What is the Discovery Phase Questionnaire?

B Lab's Discovery Phase Questionnaire (DPQ) - not to be confused with B Lab's Disclosure Questionnaire - is a series of questions B Lab uses to discover some basic starting point information for a potential applicant.

The purpose of it is to:

• Show B Lab your strength of intent goes beyond mere interest in the movement so they can comfortably commit time to your enquiry
• Help B Lab more efficiently consider your pathway through to certification and the best next steps are
• Contribute to some of the information Shoremount needs to understand the level of support required

It is primarily used in circumstances where there is:

• material size (gross revenue or people numbers)
• complexity (such as financial service firms or multinationals)

As such, many businesses that pursue B Corp never use (or are even aware of) the DPQ.

Guidance

For the most part, the DPQ is self-explanatory but here is some further information to help you understand and complete it:

General Qs on BD

General questions on BD in the top right-hand corner:

1 - You can put Shoremount (John Featherby) own here.

2 - Engagement doesn't have to be formal: informal is fine.

3 - You can they leave this unanswered as you're unlikely to know the time frame.

Section A

1 - The "certifying company" definition used throughout the questionnaire should be answered based on the company that is seeking to engage with the B Corp Movement/certify. Usually, this means the parent company but sometimes subsidiaries will fill out this questionnaire as well.

2.i - It's undefined who needs to be aware of the legal requirements for this to count (eg General Counsel or CEO) but helpful to likely note who is aware.

2.ii - You can answer "Yes if the process makes sense for us and for B Lab" rather than make a committed answer at this point.

Section B

1 - All that is needed here is the number of entities, not a list of them all. A list will be required later in the process.

2.i - Same as above.