First South African winery to join the globally recognized movement
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – January 21, 2019 – Cape Venture Wine Co., the architects and producers of Lubanzi Wines, one of the fastest growing South African wine brands in America, has earned certification as a B Corporation, an acknowledgement of the company’s commitment to social and environmental ethics, transparency and accountability.
Cape Venture is the first South African wine producer to receive the well-known certification and joins a small handful of 20 other wineries across the planet that have met the rigorous standards used by B Lab to measure a company’s impact on its employees, suppliers, community and the environment.
Cape Venture, led by co-founders Walker Brown & Charles Brain, has previously received certification as a Fair For Life Fair Trade Certified© producer and has a stated mission to give back 50% its net profits to its non-profit partner in South Africa, supporting communities who labor on the country’s wine farms. The company’s new B Corp status is a reflection of the company’s ongoing commitment to environmental sustainability & social responsibility.
“We endeavored to become a B Corp because we believe in the ethics of it. Jury’s out on whether or not it will do much for our ‘sales’ or ‘notoriety’, but of course that’s not what it’s about. I can say the response thus far has been quite good. It’s a recognizable brand.”
The certification, championed most strongly by some of the certification’s banner members such as Patagonia, New Belgium Brewing & Warby Parker, has been growing rapidly as of late by many measures. A staff member from B Lab noted that as of December 2018, their Standards Team was “working with an extremely high volume of companies. The average time for a review is 90 days, but with our current pipeline, it may be longer.”
“Indeed, you can get a lot of mileage off of those comparisons [to companies like Patagonia],” says Walker Brown. “At the end of the day though, it’s about the impact. You want to compare yourself to those companies and profit off that comparison, but you have to earn it with the way you conduct yourself and do business responsibly and ethically. It’s a good thing for the world at the end of the day, building an incentive structure to do right – because the customer says they believe it too.”
About B Corporations
Certified B Corporations are leaders of a global movement of people using business as a force for good. They meet the highest standards of overall social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability and aspire to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. There are more than 2,000 Certified B Corporations in over 130 industries and 50 countries with 1 unifying goal – to redefine success in business.
About B Lab
B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. Its vision is that one day all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the Best for the World® and as a result society will enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity. B Lab drives this systemic change by:
- Building a global community of Certified B Corporations who meet the highest standards of verified, overall social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability;
- Promoting Mission Alignment using innovative corporate structures like the benefit corporation to align the interests of business with those of society and to help high impact businesses be built to last;
- Helping tens of thousands of businesses, investors, and institutions Measure What Matters, by using the B Impact Assessment and B Analytics to manage their impact — and the impact of the businesses with whom they work — with as much rigor as their profits;
- Inspiring millions to join the movement through compelling storytelling by B the Change Media.
For more information, visit www.bcorporation.net, www.bimpactassessment.net, www.b-analytics.net and www.benefitcorp.net.
About Lubanzi Wines
Lubanzi is the sole label from Cape Venture Wine Co., a start-up sustainable South African wine company, created in Cape Town by two young travelers, Charles Brain & Walker Brown, alongside a small collection of well-known South African winemakers, viticulturists, farm laborers, and humanitarians. The name Lubanzi comes from a wandering dog that followed the founders on a 6 day, 100-mile hiking trip across South Africa’s remote Wild Coast. Built upon the notion of pioneering a more sustainable & equitable supply chain, 50% of its net profits are returned to a non-profit supporting the communities who labor on the country’s wine farms. Lubanzi is distributed in over 30 U.S. states & 2 additional countries.
