Piscataqua Savings Bank is proud to announce that we’ve been recertified as a B Corporation™ (B Corp™). As one of 167 certified B Corporations in New England, and one of just 14 in New Hampshire, Piscataqua Savings Bank’s recertification affirms our commitment to putting people and planet over profit, doing our part to continuously ensure that our practices are benefiting our community and local environment. We choose to B at PSB because we have been dedicated to serving our community since the company’s creation in 1877, and we are proud to take this commitment one step further through the B Corp certification process.
The process of becoming a B Corp involves lengthy documentation, anonymous employee feedback, and a 200 question certification process with all data verified by the B Lab, a non-profit organization which created, and awards, the B corporation certification for for-profit organizations. If you’re not familiar with the moniker, think of it like a Fair Trade certification for businesses, only with even more rigorous standards.
Piscataqua Savings Bank’s B Impact Score after recertification is 97.1, over 16 points above our original certification score in 2019. According to Tony Cabral, our B Corp Officer, this improvement was due to the fact that we learned so much along the way when we first went through the B Corp certification process. When asked about the importance of B Corp certification, Cabral said, “My takeaway is that becoming a B Corp is an extremely rigorous process. If a business is willing to put in the time and effort that is required to become one, that’s a business that is running with these important questions and values at its heart.”
How Is A B Impact Score Determined?
The B Impact Assessment is divided into five stakeholder-focused “Impact Areas” — Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers. Governance evaluates a company’s overall mission, engagement around its social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency. This section also evaluates the ability of a company to protect their mission and formally consider stakeholders in decision making through their corporate structure (e.g. benefit corporation) or corporate governing documents. Workers evaluate a company’s contributions to its employees’ financial security, health & safety, wellness, career development, and engagement & satisfaction. Community evaluates a company’s engagement with and impact on the communities in which it operates, hires from, and sources from. This includes diversity, equity & inclusion, economic impact, civic engagement, charitable giving, and supply chain management. Environment evaluates a company’s overall environmental management practices as well as its impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity. This includes the direct impact of a company’s operations and, when applicable, its supply chain and distribution channels.
The final impact area is customers. Customers evaluate a company’s stewardship of its customers through the quality of its products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels. In addition, this section recognizes products or services that are designed to address a particular social problem for or through its customers, such as health or educational products, arts & media products, serving underserved customers/clients, and services that improve the social impact of other businesses or organizations.
Choosing To B
Since our inception in 1877, Piscataqua Savings Bank has been committed to serving the Seacoast community. PSB is dedicated to the wellness of our community in many ways, from the service we provide our customers to our variety of volunteer efforts that better the Seacoast. Piscataqua Savings Bank looks forward to many more years of achieving the highest possible standard of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose as a Certified B Corporation.
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