Impact Strategy and B Corp support
“Catherine has made our B Corp journey so far really positive. It’s such a rigorous and complicated assessment and we definitely needed her expertise to interpret the questions, lead the process and advise us on how to improve.” “We’ve already learnt a lot and now have a really solid plan to have an even bigger impact. It’s going to be challenging, but Catherine will be supporting us every step of the way.
Caroline Knight, Belvoir Farm’s B Corp lead
About Belvoir Farm
Over the last 40 years, Belvoir Farm has become one of the UK’s best loved premium soft drink brands. It produces cordials, botanical sodas and non-alcoholic cocktails, all bursting with natural flavours.
The brand has a deep connection to the land and to the local community. ‘Crafted with Nature’ is the heart of the company’s values. The company’s mission is to make quality soft drinks, with natural ingredients, that are refreshingly delicious and reassuringly real.
Why The Good Crowd?
Like all the best businesses, Belvoir Farm refuses to stand still. Its team had a clear ambition to do even more for people and planet and saw becoming a B Corp as a way to formalise that commitment. So when Belvoir Farm’s owner, Peverel Manners, met us at a Bread & Jam event in 2023 he asked for our expert guidance to prepare the business for its journey towards B Corp certification.
What we did
It was clear the team already had a genuine focus on sustainability and supporting the local community. Belvoir Farm pays the real living wage and invests time and effort in creating a motivated and committed workforce. In recent years, it has also significantly reduced its carbon emissions by installing solar panels on the factory roof and it sends zero waste to landfill.
But the team wanted their sustainability credentials to be independently verified. And to learn how and where they could do better. So we kicked-off Belvoir’s B Corp journey by leading the team through our Discover process. Using the B Corp framework as a guide, we asked around 200 questions across five categories (governance, workers, community, environment and customers). This enabled us to steer the team through a comprehensive assessment of the reality of the business’s current impact on people and the planet. The process highlighted where they are doing well. It also identified opportunities to improve further and reach the current 80-point threshold to certify as a B Corp.
Since then, we’ve worked together to develop an impact action plan aligned to the brand’s mission and values. This included working collaboratively with the leadership team and employees to define specific benchmarked goals with clearly defined KPIs and actions for each individual team. As a result of this work, new initiatives to further reduce environmental impact have been introduced, including installing rainwater harvesting and reducing packaging.
Outcomes
The team at Belvoir Farm have now submitted their B Corp application. As a result of the work we’ve done together, they also have a strategic roadmap designed to accelerate the business’s positive impact on people and planet. It builds upon the brand’s long-standing commitment to “do the right thing”, while being clearly linked to commercial goals and priorities to ensure sustainable growth.