Dispatch No 2 - Why B Corp matters to us

We are officially B Corp certified.

It’s taken us a while to get here. Slow and steady. The sort of process that makes you stop and properly look at how you’re doing things. Which, in many ways, is the point.

For those who aren’t familiar, B Corp is a certification that looks at how a business operates across everything it does. Not just the product, but the whole system behind it. It asks questions about how you treat people. How you pay your makers. Where your materials come from. What impact are you having on the environment. How transparent you are. How decisions are made. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about whether you are genuinely trying to be a force for good, and whether that shows up in practice, not just in words.

At Palava, we’ve always tried to do things in a certain way.

• Making in the UK where we can.
• Using natural fibres.
• Designing clothes that last.
• Trying to reduce waste, whilst still making something joyful.

Not because it’s easy. Often it isn’t. But because it feels like the right way to build a business. B Corp has given us a framework to properly look at all of that. To question it. To improve it. And to be more accountable to it. It doesn’t mean we’ve got everything right. We haven’t. But it does mean we’ve committed to keep asking the questions, and to keep getting better.

There are now over 2,700 B Corps in the UK, including businesses like Finisterre and Emma Bridgewater. Being part of that group, as a small independent brand, feels important. Because small businesses often sit in a difficult space. You want to do things properly, but you don’t always have the scale or resources to make it easy.

B Corp doesn’t remove those challenges. But it does give you a structure to work within. A way of measuring what you’re doing, and a community of businesses trying to do the same. It makes the effort visible. And it makes the commitment real.

The process has taught us a lot. Some things we were already doing well. Others we realised we needed to improve. And some things we hadn’t thought about in enough detail before. It’s made us more organised. More aware. And more honest about where we are. Which feels like a good place to be.

B Corp isn’t a finish line. If anything, it’s the beginning of the next stage. A commitment to keep improving. To keep questioning. And to keep trying to build Palava in a way that feels responsible, but also joyful. Because we still believe that clothes can be both.

If you see the “B” symbol on a brand, it means they’ve been through this process too.

It’s worth looking out for.