Preserve Becomes Certified B Corporation

Preserve, a company that recycles #5 plastic containers into household products is now a Certified B Corporation.

Beginning on January 1, several U.S. states began recognizing a “B” or Benefit Corporation as a new type of legal entity that works to create a material positive impact on society and the environment while redefining fiduciary responsibility to include the interests of workers, community and the environment. Patagonia became the first company in California to officially elect benefit corporation status last month.

Preserve joins a committed community of over 500 other companies certified by B Lab, a nonprofit that has been instrumental in certifying and advocating for benefit corporations. Certified B Corporations come from more than 60 industries ranging from Biotechnology to Education and representing $3 billion in collective revenues and $6.5 billion in capital under management.

"Becoming a B Corporation was a fabulously rewarding experience for us. It gave us the process and format to put structure around our social mission and affirm for our entire team the essential components of the underlying mission driving Preserve since our founding,” says Eric Hudson, Founder and CEO of Preserve.

Since forming in 1995, Preserve has focused on using recycled and sustainable materials to create products that have strong design and functionality, but are fundamentally safe for consumers and less impactful on the Earth. Preserve is best known for recycling Stonyfield yogurt cups and making them into toothbrushes, and then encouraging its customers to send the brushes back to be recycled again.

The process for Preserve to become certified involved undergoing the B Impact Assessment. This is an evaluation of the company in five key areas, which provides a comparable measure across companies of social and environmental performance. The areas measured include accountability, employees, consumers, community and environment. Companies undergoing this assessment must earn an established minimum total of points to receive certification. Other well-known certified consumer products companies include Seventh Generation and Method.

“Preserve is ‘proof of concept’ for a new way of doing business. Preserve is a model for other companies due to its pioneering work in creating sustainable consumer products and bringing together like-minded companies to create recycling systems for their products,” says Jay Coen Gilbert, B Lab co-founder.

You can view Preserve’s B Corp profile here.

Bart King is a PR consultant and principal at Cleantech Communications.