October 2, 2020
What is a benefit company?
A Benefit Company is a for-profit company that commits to conducting its business in a responsible and sustainable way. It must also promote one or more public benefits.
The benefit corporation movement has been popular in the United States over the past decade and has started to be adopted in other jurisdictions around the world. British Columbia is the first Canadian province to enact legislation adopting the benefit company structure. Benefit companies choose what type of public benefit they want to promote. Public benefits must have a positive effect for a group of people (other than business shareholders), communities, organizations, or the environment. The benefits could include any of the following activities: artistic, charitable, cultural, economic, educational, environmental, literary, medical, religious, scientific, and technological.
Yulu is proud to be one of the first 30 impact-driven organizations in British Columbia to register as a Benefit Company.
The Fine Print
A company is a Benefit Company if its notice of articles contains the following statement:
This company is a benefit company and, as such, is committed to conducting its business in a responsible and sustainable manner and promoting one or more public benefits.
A Benefit Company must include in its articles a provision that: specifies the public benefits to be promoted by the benefit company, and sets out the following commitments:
- to conduct the benefit company’s business in a responsible and sustainable manner;
- to promote the public benefits specified (keep scrolling to learn about Yulu’s benefit provisions)
A third-party standard means a standard for defining, reporting and assessing
- the overall performance of a benefit company in relation to its conducting business in a responsible and sustainable manner, and
- the performance of the benefit company in relation to the public benefits specified in that benefit company’s articles, which standard is developed by a third-party standard-setting body and in accordance with the regulations, if any;
A third-party standard-setting body, in relation to a benefit company, means a person or entity that is not related, in accordance with subsection (2), to the benefit company and that makes public the following information:
- the name of each member of the third-party standard-setting body’s governing body;
- the selection process for membership in that governing body;
- the name of each person who, if the third-party standard-setting body is a corporation, controls the standard-setting body within the meaning of section
Yulu’s Benefit Provisions
As a Benefit Company, Yulu is committed to promoting public benefit by:
Economic Benefit: Through our social mandate, we commit to exclusively working with innovative organizations that are embedding either social or environmental responsibility directly into their business models and practices. Through our client partnerships, we are dedicated to promoting and advancing the economic success of businesses doing good for the world.
Global Benefit: We are committed to driving progress towards the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. To support this commitment, we have assembled an internal “Impact Council” with dedicated team members championing each SDG, strategically guiding our clients on how to better engage in solutions around social justice, human equity, sustainability, education, and other global issues.
Environmental Benefit: Through our annual B Impact Assessment, Yulu is committed to measuring and monitoring our own environmental impact, to ensure we meet B Lab’s standards. Our company has joined more than 500 fellow B Corps in publicly committing to reach Net Zero emissions by 2030.
Cultural Benefit: We commit to respectfully acknowledge, embrace, and celebrate diverse cultural backgrounds, and to continually support practices related to promoting justice, equity, diversity and inclusion in every aspect of our work and in the way we treat our employees. We are committed to providing equitable, economic security to our team members by paying our full-time employees a living wage, offering extended health benefits, and flexible schedules to accommodate military, parental, or other personal commitments and responsibilities.
Industry Benefit: We commit to continually strive for more transparency and ethical business practices within the communications industry as a whole. We action this commitment through the non-profit we have founded, the Impact Communications Institute, which aims to educate communications professionals and marketers on how to use impact strategies, key partner engagement, partnerships, and storytelling, to influence positive social and environmental impact.
