Our B Corp Certification Journey
MODHER was created with the mission to build a luxury handbag collection that embraces a holistic approach to sustainability. Immediately, we knew that being a B Corp Certification would empower us to maintain high social and environmental standards while keeping MODHER accountable to our goals, balancing our purpose with profit, as the brand expands.
"I didn’t know much about the fashion industry or handbags, but I knew two things," - Gianna Caravello, MODHER”s Founder said "First, I knew that there was too much plastic in our garments that quickly ended up in landfills and our oceans, and second, I knew that I wanted to run a company that respected people and our earth.”
After answering the 200+ qualifying questions, MODHER, as startup, was immediately rewarded with the “B Corp Pending” status. Today, after two years since our inception, we are proud to be one of the youngest fashion brands to be officially certified B Corp.
What is a B Corp?
B Corp certification is awarded to businesses that thoroughly demonstrate their social and environmental accountability to benefit all stakeholders in their value chains – not only their shareholders. These stakeholders include every partner that makes the company’s profit and purpose come to fruition, such as in-house employees, factory workers, consumers, our communities, and the earth itself.
The Certification process uses credible, comprehensive, transparent, and independent standards of social and environmental performance. The B Corp assessment process measures a company’s performance in five categories: governance, workers, customers, community, and the environment.
The B Impact Assessment tool allows organizations to investigate each aspect of their business in-depth. With our headquarters in San Francisco, California, it has been vital to oversee our fully Italy-based supply chain. We leverage this evaluating tool to gather important information from our suppliers, and use this information to define key metrics and guiding principles. The B Impact Assessment helped us to refine our supply chain, selecting partners that were not only fully comply with EU and Italian regulation, but were above them having obtained environmental certification for their business.
What it means to be a sustainable business
During these two years, our discoveries changed how we perceive the role of sustainability in every aspect of MODHER’s business and what it means to be a truly conscious Fashion company.
Sustainability goes well beyond the surface level. At MODHER, exclusively using environmentally-conscious leather and textiles has always been non-negotiable. However, we found that using eco-friendly materials is only at the tip of the iceberg when building an environmentally conscious and ethical fashion brand.
Every touchpoint in our value chain matters, and they are all interconnected. Through B Corp, we gained insight into how every business decision directly impacts our products’ overall social and environmental footprint.
Establishing meaningful relations with our suppliers, employees and customers working for a common good and sharing the same values is one of the most important parts of our business. This gives us, for example, the opportunity to talk with our suppliers about environmental issues and bring new people along the common mission.
After our initial B Impact Assessment, MODHER received an 81.2 score, and we were proud to have achieved these overall success metrics. We acknowledge that, along with our strengths, there are several areas for improvement in our business.
We realized that we can do more for the community for example, and we embraced that. We are also focusing on improving the sustainability of our materials, including traceability, sourcing and quality. Some of these milestones include for example the use of threads made 100% from recycled plastic bottles, GOTS or OEKO-TEX certified fabrics and keeping all our products plastic-free.
These initiatives all work together to help us building a more sustainable future and maintaining our founding ethos as a plastic-free fashion company.
Sustainability has no shortcut at MODHER, and it is the backbone of our brand value. But we don’t stop at MODHER, we extend this framework to our network of shareholder and we encourage our customers to take on this ever-evolving journey. And it is exciting to be part of the growing number of fashion companies determined to make a difference. Small steps, such as purchasing a lower carbon-footprint product or investing in quality, timeless pieces, will reduce your impact over time.
Fashion is one of the most powerful self expressions, if you love it and you want to be part of the positive impact that fashion can make, start with simple actions: check the labels, where and with what materials the product is made, learn where your item is coming from, choose quality over quantity, wear it, love it and keep it.
If you want to know more about our sustainability visit our Better leather page.
To learn more about B Corp™ visit bcorporation.net