One PacificCoast Bank Honored as ‘Best for the World’, Creating Most Overall Positive Social and Environmental Impact
Oakland, CA (PRWEB) March 19, 2014 -- Today, One PacificCoast Bank, FSB (OPCB) was recognized for creating the most positive overall social and environmental impact by the nonprofit B Lab with the release of the third annual ‘B Corp Best for the World’ list. The ‘B Corp Best for the World’ list honors 92 businesses worldwide that earned an overall score in the top 10% of all Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment, a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of a company's impact on its workers, community, and the environment. Honorees were recognized among micro, small, and mid-sized businesses.
OPCB is a triple bottom-line financial institution headquartered in Oakland, CA and operating throughout California, Oregon and Washington. Founded in 2007, OPCB seeks to provide loans to businesses and non-profits and retail products and services to organizations and individuals, that meet human needs in an equitable and environmentally sustainable manner. Our future demands nothing less. We hope to support broad prosperity as our loan capital creates jobs that allow people and their communities to earn more, build wealth and gain economic resiliency.
Other highlighted companies include CDI Lan, a Brazilian education and training company generating income and employability in low income communities through internet cafes, d.light design, a manufacturer and distributor of solar lighting and power products providing access to reliable, affordable, renewable energy for nearly 30 million people in 60 countries, and Sunrise Banks, a Minnesota community bank supporting affordable housing, small business development, and not-for-profits.
“To be recognized as ‘Best for the Word’ for a second time by our peers at B Lab is a huge compliment and we are truly humbled,” said OPCB Creative Media Evangelista, Andrea Walker. “We strongly believe in the B Corp movement and the power that businesses have to help solve the social and environmental problems we face. We’re excited to work with the other companies recognized here and the full community of mission and values-aligned individuals and organizations to make a huge impact.”
The ‘Best for the World’ companies come from 31 different industries such as manufacturing, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and real estate. A majority operates in a service industry, including 17 honorees in financial services and 15 in environmental consulting. 30% of honorees are based outside the US with 15 companies operating in emerging markets, such as Afghanistan, Kenya and Colombia. See full honorees here.
“Employees, consumers, investors, and policy makers increasingly want to support companies that create a positive impact in the world and the Best for the World honorees are the best of the best,” said Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab, the nonprofit organization that certifies B Corporations and governs the independent third party standard used to generate the comparable assessment of corporate impact. “It’s particularly inspiring that 21% of the 2014 honorees are first time winners but long time B Corps. They’re winning the race to the top.”
Each honored company is a Certified B Corporation. They use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems and have met rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Today there are over 970 certified B Corporations, across 60 industries and 32 countries, unified by one common goal: to redefine success in business. “We are deeply honored by the company we keep,” said OPCB co-founder and CEO, Kat Taylor, “we are eager to continue building this community!”
B Lab will release separate lists recognizing the companies ‘Best for the Environment’ (environmental impact), ‘Best for the Community’ (community impact), and ‘Best for Workers’ (employee impact) throughout 2014.
One PacificCoast Bank, FSB was founded in 2007 by Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor, One PacificCoast Bank is a FDIC-insured, Certified Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and SBA Preferred Lender headquartered in Oakland, CA. In addition to banking services for individuals, businesses and nonprofits, One PacificCoast Bank works with the One PacificCoast Foundation to increase financial capacity, affordable housing and environmental conservation in the low and moderate income communities it serves. One PacificCoast Bank operates from a triple-bottom-line perspective, measuring financial as well as social and environmental outcomes. The Bank also has branches and offices in Sacramento, CA (LPO), Portland, OR, Seattle, WA, and Ilwaco, WA. For additional information, please visit http://www.opcb.com.
B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement to redefine success in business so that all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the best for the world. B Lab drives this systemic change through a number of interrelated initiative: 1) building a community of Certified B Corporations to make it easier for all of us to tell the difference between “good companies” and good marketing; 2) passing legislation to accelerate growth of social entrepreneurship and impact investing (20 states have already passed benefit corporation legislation); 3) developing B Analytics, a customizable platform for investors to benchmark and report the impact of their global private equity portfolios; and 4) providing free, powerful tools for businesses to measure, compare and improve their social and environmental performance (more than 16,000 businesses use B Lab’s free B Impact Assessment). For more information, visit http://www.bcorporation.net.
Executives from all B Corps available for comment. For more information contact Katie Kerr at katie(at)bcorporation(dot)net, (610) 293-0299
Andrea Walker, One PacificCoast Bank, http://www.opcb.com, +1 (510) 846-1119, [email protected]
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