Cambridge-based firm, Moneyworks, has become the first financial advisory practice in NZ to earn the coveted B Corp Certification – a global mark of sustainable business best practice.
Moneyworks joins ethical fund house, Pathfinder, along with Sharesies, Kiwibank, the Co-operative Bank and Liberty Financial as one of the few B Corp-certified businesses operating in the NZ finance sector.
Carey Church, Moneyworks managing director, said the firm scored over 100 on the B Corp scale that sets a minimum certification benchmark rating of 80 based on independently verified multi-factor qualitative and quantitative measurements.
Church said the business, which has evolved into an ethical investment-focused practice since launching in 1997, passed through the B Corp process relatively quickly – partly as a result of preparing the business for its Financial Advice Provider (FAP) licence.
“I feel that the only reason that we were able to certify in six months is because of the two years work we did prior to that on developing our policies, processes and controls to attain our FAP licence – that work created a great framework for us to leapfrog up to B Corp,” she said.
“The process taught us a lot and gave us a lot of ideas for improvement in our business and processes – particularly around our ethical investment offering.”
B Corp is offered by B Lab Global, a not-for-profit organisation founded by Andrew Kassoy and Bart Houlahan in 2006.
The B Corp stamp is “a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials”, according to the website.
Currently, the US-headquartered firm has endorsed more than 5,200 companies across the world as B Corp-grade operations including 164 in NZ.
Last year B Lab reported annual revenue of about US$11.5 million, of which about US$4.7 million came via philanthropic donations, and expenses of roughly US$13.5 million.