Study of the Benefit Corporation

Abstract

In the past, people distinguished a good firm from other ones by seeing whether it could generate a large amount of profit. Thus, in order to maximize profit, some unethical firms put their interests first without caring about the bad effect they made on the environment and society. Today, people are more and more concerned about the responsibility to maintain the sustainability of our social environment. Many companies have also set a new goal to become a "good company" instead of just a "good marketer," which means they should not only make profit, but also use their business power to solve social and environmental problems. Thankfully, the Benefit Corporation was founded to establish a better way to do business by creating transparent ethical standards for companies to follow. Every year, B lab, a nonprofit organization that works behind the Benefit Corporation, selects the top 10% of certified companies and gives them opportunities to improve as members of the Benefit Corporation. So far, the Benefit Corporation has 503 members in the United States and Canada with total $2.21 billion revenue. In my honors thesis, I will first present a literature review on the background of the Benefit Corporation. After that, I will present case studies on three members of the Benefit Corporation from different industrial areas. By comparing the research results among the three, I will analyze their similarities and differences, and predict the future development trend of the Benefit Corporation.