Stride Treglown has announced it has successfully achieved B Corporation (B Corp) certification. The practice is the second and largest UK architect and one of only a handful of firms in the UK built environment sector to join the B Corp community, earning a place alongside brands such as Patagonia, Innocent and Igloo Regeneration.
Certified B corporations are businesses that meet the highest standard of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. Stride Treglown believes the B Corp standards are an ideal fit with its existing culture and operations whilst providing a framework for improvement in the coming years.
Describing the six-month assessment process as “challenging and rigorous” the team at Stride Treglown has had every aspect of the business scrutinised and scored – from staff support programmes and the social and environmental impact of its offices to customer and supply chain processes. And it hasn’t always been comfortable.
Pierre Wassenaar, the Board Director at Stride Treglown who led the process said,
“We’ve always prided ourselves on being ethical and responsible as a practice, looking after our staff and designing in a responsible, human-centric way.”
“This was an incredibly detailed assessment of every aspect of what we do and threw up a few surprises. But the whole point of going through the accreditation process isn’t to pat ourselves on the back, but to highlight the areas where we can be doing better – then make a plan to address those.”
Stride Treglown believes that the principles behind the B Corp movement are critical to the future success not just of the practice, but of the whole built environment sector.
Chairman David Hunter comments,
“The buzzword of the moment is “recovery” and we have an extraordinary opportunity to rebuild our economy and society in a more ethical and sustainable way. The need to balance the demands of people, planet and profit have never been more urgent against the backdrop of a world in the midst of a pandemic and an ever-increasing climate emergency.”
“While the industry has been taking steps in various areas, from environmental initiatives to diversity, and conversations about social value, we need to bring all these together and embed them into how we all run our businesses and how we work together to tackle the enormous challenges of the coming years.”