How We Prioritize People as a B Corporation

Alpine’s B Corp certification demonstrates our commitment to measuring our social and environmental performance. We are proud to be a part of the global community of B Corp companies driving positive change through their business activities. For B Corp Month this March, we’re celebrating our team’s work to maintain certification since 2019 and spotlighting how we aim to continuously improve on environmental, social and governance topics at Alpine.

Awarded by B Lab, a global non-profit focused on helping businesses balance profit with purpose, B Corp certification recognizes for-profit companies that consider people and the planet in their operations. Alpine first submitted our assessment to become a B Corp in 2019. We did so out of the belief that transparency and accountability are important for achieving our mission of being a Force for Good in the world. We believe B Corp certification can keep us accountable to that mission and help us share our belief that strong cultures and businesses go hand in hand.

A New Baseline

The B Impact Assessment is at the heart of the certification process.  It is a tool for measuring a company’s operations across five topics: community, governance, workers, environment, and customers. The assessment includes over 200 in-depth questions, with many questions focusing on concrete metrics. Here are just a few examples:

• How does your company manage its greenhouse gas emissions for at least Scope 1 and 2?
• Do you have a formal due diligence process to review potential investments according to social and environmental criteria that is included in a written format for an investment committee review?
• What percentage of full-time workers has participated in external professional development or lifelong learning opportunities (paid for or subsidized by the company) in the past fiscal year?

In our first submission year, efforts from Alpine team members—including incorporating ESG into our due diligence process, and focusing on employee engagement at our headquarters—positioned us to achieve the required minimum score. The initial submission process required us to focus on data collection and validation across the B Impact Assessment topic areas. We achieved a score of 90 in 2019, which exceeded the minimum of 80 required for B Corp certification. The median score for ordinary businesses is 50.9. Our initial assessment score also provided us with ideas on how to improve our practices further.

Raising the Bar

As a newly certified B Corp in 2019, we gained access to resources from some of our 9,000 fellow B Corps around the world. For example, companies share tips and wins in the “B Hive” community platform to help expand B Corp impact.

B Corps must recertify every three years, and by our 2023 certification, we improved our overall score by 15% (from 90 to 103.1), with a 100% increase in our governance score (from 8.7 to 17.4) and a 42% increase in our customers score (from 18.9 to 27).

The progress wasn’t just quantitative. Becoming a B Corp focused new attention on assessment topics across our team. For example, enhancements to our ESG process from 2019 to 2023 contributed to improvements in our governance and customers score. Our certification also helped us connect with partners who share our values; business founders who we engage with during the investment process mention it often, and we know some 68% of candidates are more likely to apply to companies that prioritize ESG.

“Certification is a helpful indicator to understanding how a company interacts with the world,” says Alpine’s ESG Counsel Emilie Woolson. “I know when I was considering joining Alpine, it impressed me. It showed me that Alpine had put teeth into its commitments and was taking steps to hold itself to a higher standard.”

Research shows that attention to B Corp topics is especially resonant with Gen Z and millennials. A 2024 Deloitte study found that these generations are more likely to reject employers who don’t align with their values. Three quarters of respondents said that an organization’s societal impact and workforce engagement were important factors when considering a potential employer. Around half of survey respondents say they and their colleagues are putting pressure on their employers to take action on climate change, and ~20% have changed jobs due to environmental impact concerns.

This demand for purpose-driven and values-aligned work resonates with Alpine’s mission. Recognizing that many workers are disengaged, we’ve made it our mission to build careers that give team members purpose. We’ve seen firsthand that prioritizing talent through Alpine’s PeopleFirst Philosophy has the potential to improve performance.

Expanding Our Impact

Since our 2023 recertification, Alpine has continued to invest in improving our practices. This includes continuing to engage with our portfolio companies on PeopleFirst and ESG topics, furthering our inclusive recruitment and retention practices, and fostering purpose at our headquarters. (You can read about our recent initiatives in the upcoming Force for Good annual report, published next month.)

Six years after we began our B Corp journey, certification is still rare in the private equity sector. This year’s B Month campaign, called “GEN B,” is centered on the idea that B Corps are part of a new generation of thought leaders who are creating a better future today. We hope to help expand “GEN B” by example, educating our portfolio companies on the process and benefits of certification and engaging our employees on what it takes to uphold our B Corp certification.

In the meantime, Woolson says, Alpine will continue to use its B Corp status as a lever for change, and work to continuously improve. As our CFO and Partner, Dorothy Walter, said: “Earning B Corp certification was never about checking a box—it was about pushing ourselves to do better. In the following years, we will challenge our teams, companies, and our industry to evolve. We’re excited to continue raising the bar and be a force for good in the world.”