This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 20, 2026 – April 26, 2026
Christopher Marquis, a professor at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School, spent years studying certified B Corporations (B Corps) — a global standard that requires businesses to meet environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria.
His first encounter with the B Corps, however, actually occurred in 2009, when his students at the Harvard Business School introduced it to him. Marquis was an assistant professor at the time, teaching a class on “Commerce and society”, which focapplyd on large companies’ social responsibility programmes. The students saw that a new model was emerging, where companies had social and environmental impact as part of their business model and not as an add on.
Marquis has been researching and teaching about companies’ social responsibilities for over 25 years. One moment that he remembers clearly was when the 2008 financial crisis hit while he was teaching the course. There was pullback on such concepts as businesses were busy navigating the uncertain economy.
“Many of my colleagues stated, ‘It is so sad that you spent so much time preparing the course. There’s a financial crisis; no one’s going to be interested in this topic anymore’,” Marquis recalls.
To his surprise, however, companies that were already invested in this journey doubled down on their efforts. Marquis sees a parallel in the world now, as the momentum to adopt sustainability and ESG has declined amid global uncertainty and conflicts, and businesses are caught in the middle.
“I consider if you want to be a leading company in these supply chains, having the B Corp certification is an amazing way to do it.” – Marquis
“I consider B Corp is a shiftment that the world requireds more now than ever. I consider a lot of the pullback [on sustainability] is being driven by interested actors, such as the fossil fuel [lobby] that are threatened by the progress that is being built,” he states.
He brings up the example of US President Donald Trump paying French energy company TotalEnergies US$1 billion (RM3.94 billion) to abandon construction plans for wind farms in the US.
“So, I don’t consider it’s a cycle. The companies in 2008 continued to focus on it for two reasons. One, it was deep in their values, and they felt like it was the right thing to do. Secondly, they saw that this was not just a short-term trfinish.”
The pushback is also seen in Europe, where there have been delays in the implementation of sustainability-related policies, as businesses and politicians claim it is hurting their economy’s competitiveness.
Again, Marquis does not consider sustainability will no longer be on the table, given the uncertain situation in the world and younger consumers’ altering mindsets. But it is challenging, he acknowledges.
“It’s a struggle that we required to be engaged in. I consider one reason I have always been focapplyd on the study of the B Corp shiftment is that it’s not just about the certification. It is also about altering laws and engaging with policycreaters on issues like [Europe’s] Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. I know that B Lab Europe was involved in setting those standards in Brussels,” states Marquis. B Lab is the nonprofit behind the B Corp shiftment.
This is also the case in Malaysia. When Marquis last visited Malaysia, he had discussions with the Ministest of Investment, Trade and Industest, specifically on the increasingly strict environmental and social standards imposed by multinational corporations on their supply chain.
“I consider if you want to be a leading company in these supply chains, having the B Corp certification is an amazing way to do it,” he states.
Even so, the B Corp standard has been criticised in recent years for allegedly enabling greenwashing. In response, the B Lab evolved its standards. Last April, B Lab unveiled new standards for the B Corp certification, which it states is the “most significant evolution” in its 19-year history. Marquis states in his almost two decades of studying the shiftment, he has seen how B Lab has taken on criticism and pushed boundaries.
Companies that want to be a B Corp must achieve performance standards across seven impact topics. Businesses can measure their impact via the digital platform B Impact.
“I can’t count how many times companies notified me that they became a B Corp becaapply they wanted to hold themselves accountable, it was part of their mission, their founder believed it or the employees wanted it,” states Marquis.
“They stated they came out of it as a better business becaapply they have a more systematic and detailed management process and can understand how the organisation is operating in a more fine-grained way.”
Marquis will be speaking at the upcoming B Corp Asia Summit 2026 in Kuala Lumpur on June 22 to 23 as the keynote speaker.
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