1 year of B Corp certification: a retrospective and our future ambitions

One year ago, HomeExchange celebrated the achievement of B Corp certification. This international label launched by the NGO B Lab is focused on helping companies become agents of change, in order to accelerate towards a more inclusive, equitable and regenerative economy.

So, what has happened in the ensuing 12 months? What actions have we been able to implement? And what are our next steps? We’ll tell you all about it!

Retrospective of our first year as a B Corp

We had defined 3 main objectives as part of our B Corp approach:

• Reduce our impact as a company and raise employee awareness
• Promote more responsible travel
• Cultivate an inclusive working environment and enable everyone to travel.
  
  

How we have reduced our impact as a company and raised employee awareness

Improved our carbon footprint measurement by creating an in-house tool in collaboration with OuiAct, a climate strategy consultancy, to more accurately measure our members’ travel emissions.

Organized a responsible seminar in a venue that has a strong eco-responsible approach. This seminar also featured train journeys within France, vegetarian and locally-sourced lunches, organized waste collection activities coordinated by Act! with Surfrider, and the use of local service providers to avoid unnecessary transport.

Organization of various actions to raise team awareness

• Climate Fresco & 2-Ton Workshop to raise awareness of the issues surrounding our carbon footprint.
• Conference on plastic-related issues
• Sustainable mobility challenge, combining quizzes and challenges, designed to increase our employees' knowledge of sustainable mobility issues and their individual impact.
• Composting in our offices
  

Implementation of a Zero Waste strategy

• Workshop to raise awareness of plastic issues
• Outsourced caters who use reusable containers and environmentally-friendly kitchen equipment
• Glass Tupperware offered to employees

Our actions to promote more responsible travel

Launch of two impact studies to better understand the impact of exchanging your home on the environment and local communities:

• carbon impact study (travel-related emissions and community behavior) in partnership with OuiAct, a consultancy specializing in climate strategy
• socio-economic study
  

Promotion of sustainable travel on the site

• Possibility of sharing environmentally-friendly facilities in your home profile
• Creation of an “Access to public transport" filter, to organize car-free exchanges.
  

Communication with our community

• Newsletter dedicated to responsible living
• Highlighting local destinations in marketing emails
• Encouraging our Facebook group to discuss responsible travel
• Fun challenge to raise awareness about plastic issues with our members

Cultivating an inclusive work environment and making it possible for everyone to travel responsibly

Organization of team events to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th

• Survey to gather employees' feelings and ideas on the theme of gender equality
• Awareness-raising quiz
• Collection of clothing and hygiene products for homeless women at a well-known French charity.
• Promotion of skills sponsorship with Social Builder.
  

Choice of dedicated topics at our team seminar

• Conferences on diversity and inclusion with the Gloria organization and journalist Rokhaya Diallo.
• Workshops on intercultural communication and feedback
  

Make it possible for everyone to travel

• Partnership with the AFSR association, to facilitate the organization of exchanges for families affected by Rett syndrome.
• 2-day workshop dedicated to improving the on-site experience for people with reduced mobility.
  

Signature and support of the "For Days of Commitment at Work" movement.

What are our ambitions and plans for the future?

Although the year has been rich in projects and lessons learned, we are aware that we still have work to do. B Corp companies have to commit to 3 pillars:

• Performance,
• Commitment
• and Transparency.
  

Guided by these principles, we have set our ambitions for the next year.

Refine our strategy and improve how we measure our impact

• We will shortly be publishing the results of a study aimed at measuring the socio-economic impacts associated with HomeExchange, compared with other forms of tourism.
• We will shortly be carrying out a materiality analysis, an exercise that will enable us to integrate our ecosystem into our CSR strategy, re-prioritize the challenges we face and adjust our roadmap accordingly.
• Another challenge for us is to improve our measurement, particularly that of our community's carbon footprint (by systematically collecting the means of transport used during their travels).
• Low-carbon strategy: defining precise and realistic objectives, and the strategy that will enable us to achieve them.
  

Go further in promoting local travel and low-carbon modes of transport

Not only to our community but also to our employees, via :

• new website features
• partnerships
• communication initiatives
• and HR measures.
  

In terms of inclusion and diversity, we have 3 main areas of focus

• Involvement of our team in our Corporate Social Responsibility approach, thanks to the implementation of an awareness-raising and employee-mobilization platform.
• Quality of life at work (including career enhancement through learning & development plans, planned redevelopment work within our offices to make a better working environment, and awareness-raising workshops).
• Representing the employee voice (setting up of employee representatives).