How do the new standards affect small businesses?
Small companies meet fewer, simpler sub-requirements than large ones, and since November 2025 B Lab sizes companies by workers or revenue, whichever is lower. But there's no score to fall back on: every requirement that applies must be met. Micro and small companies are audited at Year 0, Year 3 and Year 5.
Under the old B Impact Assessment, a small company could pass with 80 points earned wherever it was strongest. V2 swaps that for minimum requirements in every Impact Topic. B Lab scales the number and rigor of sub-requirements by company size, so a five-person firm is not held to what a multinational does. For example, in Human Rights a smaller company considers human rights in its purchasing, while larger companies run a supplier engagement and monitoring approach.
Two changes help smaller companies. B Lab now places a company in the lower of its revenue or worker-count size category (previously the higher), which can reduce what applies. And micro and small companies are audited only at Year 0, Year 3 and Year 5, while larger companies are likely to be audited every year.
Because a gap can't be offset elsewhere, the work is about having each practice in place, documented and kept up.
How Ecolytics helpsEcolytics scopes the requirements to your size and sector so a small team sees its own list, not the whole standard, and tracks what's due at Year 3 and Year 5. See it in a demo →
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