We grow and rear food responsibly and organically using regenerative practices, and wanted to demonstrate to the outside world that we are ‘doing good’ in an accessible and general way. By becoming B Corp certified, we were able to be externally verified, to make sure we were actually doing good, rather than just claiming to be.
B Corp is at present the only real, internationally recognised certification for demonstrating that business can be a force for good. However, while it is well recognised by people interested in sustainability and impact, it’s not particularly well recognised in food and farming, particularly when compared to something like organic certification. More importantly, the connections we have developed with our growing base of direct customers are more important than any reassurance a third party verification process might provide.
The rationale for being certified has been challenged over the past few years, with the considerable initial costs of achieving certification, and ongoing costs of tracking impact and re-certifying proving a hinderance. We also feel that the points based system, however imperfect it may have been, was a better approach than just needing to pass a threshold, the system that has now taken it’s place: a points system provides incentive to improve on previous years’ performance.
In light of these factors, we have decided not to renew our certification. We continue to be certified organic with the Soil Association, and our cows are certified Pasture for Life. We will continue to grow and rear nutritious, delicious and regeneratively produced food for the people of Stroud, and embrace the ethos of B Corp: to use business a force for good.
When we started Good Small Farms, we wanted to redefine success in farming and create a farm that values people and the planet beyond profit. At a time when so many small farms are struggling, food prices are rising, supermarkets are driving down farmers’ margins, and our countryside is being stripped of biodiversity, we wanted to go back to the drawing board. We believe that we can create a good small farm that produces delicious and nutritious food for the local community while caring for the land and natural world around us. It’s wonderful to be welcomed to the B Corp community of businesses who share our values, and believe that business can be a powerful force for good.
The B Corp Journey Begins
Despite being small, we have large ambitions to prove that small, mixed, regenerative farms can be viable. In order to prove it, we need to have external checks in place that convince others that we are actually doing what we claim. The Soil Association provides that third party rigour for how we grow our food.
Ensuring we do the right thing for people and the planet
We soon realised when going through the two-year organic conversion process that we didn’t have that stringency in all our systems and needed to develop processes to ensure that we were doing the right thing as a business. And that led us to B Corp: we needed to demonstrate the same kind of detail but for the whole business, too. We wanted to show that we are a business for good and knew just saying so was not good enough.
What is B Corp
Certified B Corps, or B Corporations, are a community of companies that have been verified to meet high standers of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. B Corps commit to making a positive impact through all aspects of their business from workers to communities, customers and our planet.
Our B Corp story so far…
B Corp is certainly rigorous. Our 9-person team has put a large amount of time into the process, but it has been worth it. It has been challenging because it needs to be, and we have had to develop policies and think hard about how we operate to ensure we are considering our impact and not ignoring the opportunities we have for influencing others.
I think we were also blindly assuming that a regenerative farm should sail through as it is, by its very approach, doing the right thing. However, we needed to show that to be the case and, as a young company, demonstrating historical achievements and baselines against which to compare has proven hard. We are developing a body of knowledge: of the ecosystems on our farm, of the impact we have on our customers and suppliers and the contribution we are having to sequester carbon but we would not have been as diligent at doing so if we had not had the B Corp lens to help us realise just how important this is.
Our Impact
We have published our second B Corp Impact Report. This tracks the year from October 2023 to October 2024, highlighting what we have achieved and how we would like to progress in 2025.
Highlights
We’ve made massive strides in 2024 towards our goal of demonstrating that small, mixed, regenerative farms can be both ecologically sustainable and economically viable.
From biodiversity and agroforestry initiatives, to community engagement and education, we are excited about our role in promoting regenerative agriculture.
Our goals for the coming year include: continuing to develop our farming ecosystem and sharing our experiences; further increasing our biodiversity across the farm; and deepening our engagement with our local community.
Here are some of our proudest achievements:
In 2024 we:
• certified organic with the Soil Association
• started a chicken egg enterprise that can’t keep up with demand
• hired 4 more people
• started selling trees from our tree nursery
• delivered around 600 veg and meat boxes
• sent our first hide to be tanned
• welcomed around 120 people to our first open day
• started a mushroom enterprise
• sold our meat and veg at around 85 markets
• accommodated 100 groups at the farmhouse
• welcomed 100 children from primary schools
Our B Corp Score
You can download the full report here . If you have any questions about B Corp and how we are doing, please do get in touch.
