Insights from B Corp Champion’s Retreat from a purpose-led consultancy.

If you want to change the world, you add something good to it.  

The ”Add Good” concept sits at the heart of BarkleyOKRP, inspiring everything from our original certification as a B Corp in 2021 to how we’re showing up in the B Corp community. We recently took that mindset to the B Corp Champions Retreat in Vancouver, BC, where B Corps from the US and Canada gathered around the central theme of “Restore,” nurturing a mindset that values the health and well-being of every member of our global community and recognizes that our fates intertwine with the planet.

Between sound baths and service opportunities, we explored how we can continue to build community as a B Corp — and bring more benefit than harm to our circles of influence for the next seven generations. 

Here are a few ideas and insights we gathered from the retreat: 

1. Lead with empathy. “Love and business is not a contradiction,” says Jorge Fontanez, CEO of B Lab U.S. and Canada. “We are entering an age where individualism will fail. It’s only through community we can end human suffering and break the cycle of exploitive and extractive practices for years to come. 

2. Get comfortable with discomfort. Our esteemed emcee and transdisciplinary artist  Vanessa Richards set a firm intention: "We extend our hands to the ones we don't always agree with to preserve what's possible." She also introduced the audience to the art and words of artist Whess Harman of the Carrier Wit’at Nation. His evocative work in his piece asks us to “Know more than names of the land.”

   The art contains a message, and the act of effort to read it serves as a metaphor for the work ahead. Created by Whess Harman, the lowest bar, 2021. “It’s time for all of us to move past new learnings and dig a little deeper and understand how to be right as newcomers to this land,” she says. 

3. Stay judgment-free. “We like to think our way into change, but where has that gotten us?” asks Anu Gupta, author of Breaking Bias. He shared how he recognized that he was an individual force for good — and how kindness “neutralizes the contaminants of our minds.” He also led a full-audience sing-along that energized the room in mere minutes. 

4. Advocate for your emotional well-being. An impactful panel of workforce wellness advocates from ZaaS, Cultivating Capital, and Macher made the business case for valuing employee wellbeing — especially in light of 82% of employees feeling burned out. Purpose-driven brands prioritize wellness programs that include multiple aspects of health: employee, environmental, social, mental, and financial. 

5. Move up, move back. Sarah White is one of the OG B Corp instigators. Now, she leads Fairware Promotional Products (think sustainable business merch) and has us all thinking about how evolving DEI into strategies that drive change and inclusion requires us to move past policies to live them.  

6. Practice inclusion. “These are the indigenous indicators of success: love + commitment to values, community, and integrity,” says Patrice Mousseau, CEO of Satya, an all-natural skincare brand. Her ambition to make a healing salve for her daughter nearly a decade ago has fueled her brand’s trajectory: Satya will soon be on the shelves of Shoppers DrugMart, Canada’s largest retail drug store, and offered in hotels worldwide. Smart partnerships and strategic conversations have made the brand the “Frank’s Red Hot of Skincare.”   

Want to learn more about how these learnings show up in our work for our client brands and BarkleyOKRP? Reach out to our Chief Impact Officer, Lindsey DeWitte, at ldewitte@barkleyokrp.com.