What Becoming a B Corp Has Meant to Us 🍃📍

francesmorris
Apr 23
2 min read

When I set up nichecology®, the goal was simple: to help nature find its place, and to ensure it is properly considered, found, and delivered within each project in a practical and pragmatic way, even where development pressures are high.

At nichecology®, we've always believed that good ecology and good business go hand in hand.

What is a B Corp?

B Corps are businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. Certification is awarded by B Lab and looks at everything from how you treat your clients and suppliers, to your environmental impact, governance,

and community contribution.

In short, it’s about doing business responsibly, and being accountable for the impact you create.

Why it mattered to us

As a small ecology consultancy, we sit in an interesting position. We work within the planning system, often alongside development, but our role is to ensure that nature is properly considered, protected, and enhanced.

Becoming a B Corp felt like a natural extension of that role.

It gave us a framework to ask:

Are we doing enough for the environment beyond our project work?
Are we operating fairly and responsibly as a business?
Are we contributing positively to the wider community?

And importantly, it holds us accountable to those questions.

What’s changed (and what hasn’t)

In many ways, not much has changed, because these values were already at the core of nichecology®.

We’ve always aimed to:

Provide practical, proportionate ecological advice that genuinely helps projects move forward sustainably
Encourage early ecological input to reduce risk, delays, and unnecessary impact
Work collaboratively with clients, not against them

But becoming a B Corp has helped us go further.

It’s led to:

More structured thinking around our environmental impact as a business
A clearer commitment to initiatives like donating a percentage of profits (through schemes like Pledge 1%)
Stronger policies around ethical working, transparency, and accountability
Setting measurable targets for improvement rather than relying on good intentions

Why it matters for our clients

For our clients who include architects, developers, landowners and education organisations, it means you’re working with a consultancy that:

Is independently verified to meet high environmental and ethical standards
Takes a long-term, responsible approach
Is committed to finding solutions that work for both your project and the environment

We understand the pressures of planning and delivery, but we also understand the importance of getting ecology right.

A commitment, not a finish line

Becoming a B Corp isn’t a one-off achievement. Certification needs to be maintained and improved over time.

For us, that’s the most valuable part.

It means we’re continually asking:

How can we do this better?

Whether that’s through how we deliver projects, how we run the business, or how we contribute beyond our day-to-day work.

At its core, becoming a B Corp has simply reinforced what nichecology® is about: helping nature find its place, not just in the projects we work on, but in the way we do business every day.