What is a Benefit Corporation?
A benefit corporation is a new class of corporation that voluntarily meets higher standards of corporate purpose, accountability and transparency.
Benefit corporations:
- Have a chartered mandate corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment;
- Are required to consider the impact of their decisions not only on shareholders but also on workers, community, and the environment; and
- Are required to make available to the public an annual benefit report that assesses their overall social and environmental performance against a third party standard.*
(*Source: The Benefit Corp Information Center, run by B-Lab at benefitcorp.net)
How common is this program? As of March, 2017, there are 31 U.S. states that have enacted benefit corporation legislation, and 8 states are in the process. FactoryoftheFuture.org is making preparations to become a Benefit Corporation, as Connecticut’s law was signed into effect October 1, 2014.
How does FactoryoftheFuture.org have a “positive impact on society and the environment”?
- Providing support and community for inventors and start-ups with access to resources and education
- Championing local manufacturing as a means to provide for community needs
- Building public and political support for manufacturing
- Empowering individuals by encouraging the creative process
- Promoting the pride of craftsmanship and tradesmanship
- Advocating for inclusiveness within the realm of manufacturing and of making things
- Assisting with the process of innovation
- Increasing communication between industrial sectors and silos within organizations
- Making manufacturing stronger, better, faster, while using fewer resources
- Improving local and regional economies by teaching about resiliency
- Advancing economic development by enabling collaboration
- Fostering local job creation
- Exemplifying how to run a sustainable corporation
We want to reward innovation. Our first project will be the “Imagination, Design and Manufacture Awards Program” (IDMAP). The IDMAP will open to any individual, team or company. We will post more information on the contest soon.
