B Impact Assessment Development Process

The B Impact Assessment is updated every three years in order to improve the clarity, consistency, and insight of the assessment and its scoring, stay up to date with best practices and innovations in impact measurement, and accommodate ongoing user and stakeholder feedback. Its current version, Version 6, was launched in January 2019.

The development process is led by B Lab’s Standards Management Team. It begins by reviewing feedback from B Impact Assessment users and other stakeholders, such as third-party standards organizations and B Lab’s Regional Advisory Groups, and submitting a proposal of topics to explore to B Lab’s Standards Advisory Council (SAC) for approval. 

The Standards Management Team will then develop drafts of specific changes to the B Impact Assessment, consulting with expert stakeholders as necessary. B Lab may also conduct a scoring analysis at this stage in order to anticipate potential scoring implications for existing users. After the necessary iterations, a near final draft of the new version is then submitted to the SAC to approve for testing. 

Once approved, the draft is built in the B Impact Assessment platform and is available for all users and the broader public to review and provide feedback as part of a public comment period. During the testing period, B Lab also recruits alpha testers to provide feedback on specific areas of expertise, and beta testers that commit to providing feedback on the full draft of the assessment.

Final adjustments are made to incorporate feedback from the testing period prior to submitting a final draft to the SAC for final approval.

B Impact Assessment users are always welcome to leave feedback on how the assessment can continue to be improved. For information about how to leave feedback on the questions in the B Impact Assessment, see here.