What B Corps Have to Make Public Under the New Standards (V2)

By Katherine Piazza
October 3, 2026
•
10 min read
 

Transparency is a core pillar of the new B Corp standards B Lab published on April 8, 2025. Two updates have followed, V2.1 in August 2025 and V2.2 in February 2026. The core shift has held through both. Some of your impact information now has to be published, not just submitted for verification.

For most companies, that raises a practical question: What actually has to be public, and what stays internal?

B Lab publishes your B Corp profile and your risk profile. Your climate commitments have to live somewhere your stakeholders can find them. A handful of governance disclosures are public by requirement. Everything behind those things stays between you and your auditor.

If you're still getting oriented in the framework, start with B Corp Certification: Everything You Need to Know and What Does B Corp Mean?.

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What has to be public

There is no single disclosure list that applies to everyone. V2 assigns sub-requirements by size band, by sector, and by where you are in the certification cycle (Year 0, Year 3, Year 5). A 25-person consultancy and a +1,000-person food manufacturer have different sets of requirements that apply to them. Our Standards Navigator narrows the framework down to your size and sector before you start collecting anything.

That being said, most companies will have to make public:

  • Public Purpose statement. A statement describing the positive impact the company intends to make on society and/or the environment.
  • Climate action plan. Smaller companies have to publish a plan with time-bound targets and the actions behind them, then publish progress against it. Larger companies disclose their emissions inventory and their transition plan progress. B Lab's Climate Action summary sets out which tier applies to you.
  • Political contributions and material lobbying positions, under Government Affairs & Collective Action.
  • Human Rights Commitment. Publicly commit to respecting human rights per the UN Guiding Principles and ILO Declaration
  • Grievance procedure so stakeholders can safely submit concerns.

Plenty of companies publish more than the minimum, including impact goals, progress against targets, governance policies, and the results of their materiality assessment.

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What stays internal

Supporting documentation, evidence files, internal analysis, and the verification materials your auditor reviews are not published. Neither is most of the underlying data behind your metrics. Your auditor scrutinizes all of it during certification. What gets published is the commitment and your progress against it.

Common concerns about going public

Most companies worry that publishing impact information will highlight gaps in their sustainability work. In practice, stakeholders understand that impact work is ongoing, and honest communication about progress builds more trust than waiting until everything is finished.

The most common ones:

  • Sharing incomplete data while programs are still developing
  • Being criticized for not doing enough
  • Revealing sensitive operational information
  • Creating more reporting work for a team that's already stretched

None of these are reasons to avoid transparency. And there is now an outside deadline. From September 27, 2026, the EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive requires that public sustainability claims be backed by evidence, and B Lab built V2 to align with it. Substantiated public claims are becoming the baseline for everyone.

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How Ecolytics helps

Publishing impact information shouldn't mean building reports by hand or chasing spreadsheets across teams. Ecolytics keeps your sustainability data in one place. You measure emissions and resource use, track progress against the B Impact Assessment and the V2 standards, and see where your gaps are. Your public impact page is generated from that same live data.

We run Ecolytics on Ecolytics. Our own emissions, energy, waste, and social metrics live on a public impact page built with the tools our customers use. You can see how that came together on our Impact Page.

Less time managing documentation, more time improving your impact.

Transparency doesn't have to be a compliance exercise. With the right infrastructure behind it, it becomes a credible way to show how your company is creating positive change. Book a demo

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FAQ

Does every B Corp have to publish an impact report?

Technically no. But they do have to publish a climate action plan and many policies/disclosures, as discussed above.

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Do I have to publish my emissions data?

It depends on your company size and sector. Smaller companies publish a climate action plan with targets and progress against them. Larger companies disclose their emissions inventory and their transition plan progress.

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How do I know which disclosures apply to my company?

We recommend creating your account in B Impact to start your B Corp journey. If you want to quickly see the standards that apply based on size and sector, check out Ecolytics' Standards Navigator.

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Which version of the standards applies to my certification?

All companies are now certifying and recertifying on the V2 standards. B Lab's change log tracks what moved between releases. Our recap of the BLD Southeast standards workshop walks through the first steps, starting with working out what applies to you.

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