How did the B Corp movement begin?

In 1993, a bootstrapped company called AND1 that sold basketball shoes was born. Co-Founded by Jay Coen Gilbert, it was an early example of a socially responsible company; working with the suppliers, manufacturers, employees and so on to create a company that thought and acted holistically.

By 2001, AND1 had annual revenues of $250 million becoming America's second largest basketball shoe business after Nike.

Towards the end of that period, the requirements that had come with external investment, a consolidating sector and the intentional competitive targeting of Nike had put it under immense pressure. As a result, the company was sold in 2005.

The new ownership process of AND1 led to an almost immediate stripping out of the commitment, concern and culture they had fostered. In turn, this led to some soul searching amongst its founders.

How could the mission of a company be protected?
How could the system change more than one company at a time?

Jay Coen Gilbert and two friends he had made at Stanford, Bart Houlahan (who had become an investment banker and then AND 1 President) and Andrew Kassoy (who was in investment management and early AND1 investor before engaging with social enterprise) came together to wrestle with what an alternative model might look like.

After speaking with scores of socially and environmentally minded companies and individuals, they discovered that two needs kept cropping up:

1. A legal framework to protect a company's commitments beyond just the shareholder, and
2. A set of standards or suchlike that would encapsulate a whole business's approach to these issues not just a part of it and separate out those businesses that there were really doing it from those who were just talking it up.

B Lab - the trust behind the B Corp movement - formed in 2005/6 and by 2007 had the first group of Certified B Corps.