amika is officially B Corp certified!
Back in 2019, amika set a goal to be B Corp certified by 2024. Fast forward 4 years later, and we’re SO proud to announce that we are officially B Corp certified (and a year earlier than our initial goal!). As the only haircare brand at Sephora to receive this certification, and only the fifth professional hair brand, we continue to further our mission to be a friend to hair, hairstylists, the planet, and our communities. Keep reading to find out what being B Corp really means, and how we got there.
- what does it mean to be B Corp?
- why is it important for a company to be B Corp certified?
- what was the process like?
what does it mean to be B Corp?
We’re the first to tell you that a brand is more than just the products they sell. Our core values and principles are what drive us. A B Corp certification is “a standard of excellence across five areas of business” says Jamie Richards, our CSR and Sustainability Lead The five areas of business are as follows:
Governance: 15.7
“Governance” measures the performance of our mission, ethics, accountability, and transparency. For example, do we share public reports with our consumers? (Yes! Stay tuned for our 2023 sustainability report), or, do we communicate price changes? (Another yes! See here).
Workers: 23.0
“Workers” measures the performance of our employees’ financial, physical, professional, and social well-being. amika offers 401k matching, paid parental leave (including for miscarriage + abortion), and competitive PTO and healthcare benefits. We’re particularly proud of this section because it led us to gain our Great Places to Work Certification.
Community: 23.7
“Community” measures the economic and social well-being of the communities in which it operates. In other words, how do we affect our community? As a Brooklyn-born brand, this section is important to us—we always love giving back to the place that raised us and being a positive force to those we interact with.
Environment: 32.2
This section is where our sustainability initiatives come into play. This measures our performance in overall environmental stewardship, which covers a range of attributes, from managing water usage to offsetting our emissions scope. amika uses PCR plastics, partners with recycling program TerraCycle®, is certified Climate Neutral, has pledged to be Net Zero by 2030, and is vegan and cruelty-free.
Customers: 4.4
“Customers” measures the quality of its products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels. Are we protecting our customers’ privacy? Are we practicing good quality control testing? This has all been part of our mission since day one.
For a company to earn its certification, they need to score 80 points or more combined from all five categories. amika scored 99.2, which is “an impressive score for our first time around,” and notably, “no one section is weighted more than the others, which means amika invests equally across our brand,” says Jamie.
why is it important for a company to be B Corp certified?
So, what does all this mean—why should you care that we’re B Corp now? When posing this question to Jamie, she explained, “it’s a way to signal that we’re not just doing one thing right; we’re doing it all. It’s a way that allows the consumer to know you can trust this brand because we’re holding ourselves to a high standard of excellence across our entire business, not just one area.”
Additionally, B Corp shows what gaps there are in the business. As a brand who always wants to grow, learn, and be better, this piece stood out to us. When running these tests, we learned things about our business that we want to improve on, and now we know that we will—more to come there!
what was the process like?
When asking Jamie why she had the sustainability roadmap (which she created back in 2019) end with becoming B Corp, she said, “I liked the standards and policies, and [since] I was the only one doing this, I needed something to hold me to an industry standard, so I started tracking with B Corp.” After presenting it to the 2019 leadership team, the ball was officially rolling (albeit, slowly). When Covid hit, Jamie officially moved to the sustainability team—and she became our Sustainability Lead in 2021. The B Corp certification process became her first project, and after working tirelessly on filling out our assessment from May 2021 – August 2021, she submitted it in just three months (it normally takes 1 year to complete). Fast forward to today, March 13th, 2023 and we are officially B Corp certified!
While this is a momentous milestone in our journey, we aren’t stopping here. "We've transformed amika in a matter of a few years, from the beginning of our CSR journey in 2018 to achieving one of the greatest validations of becoming a certified B Corp brand,” said Chelsea Riggs, amika’s brand president. “In 2022 we qualified for the highly respected Clean at Sephora seal, further confirming our safe, responsible, and efficacious approach to formulating products. This progress is remarkable and a huge testament to our entire organization's commitment and passion on this journey. We hope to inspire more hair companies to become B Corp certified and shift the industry as a whole." This is a new beginning for amika, and we will continue to be leaders in a space of transparency, and social and environmental responsibility.