Agent announces B Corp certification
Agent, the leading full-service marketing agency with studios in Liverpool and Manchester, has been recognised as a Certified B Corporation (B Corp).
Established in 2006, Agent is an award-winning, full-service marketing agency working across clean energy and sustainability, transport and connectivity and purpose-driven business sectors.
Being certified as a B Corp verifies that Agent meets high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability alongside a commitment to goals beyond shareholder value. To achieve the certification, Agent underwent a rigorous assessment of its entire business operations to analyse its impact across five key areas: governance, workers, community, environment and customers.
The agency now joins a global community of 10,000 businesses that have achieved B Corp certification, with 2,500 based in the UK, with only 100 in the North West of England.
This year, Agent was named in the prestigious Sunday Times Best Places to Work list, while its pioneering not-for-profit sister enterprise, Agent Academy, announced it generated a staggering £35 million worth of salaries across the UK workforce since 2014, supporting thousands of young people into creative and digital careers.
Following the B Corp evaluation, Agent earned an overall score of 84.6, against the median of 50.9 for businesses currently completing the assessment. Agent scored particularly highly on their contributions to its employees’ financial security, health and safety, wellness, career development and engagement satisfaction, as well as its community impact, which judges engagement and effect on the areas it operates, hires and sources from. Agent also scored highly for its commitment to customers, which evaluates stewardship of its customers through the quality of its products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels.
B Corp organisations harness the power of business to tackle issues such as inequality, climate change and systematic injustice and are required to provide evidence on performance while legally embedding their commitment to purpose as well as profit in their company articles. Agent is now part of a growing community of certified B Corps including The Guardian, Ben and Jerry’s, Ecosia, Patagonia and Mulberry.
Paul Corcoran, founder and CEO of Agent, said: “I am so proud to officially announce Agent has been certified as a B Corp organisation. We have been a purpose-driven business right from the start, so securing this globally-recognised accreditation truly recognises what we have done to date and what we will continue to do in using our business for good.
“I am incredibly glad that our commitment, investment and the real care for our people, place and planet have been recognised. Ultimately, this has always been part of our very fibre at Agent, and the B Corp accreditation was simply a case of collating the information. We always put our colleagues, clients, suppliers and communities first, and will keep continuing to build on this – B Corp is so important to us as we move forward as a growing agency.”