B Corp Certification in the Age of Sustainability Transition: Market and Impact Perspectives

This dissertation examines the sustainability transition through the lens of B Corp certification, analyzing how certified companies demonstrate social and environmental performance and how they communicate their impact to the market. The research combines two complementary datasets that include 9,845 certified B Corps from 101 countries and 68 publicly listed B Corps from 23 countries. The analysis is conducted in three steps. First, a cross-country descriptive assessment of B Impact Scores identifies geographic concentration in the distribution of certified companies, along with initial evidence of location-related differences in sustainability performance. Second, an in-depth case study of two companies with extreme B Impact Scores provides insights into the heterogeneity of corporate practices and highlights the challenges of interpreting impact performance across diverse business models and industries. Third, a transparency-focused analysis investigates the use of sustainability and impact reporting among publicly traded B Corps. The findings indicate that companies with higher B Impact Scores tend to adopt more comprehensive reporting frameworks, although reporting intensity varies substantially across countries and does not always correspond to higher impact performance. Moreover, the findings illustrate structural challenges in market transparency, including limited comparability of reported impact data and inconsistent disclosure practices among certified firms. The research also highlights methodological constraints, particularly in the transparency analysis, where the categorization framework developed for this study remains exploratory due to the absence of comparable approaches in the academic literature. Overall, the results suggest that while B Corp certification helps create a unified language for assessing corporate impact, it does not fully resolve cross-country performance disparities, nor does it ensure consistent reporting quality. These insights offer a foundation for future research on the evolution of impact standards, the role of reporting in shaping stakeholder perceptions, and the mechanisms through which certification systems can strengthen both credibility and accountability in sustainable business practices.