Frequently asked questions about the Second Consultation Website

Watch our YouTube video, as the team behind the creation of the new website explain how to navigate the site, the standards and accompanying survey.

Why is the standards content and survey served in a website for the second consultation? 

The latest draft of the standards is comprehensive, sharing a significant amount of detail around requirements, compliance criteria and implementation guidance. With increased content, we want to tailor the standards so that stakeholders are sharing feedback on the content most relevant to their company context, according to factors such as company size and sector. This requires a technical solution. 

In addition, we are responding to feedback from the preliminary consultation that the user experience could be improved by having the content of the standards and the accompanying survey in the same platform, allowing stakeholders to provide quality feedback on the clarity, attainability and impact of the standards with ease. 

Can I return to the survey to answer more questions at a later date? 

Yes, while the Second Consultation website does not have login functionality, as long as you remain on the same device and browser, and don’t clear your history, you can come back to the website and continue answering questions at a later date. You can also go back and forth between pages, and your answers will be auto-saved.

Where do I submit the survey? 

If you hit the ‘Submit survey’ button at the bottom of the ‘Overview of the standards for B Corp Certification’ page, this submits the survey in full.  You must do this to ensure your answers are shared with B Lab. Up until this point, your answers are auto-saved locally on your browser. Once submitted, you will see a submission date. You can return to the survey to override your answers and resubmit at a later date, as long as it is before the end of the consultation period, on 26 March 2024. 

Why do I have to share information about myself and my company in order to view the standards?

This information is essential, giving us the ability to analyze your answers and better understand your company context so we can serve standard content that is most relevant to you. As you begin to navigate the standards, you will see that filters are applied to the content accordingly (see image below) - we recommend that you only answer the survey questions when the pre-selected filter is applied, so that you share feedback on the standards that will be applicable to your company context. For example, as a small company, you should only answer the questions relevant to small companies. You will also have the option to explore other standards by removing the filter, or selecting filters that relate to other company contexts, if you are interested.

Screenshot demonstrating the filter functionality

Why do I only see some of the standards? Some of the content seems to be missing?

Some content may appear to be missing for you because it is not relevant or applicable to your company context based on the data you shared. You can edit/remove the filters that are applied to your standards content by changing the filter in the drop down, but you will see the labels ‘Your sector’ or ‘Your size’ which identify those most relevant to you (these labels will not exist if your filter is ‘All Sizes’ and ‘All Sectors’. You should always have your predetermined filters selected when answering feedback questions. 

Do I need to answer all of the questions? 

While we encourage you to provide input for all topics, you are not required to respond to every question; you can prioritize the topics you would most like to give feedback on. 

We encourage you complete the following feedback sections: 

1.  Answer all questions in the Overall feedback section (the questions at the bottom of the Overview page)

2. Share feedback in the ‘How are the requirements tailored to a company's context?’ and ‘How is performance recognized?’ sections

3. Answer feedback questions for at least 3 specific Impact Topics (e.g. at least one social, one environmental, one governance) - pick those that relate best to your expertise or your company’s context.

Example of a feedback section - you will see these spread throughout the standards content

There are some inaccuracies in the translations of the content. Why is this? 

This latest set of the draft standards is extremely comprehensive and during this consultation, we are trialing new, more efficient ways to share the content for feedback. This means trialing new technology to serve and translate the content, using a mixture of human input and auto-translation with machine learning.

If these FAQs do not answer your question and you still need support on using the Second Consultation website, please create a Freshdesk ticket here. 

For more information on B Lab's work to evolve the standards for B Corp Certification, visit our full FAQs here.