What is the difference between B Corps and Benefit Corporations?

When the B Corp movement began there was a felt need to create a legal structure for companies that would hold companies accountable to all their stakeholders, not just their shareholders.

As such, in the US, at a state by state level a new corporate structure was created to accommodate these concern. These were called "Benefit Corporations".

A B Corp is different to this.

A B Corp - or Certified B Corps to use their full name - are companies that have both submitted themselves to a particular assessment process via the B Impact Assessment and adopted a governance commitment that achieves the same goals as the corporate form of a Benefit Corporation.

They do not have to be a Benefit Corporation specifically because not all geographies either have that corporate structure available or are not a limited company in the first place, e.g. they could be a partnership. In some cases there is a direct equivalent, in others none at all and a different approach is required. As such, not all "B Corps" are necessarily "Benefit Corporations".

Benefit Corporations do not have to become B Corps. Indeed, there are many more Benefit Corporations than B Corps.

However, if you are a company in a territory where the Benefit Corporation structure is available and that is the most closely applicable corporate form then, yes, you would have to adopt it.