Carleton Hart is now a Certified B Corporation®! B Corps™ represent 3,422 companies in 150 industries throughout 71 countries. We are very excited to join this global community of for-profit businesses dedicated to building a more inclusive and sustainable economy. Last year marked our 25th anniversary as a firm, and as we reflected on how much we had grown over the years we also saw an opportunity to reassess and reaffirm that we are still living our values.
The B Corp™ certification process is a comprehensive deep dive into the operations of a business. Reporting on various categories that include Governance, Workers, Community, and Environment gauges where a company stands in terms of their social and environmental impact. This lengthy vetting process is administered by B Lab, a third-party non-profit organization that evaluates how companies contribute to social good and go beyond financial interest. The initial assessment in November 2019 showed that we did indeed qualify to become a B Corp™, but we didn’t stop there. It wasn’t enough to qualify, we wanted to challenge ourselves to do better and grow, which is exactly what we did, increasing our score by more than 14 points in the process.
Carleton Hart joins 24 other U.S. architecture firms who are Certified B Corporations®. We are the second architecture firm in Portland to attain this certification and the first to score above 100 points (CHA is 104.2). But while this is exciting, it really isn’t about the number. We did this because it’s the right thing to do. We care deeply about CHA’s impact on the community, and we believe that it is important to speak out about our social and environmental responsibility. There’s a benefit to saying to the world that these things matter and challenge others in the industry to do things better too.