More than a certification: Why every company can make an impact

When talking about impact, a silent division sometimes arises: on the one hand, there are companies with “sustainable products.” On the other, there are the rest, which at best compensate – but supposedly cannot have a “real” impact. We consider this division to be short-sighted.

By impact, we don’t mean perfection, but rather a binding responsibility that is evident in our everyday work: in decisions, routines, and the way we interact with each other and with partners. In other words, in how we work—not just what we offer.

Because the same applies to neosfer: we are not a huge corporation, nor are we a classic “green business” player. We operate in a complex environment surrounding innovation and financial issues – an area that rarely provides simple answers.

That is precisely why it is important to us that even small teams can set standards, shape discussions, and shift expectations – if responsibility is not just an afterthought, but is considered a common thread.

The requirements of (re)certification help us like a roadmap: What is already well established? Where are we still too informal? Where do we rely too much on “we’ll take care of it” – instead of setting up responsibilities, transparency, and learning loops in such a way that they function independently of individual people?

In a single sentence, recertification quickly sounds like routine, like “we’ve done it again.” In reality, it feels more like an honest look in the mirror – with the difference that you can’t just walk away afterwards as if you hadn’t seen anything.

What’s more, such a process leaves little room for gut feeling. It forces you to take a closer look – and not to be satisfied with good intentions.

What we learned during our first certification (2023) is that you can live many things as a team without clearly defining them. Culture plays a big role – but culture alone can sometimes be fleeting. It depends on people, context, and pace. And it changes: when roles shift, when colleagues join or leave, when decisions have to be made more quickly.

During the recertification process, we therefore worked intensively once again to anchor topics more clearly: less between the lines, more in a way that remains comprehensible in everyday life. In short, we further supplemented our governance so that standards are not only “felt” to apply, but are structurally in place.

And yes, of course, in such a process, you also ask yourself the question that many companies that do not sell a “classically sustainable” product are familiar with: Is what we are doing enough – measured against a demanding framework?

But it is precisely this uncertainty that is one of the reasons why we find standards such as B Corp valuable. They are not a feel-good test. They are a tool that forces you to be more precise: to look, to learn, to refine.

In the end, the most important part for us is not that a process has been “passed.” Rather, it is that it has an internal impact: as an opportunity to clarify priorities, discover blind spots, and seriously consider further development.

When you ask yourself how a comparatively small team can have an impact, you quickly end up with the question of leverage.

Our leverage is not that we sell a product that automatically reduces emissions or saves resources. Our leverage is rather: influence through collaboration. Through discussions. Through networks. Through the topics we bring to the stage – and those we deliberately do not treat as “nice-to-have.”

For example, what does it mean to talk about transformation in a financial and innovation context – not as a buzzword, but as a task? What role does capital play? What role do decision-making logic, transparency, and responsibility play among stakeholders?

Even if the pursuit of impact is not always present in public debate, we continue to see in conversations that the task has not gone away. It has become more complex – and it needs more actors who are not waiting until everything is perfect.

And this is precisely where the idea behind the B Corp community fits in for us: not as an exclusive circle, but as a catalyst for systemic change. Standards, exchange, and comparability help to ensure that individual initiatives become more than just good intentions.

Recertification is a stopover. If you treat it as a goal, it loses its impact. As an interim result, it remains what it can be: an invitation to continue—more concretely, more courageously, more committedly.

For neosfer, this means that we do not want to treat sustainability and impact as a separate project that is “also” running. Instead, we want to treat it as a cross-cutting issue that is considered in our core areas:

• In our work as an innovation unit, we want to ask the right questions early on – not just when something is finished.
• As an early-stage investor, impact should be a serious consideration in our assessment of and dialogue with startups.
• In our events and formats, we want to make impact a core topic alongside technology and finance – not in a didactic way, but in a practical way: What works? Where are the sticking points? What are we learning right now?

And perhaps the most important point is this: Impact is not created by never being contradictory. Rather, it is created by not suppressing contradictions, but by addressing them. By being willing to be measured. And by saying, in a world full of pressure to be perfect: We don’t wait until everything is ideal to get started.

We are convinced that impact is possible for every company. Not because every company does everything right right away. But because every company makes decisions – every day. And because these decisions can be shaped in such a way that responsibility is not left to chance, but becomes a long-term method.

If you’re wondering what B Corp means in practice, what such a process feels like, or where to even start, take a look at our B Corp website—and feel free to get in touch if you want to discuss it.