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Is sustainable fashion in Asia a thing? Absolutely. And more and more businesses across a range of industries, like Indosole, are voluntarily choosing to apply for B-Corp certification - to meet the world’s most rigorous standards for social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability - to spearhead the sustainable fashion movement in Asia.
The idea of using tyres for soles came from the Indonesian people. So when Indosole started, we knew that the business needed to be built in Indonesia and stay in Indonesia.
Business is a powerful force in our world. As Kim Coupounas & Charmian Love write in the Harvard Business Review article, Quantum Theory & The Rise of the B Corporation,
“Business is the most powerful force humans have ever created. It’s been the source of both enormous peace and prosperity, as well as massive social and environmental disruption.”
Indosole setup to do business for good right from the start, employing local artisans and working with them to build a factory and support their growth as they supported ours. We sourced all of the materials in Indonesia and to this day, that is still the case. We wanted a way to quantify the good that we were doing and a level of transparency that our customers could see. We looked into ways to do this and discovered B-Corp.
As a business, Indosole voluntarily chose to apply for B-Corp certification - to meet the world’s most rigorous standards for social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability.
According to the Harvard Business Review, “the B Corp movement [is] one of the most promising trends in business today. There are now over 2500 Certified B Corporations around the world from over 130 industries and 60 countries, representing over 150,000 workers and over $50B US in revenues.”
B-Corp pioneered the movement of responsibility of a brand and of doing business. Indosole was certified in 2014 and were one of the first 1000 companies in the world and the first to have operations in Indonesia.
Kim Coupounas & Charmian Love say about B-Corp organisations…
“They are creating jobs with dignity and meaning. They’re fostering thriving communities. They’re protecting our precious natural resources. And they’re building products and companies that are regenerative."
We knew that the future of where consumerism should be heading and is heading is in doing business for good and we wanted to ensure not just our product was good for the planet, but the way we do business as a whole.
The good news? People around the world are heeding this call. It’s one of the most exciting times ever to be in business.
“But don’t just take it from us – leaders around the world have been signaling how important the B Corp movement is to our future as a species and society. Fast Company called the B Corp movement one of “20 Moments From The Past 20 Years That Moved The Whole World Forward”, along with the iPhone, Uber, and the Human Genome project. That’s pretty good company.”
Resources:
- B-Corp Indosole https://bcorporation.net/directory/indosole-llc
- Harvard Business Review: https://www.hbs.edu/socialenterprise/blog/post/quantum-theory-and-the-rise-of-the-b-corporation
- B the Change Indosole: https://bthechange.com/kudos-turning-tires-into-shoes-ba7e0168b361
And Harvard is putting their money where it matters also. "Since 1992, Harvard Business School has supported graduates through the Nonprofit/Public Sector Loan Repayment Assistance Program, reducing the educational debt repayment burden for alumni serving in managerial positions in the nonprofit and public sectors." And in 2017, the program was extended to support alumni working with for-profit social enterprise, most notably certified B Corporations (B-Corps)
You can read more about that here:
https://www.hbs.edu/socialenterprise/blog/post/SE-Loan-Repayment-Assistance-Program
