ACTUALLY...:

The Rise of Benefit Corporations (Jamie Raskin, June 8, 2011, The Nation)

[A] promising alternative is emerging: an entity called the Benefit Corporation, which has been written into law in Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia and Vermont, and is moving quickly in other states too. The new laws permit companies to join the profit motive with the purpose of making a “positive impact on society and the environment.” In their articles of incorporation, Benefit Corporations declare their public missions—things like bringing a local river back to life, providing affordable housing, facilitating animal adoptions or promoting adult literacy. Under the law they must go regularly before a third-party validator like B Lab, the visionary Philadelphia-based alliance of more than 400 so-called B Corps across the country, to prove that they are not only meeting their goals but treating their employees, customers, communities and local environments with the same respect as their shareholders. Benefit Corporations can lose their B Corp title and their legal status for not doing right by these standards. [...]

[H]aving Benefit Corporation status sends a powerful message to shareholders, employees, business partners and consumers about what kind of company you’re running. The signal generates instant branding, internal cohesion, consumer enthusiasm and links to a vibrant national B Corp network that brings in more than $4.5 billion in revenues. (Some B Corps are even worker-owned, like Vermont’s famous King Arthur Flour, which has almost 200 employees and may become the poster child for companies doing well in commerce, doing good in society and doing justice in the workplace.) The key to success here is a growing consumer demand for responsible commerce.

In a political sense, the surging popularity of B Corps will change the way people think about business. We can have a market economy without having a market society, and we can have prosperous corporations that act with conscience. Our besieged labor unions and nonprofits should bolster these businesses—green, local, progressive, entrepreneurial, community-focused—as an alternative to an economy controlled by massive state-subsidized corporations that are too big to fail and whose executives are too rich to jail.

...they're an alternative to unionization.

Posted by oj at June 9, 2011 2:43 PM
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