Haymarket Media Group, which publishes In.Comms as well as owning more than 90 market-leading brands including Management Today, Campaign and What Car?, recently achieved something it has been seeking for almost three years – certification as a B Corp business.
In order to reach this landmark, the company had to take numerous steps along the way, not least of which was introducing brand new policies spanning areas including sustainable travel, the environment, procurement and business ethics, and including mandatory employee training and enhanced learning & development (L&D) offerings. In.Comms wanted to know what this means from a communications perspective for the 1300-plus employees in offices across the globe and for clients, customers and the world at large. To find out more, we sat down with Tara Geoghegan, Haymarket’s head of communications & impact.
In a nutshell, what difference will being a B Corp make to the world?
The world - no pressure! B Corp certification is a collective call to action, redefining success in business. It pushes certified companies towards higher standards of verified social and environmental performance. It proves that you don't have to choose between doing well and doing good.
While there’s over 10,000 B Corps globally and around a quarter of these are in the UK, that’s a tiny fraction of the millions of businesses worldwide, so it’s a huge moment of pride to join the B Corp community. Real change happens when more businesses are using their power as a force for good.
And how might it change people’s perceptions of Haymarket outside of the company?
It’s easy to make broad claims about company values without much actual substance. B Corp certification cuts through the noise, as a clear statement of integrity. It’s verified proof that we are operating ethically, sustainably and transparently. In a media landscape where trust is paramount, this sets us apart.
Aside from being the right thing to do, we hope our new status will also benefit us when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, increased brand reputation awareness, and through giving us access to a collaborative global community.
When I see the B Corp logo on products I buy, shops I’m in, office windows, to me it shows they have met the highest standards of accountability, and I have more confidence in them as a purpose-driven organisation. I hope this is what our audiences, clients, partners and communities will think about us!
Can you give us a quick overview of what it takes to gain this certification, and how you went about it?
I’ll give you a short and long answer: time, patience, passion, teamwork, leadership buy in.
From the get go we set up our B Corp project team. We spoke to other certified B Corps to understand how they approached the process. Every bit of feedback said keep the core group tight and bring in others as you need them. This was invaluable advice!
Our project team here in the UK consisted of our people and comms director, Celia MacMillan, and our head of procurement, Gary Charlton, and me. As we were going for this on a global scale, this meant working closely with colleagues around the world, and in particular a small but mighty project team in our New York office.
It is a tough, rigorous process, and deliberately so. It took us nearly three years. People talk a lot about the assessment, but it’s so much more than that. We worked for about 18 months beforehand to be in a place where we were confident to undertake it, and that was then followed by ten months of verification, interviews, evidence, reviews and more.
We were measured on everything, from our carbon footprint to our parental leave policies. Crucially, we amended our legal governing documents (our Articles of Association) to formally embed our commitment to consider all stakeholders in our decision-making. This is a permanent, legal shift.
The process dives deep into our operations across every market, establishing global policies on sustainable travel and ethics, and meticulously gathering and submitting data for B Lab’s scrutiny and verification. It was an almighty task, but made possible by global teamwork, collaboration and a collective determination to become part of the B Corp community.
What difference will it make to the people who work at Haymarket?
It makes a huge difference, giving them a sense of verified purpose. We want our people to be proud to know they work for an organisation where values are not just spoken about, but are legally embedded and externally verified. The world is in a constant state of crisis – businesses have a role to play in instilling confidence and leading from the front.
A misconception with B Corps is that it’s all about environmental credentials but it’s far broader than that – from community impact to how you treat everyone who works for you. It's another example of holding ourselves publicly to account. Along the way it’s helped us to formalise our ways of working, including our approach to employee wellbeing, L&D opportunities, volunteering and all-important career progression.
We’re really lucky to work with brilliant, passionate people who were already driving work that helped us get the certification in the first place, so I know that will continue. But I hope it gives people a sense of pride, of belonging, and further evidence of our genuine commitment to doing the right thing.
How have you gone about explaining all of this to your staff? Is it something they have been actively involved in too?
It was important that we were transparent and clear with employees about the B Corp process and their involvement throughout has been key. The certification could not have been achieved without the dedicated effort of so many teams across our international offices, who gathered data, found ways to challenge existing norms and spearheaded new policies and processes.
Kevin Costello, Haymarket’s chief executive, backed our decision to go for B Corp from the outset. He worked quickly to get the buy-in of his global leadership, without which becoming a B Corp would be near on impossible.
Going for the certification in the first place was born out of a revamp of our longstanding sustainability and DEI strategy, Haymarket Impact, and to do something that truly showed we walk the talk on a global scale. Nothing is a higher testament to a company’s social and environmental impact than B Corp so we thought, we want to be bold and show how serious we are – let’s go for it!
Throughout the process, we have been rolling out regular mandatory training around our Impact strategy and what it means to be a B Corp business. This has ensured there is an easy, accessible way for employees to understand the basics.
For me, I spoke to everyone about our progress, regardless of how passionate or not they were. It was really important that B Corp certification was a collective effort rather than a project being managed one step removed from Haymarket's people.
When Kevin announced we had achieved certification, it felt like a full circle moment to his [employee comms] video two and a half years prior announcing we had committed to going for B Corp.
Has it been easy or hard to get staff excited about both the journey and the fact that Haymarket has achieved B Corp status?
Everyone seems genuinely excited that we’re now certified. Being a B Corp is something we’re really proud of, proving that Haymarket stands for something greater than just the bottom line.
We’ve been open from the start that we were going for B Corp. It meant some conversations about what we can and cannot do and where we might need to dial down or ramp up. Everyone from our MDs, professional services, sales teams, events, marketing, tech, editorial and more has had an input and that’s been a big positive.
What were some of the challenges you had to meet along the way, from an internal and external comms perspective?
Internally, having a deep understanding of and navigating the cultural nuances, norms, ways of working and standards of each of our countries being assessed has been a huge learning, as we were being assessed across the UK, US , Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and Germany. Managing the scale of data collection and the strict requirements across continents was a big undertaking for the business and people had to be super flexible at times to meet tight deadlines or go out of their way to help during busy periods.
I do however now have a vast knowledge of every country’s parental leave policies, public holidays, office square metre footage and air quality levels. Something I don’t expect to have in common with too many other comms pros.
What now? Maintaining B Corp status is an ongoing process. How will you ensure Haymarket employees continue to support the process?
You’re absolutely right; recertification is required every three years. After all the work that has gone into this, our focus is ensuring we maintain our high standards and embed B Corp principles into everything we do at Haymarket.
I’ve had a lot of conversations since we announced certification about ‘the work starts now’ and ‘now it’s the hard bit’ and we could feel overwhelmed but I think B Lab sets you up well. Our contact reminded us a few times throughout the process that B Lab wants you to succeed - it’s tough yes, but the support is there. The policies, new ways of working, updated commitments that we introduced throughout certification are now the baseline to how we do business. Of course we want to see continuous improvement, but rather than seeing our re-certification as a huge test looming over us, we see it as another milestone to keep us on track with the work already underway.
Our employees are the drivers of this continuous improvement, and it’s important that a big part of my role is to continue to empower them to lead the charge.