I Spent One Day Using Only B Corp Brands And This Is What It Was Like

As part of B Corp Month I’ve been tasked with trying to live for a day only using B Corp brands.

With over 200 in the UK now registered as a force for good and over 2,700 in the world, it’s never been easier to make sure your hard earned money goes to brands that are working hard to create a better future, not a worse one.

And with more and more damning climate reports emerging, the sooner we each switch away from damaging companies the sooner we can start turning this crazy planet around.

If you want to know more about what B Corps stand for and what they’re required to do to be considered a force for good, then go straight to pebble’s easy guide to B Corps.

How many B Corp brands can I work into my day?

Before work

There are B Corps for every facet of your life - from a Leesa mattress to Dr Bronners, Davines and Who Gives A Crap for your morning routine.

You might be surprised to know that there are a lot of B Corp brands that do clothing and shoes.

From MUD Jeans (read more about their lease your jeans model here), to wool trainers from Allbirds or vegan slip ons from TOMS, it’s easy to start the day the B Corp way.

Chuck in a Patagonia T shirt and a Finisterre jacket and you’re away. (You can also wash said clothing - less often please, think of the microplastics - with Method, another B Corp).

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On my B Corp experiment day, I wore MUD Jeans, Allbirds and a Finisterre jacket which I’ve had for years.

Sadly it was so windy where I live that all pictures of me in said outfit looked like I was a newsreader staring into the eye of a tornado so I decided to abandon them.

Getting to work

Who wants to think about saving the world when they’re just struggling to get to work right?

But it’s easy to incorporate the BBC (bag, bottle, cup) mentality into your half asleep routine.

I use a KeepCup, because the bright yellow lid always cheers me up and this thing is unbreakable. I’ve had it for over a year and it has been dropped, sat on, thrown around and so on. I love the tactile cork and glass combo.

Working for pebble, I’m lucky enough to be sent an awful lot of water bottles (more on that soon) but B Corp wise, Dopper stand out.

This one is a vacuum sealed one, meaning it keeps hot drinks hot for nine hours and cold water cold for 24. Take the funny shaped lid of and you’ve got a portable cup. Fancy.

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The Dutch brand work hard to make sure everyone has access to clean drinking water. As a social enterprise, Dopper runs the Dopper Foundation to put that mission into action and the whole company works on a circular model, so you can send in your old Dopper bottle to be recycled.

But it’s not just what you carry that can help the world. By the Big Issue on your way in and you’re supporting not just the homeless but also B Corps.

At work

Right, I made it, down a very windy promenade next to the sea. (I live half the time in London and half by the sea which means I nearly always have a weekend bag being lugged back and forward and while mine isn’t as posh, if you’re after a B Corp supporting bag - Elvis & Kresse do a brilliant line of weekend bags that are made from upcycled fire hose).

As a digital business, pebble is powered by a laptop and a lot of tea. This winter I’ve fallen for Pukka’s Active Turmeric tea which I drink by the gallon and have an embarrassing number of tea sachets in every bag. Waitrose, another B Corp, has even created a B Corp shop on it's website. Check it out here.

B Corp brands don’t just make products either. You can insure your precious laptop with Dinghy, an insurance company for freelancers and creatives (I really ought to do this) and you can even look for new recruits through a B Corp powered jobs site like Esc The City.

It's important to me that at pebble we live the values that we talk about day in day out so I try to make sure we support as many brands doing good as we can and I'm also working on pebble becoming a B Corp ourselves so that we officially contribute positively to the business eco-system as well as inspiring others. Like all things worth doing, it's a journey but watch this space.

By mid-afternoon, and after a lot of typing, meetings and a lot of calls (running a magazine isn’t nearly as glamorous as it appears), I need a pick me up. Hurrah, there are a range of B Corps to reach for.

Rebel Kitchen make delicious organic coconut milkshakes, Propercorn is pretty self explanatory and Doisy & Dam have become one of our favourite brands in the pebble office.

Their snack sized, delicious chocolate bars are just the right amount of chocolate for a mid afternoon hit. The bars never have more than eight ingredients, are packed with superfoods and ethically grown and sourced cocoa - it’s almost as if they’re good for you.

After work

And relax. I’m back home (and still working) but I treat myself to a tasty Toast Ale. These guys are a social enterprise that make award winning beer from surplus bread and all the profits go back to Feedback, a food waste charity.

They’re not the only ones making evenings easy. Pair it with a recipe box from Mindful Chef, grab a handmade meal from your freezer from Cook or a ready to go vegan meal from Allplants. Or grab an Innocent smoothie and a tub of Ben and Jerry’s (we’re not judging) and put your feet up.

Even when you're helping to save the world, you've still got to do the dishes. I'm giving Ecover a go, as the brand are using more recycled plastic in their bottles and are moving to a zero waste, zero emission manufacturing process. Plus all of the ingredients are made from plants.

For more eco-cleaning ideas, click here.

Here’s our top 25 British B Corp brands.

Inspired to swap a mainstream brand for B Corp one? Tag us in your everyday swaps with the #everydayactivism or #BTheChange on Instagram or Twitter and we’ll share.