Green Heffa Farms Case Study

Communicating Impact

OVERVIEW

In 2020, B Lab launched LEVEL, a pilot program intended to test and build additional models of engagement and support for businesses led by women who are Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color. The goal of the program was to make B Corp Certification more accessible to companies run by Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color who also identify as women.

Impact Growth Partners was chosen as one of two consulting firms in the US and Canada to work with 5 BIPOC women-owned businesses to achieve or attempt to achieve B Corp Certification. As a result, IGP Consultant Rebecca Coffey was paired with Clarenda "Farmer Cee" Stanley, Founder and CEO of Green Heffa Farms, and after 9 months Green Heffa Farms achieved B Corp Certification. 

green Heffa Farms’s Goals

Green Heffa Farms, based in Liberty, North Carolina, produces plant-based wellness products, including teas and steams, operates a medicinal plants and herbs farm, and delivers educational programming. Green Heffa Farms has always operated with a commitment to its four Es: Economic empowerment, Equity, Environment, and Education. Green Heffa Farms’ values, cultivated from deeply rooted cultural and generational knowledge, are expressed in the way that it operates and makes decisions - workers are family members and as such are treated with respect, paid living wages, and offered unlimited vacation time; suppliers are local, BIPOC, and operate with organic or fair trade principles; medicinal herbs are grown without the addition of pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides, in low-till soils; and educational programs are directed to BIPOC women farmers. Green Heffa Farms wanted to join the B Corp community in order to further differentiate itself and tell its story to a wider audience.

Outcome

Companies use the B Impact Assessment, B Corp Certification’s primary measurement tool, and the review that follows, in different ways. Some companies use the tools to embed mission and values into operations and decision-making, while others use the B Corp Certification process to formalize mission and values. The Green Heffa Farms project was in this latter category - values were already deeply embedded, and our challenge was to identify existing mission-driven ways of operating, name them, and formally communicate them. 

Impact Growth Partners was able to help Cee and her team formalize aspects of the company’s operations:

• Created a Supplier Code of Conduct used to guide purchasing, with the policies and practices Green Heffa Farms' suppliers must demonstrate.

• Created a Charitable Giving policy that outlines the kinds of causes Green Heffa Farms is committed to supporting.

Other aspects of their work were less policy-driven, and required deeper conversations with B Lab

• Green Heffa Farms’ regenerative farming practices, handed down to Cee from her grandfather, and the herbalism principles passed along from her grandmother and mother both required additional description during the B Lab review. 

Our work with Green Heffa Farms was a perfect example of how we help amplify the voice and leadership position of a company that already operates with an exceptionally high level of social and environmental impact, and steward it towards B Corp Certification.