Certified B Corporation
As only the second paint manufacturer worldwide, PNZ is a certified B corporation.
Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s... and now us!
On a global scale most of what we do is small: from using regional raw materials in our products, to the climate neutral production of our products with 40 employees, who we, as a family business, want to treat respectfully and responsibly. In spite, or maybe because of this, we have to give our best. Half a year ago we decided to strive for the most comprehensive and rigorous sustainability certification we know. Not as a “reward”, but as an inspiration to improve (and we did improve, even during the certification process).
And now the results are in, as of 13.11.2019 we, the PNZ Produkte GmbH, is an officially certified B corporation.
B corporation certifies in five areas:
- Governance: sustainable, inclusive business management and clear objectives (the tested issues go from business ethics and transparency to amendment of the statutes to safeguard the sustainability philosophy.)
- Workers: fair payment, equal treatment, minority protection, inclusion, work conditions, and much more
- Community: regional community work, civic engagement and ensuring these values for the entire supply chain
- Environment: the issues examined are air, climate protection, water, soil and biosphere, as well as the improvement of environmentally unfriendly industrial standards by innovative technologies (the latter was a big topic for us, where we received a lot of "extra credit")
- Customers: treatment of customers and good business practice are of matter here
Our results
Certified B corporations fulfill highest standards in all five areas and the certification was quite demanding. Let it be known that the employees at B Lab (the certification agency of the B corporation) aren't just rigorous, but also very constructive when discussing how to significantly improve so-so results perspectively and via immediate measures.
We learned a lot during this process and will report about it in another post. Today there are about 2,900 B corporations around the globe, including renowned companies like Patagonia (in many ways a role model for sustainable business management) Ben & Jerry’s or Kickstarter.
In 2024, we were recertified with the result that we were able to improve our B Impact Score – the measure of our measurable sustainability efforts – from 115 to over 139 points.
We're especially proud of the fact that we are the first paint manufacturer in Germany and the second one worldwide to receive this certification.
We have also gained some insight and starting points on how become environmentally even friendlier, better and more sustainable and we are eager to tread that path!
