Two years ago, we began a journey – one we knew would take the whole business to get there.
That journey was our B Corp certification process. One question sat at the centre of it: are we operating in a way that reflects the values we talk about every day?
This month, we’re proud to share the answer. Riverlee is now a Certified B Corporation, joining a community of businesses working towards a global economy that benefits people and the planet.
Where it started
B Corp wasn’t where we started thinking about our impact.
In 2023, we’d already formalised Impact at Riverlee – our framework for considering our impact on people, places, and the planet, across four pillars: sustainability, Indigenous Recognition, community, and diversity, equity and inclusion. It shaped how we made decisions and set the foundation for what followed.
B Corp was the natural next step. The Impact framework was something we built and measured ourselves against. B Corp is an external standard, set and verified by B Lab across social, environmental and governance performance, that holds our commitment to doing good to a benchmark beyond our own.
What the process asked of us
The process asked us to look closely at how we operate – how we support our people, work with our partners, and contribute to the communities and places we create. The entire process was led by our Office Manager, Marley Soares, who worked across every team in the business to gather the evidence.
Some of it came together easily. Some of it took longer – things we’d always done but never written down, standards that lived in conversations rather than policies. There were areas we could prove with ease, and areas where we found we could do more. Both were useful to know.
‘’I couldn’t have done this alone – it took every team in the business. But that’s actually the point. Doing good isn’t one person’s job here. It’s part of our culture – it’s how we all work.’’ — Marley Soares, Office Manager
What it reminded us of
At its heart, the certification is a reminder – to us, our partners and our stakeholders – of what we believe in: good places, good communities, and a good way of doing business.
It also gave us something we didn’t have before: a clearer picture of how meaningful impact happens. Not through one big initiative, but through the accumulation of many small actions across a business – the daily, often invisible choices that, taken together, define what a company actually is.
Where to from here
Certification is not where the work ends. The B Corp standard assesses us again every three years, and our intention is to keep improving against it – across each of our four Impact pillars, and in the everyday decisions that sit beneath them. We’re also in the final stages of formalising our ESG framework for the business – another layer of accountability to guide how we operate and continue to improve.
“For Riverlee, B Corp certification isn’t an endpoint. It’s another step in our commitment to creating places, partnerships and communities that generate lasting value. We’re grateful to Marley and the wider team whose dedication got us here.” – Kevin Lee, Managing Director
To Marley, who led this with patience and determination – and to the whole Riverlee team, who supported her – thank you.
It’s been a long road of small steps to get to this big one. And we’re proud of where it’s brought us, and excited about where it takes us next.
