Honorees, including Patagonia; King Arthur Flour Company; Green Mountain Power; and the United Kingdom’s Charity Bank. Fifty-two countries are represented, including Denmark, India, South Africa and Taiwan. Honorees are featured at bthechange.com/bestfortheworld. Today there are more than 2,400 Certified B Corporations across more than 150 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.
About B Lab
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.
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