In What Are Building Societies For? I took aim at my local building society (the Cumberland) for its ongoing campaign to persuade customers to sign up to the Cogo app. The aim was to persuade customers to allow a third party organisation (Cogo) to have access to their accounts in order to assess their spending patterns:

The app highlights ways for you to improve and compensate for your climate change impact by using Open Banking to view your bank transactions and access real-time information about your carbon footprint, enabling you to become a more conscious consumer.

I was annoyed about this, because I didn’t think that small and local building societies should be embarking on a campaign to inveigle its customers into such political behaviour. Even more importantly, I didn’t think they should be doing anything which might increase the risk (however slightly) of their financial information being misused or their accounts being hacked.

It seems that this behaviour on the part of the Cumberland’s board of directors was not a one-off. Today I received the papers for its annual general meeting, and this included a special resolution to amend its Memorandum and Rules, so as to allow the society to apply for B Corporation certification. Members were told that “a B Corp is an organisation which has been verified by B Lab, a global nonprofit network, to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.”

Furthermore:

To become certified an organisation is required to demonstrate high social and environmental performance; make a legal commitment by changing the corporate governance structure to ensure that it is accountable to all stakeholders; and exhibit transparency by allowing information about its performance to be measured against B Lab’s standards.

I was none too happy about this development either. Why on earth would the society’s board take it upon itself to allow a third party organisation, accountable to nobody, to sit in judgement on its activities? Worse, why would it invite its members to agree to amend its constitution to allow this external interference to take place? So far as I am concerned, I expect the board of directors to behave in an ethical way, to act in the best interests of its employees and members, and I expect it to comply with the laws of the UK, as an organisation operating in England and Scotland. I also expect its activities to be supervised by the Financial Conduct Authority, and by any other governmental or regulatory authorities in the UK with the remit to ensure it complies with the law and all financial regulations governing its activities. But that’s it.

Anyway, who/what on earth is B Lab? After all, the Cumberland Building Society AGM papers enlighten us no further than telling us that it is “a global nonprofit network”. To my mind this is inadequate information to supply to members when inviting them to agree to such a far-reaching step as the amendment of the organisation’s constitution in this way. And so I went in search of the information that should have been supplied by the Cumberland’s board of directors. I tracked down its website, and particularly its “about” page which tells us that it is a US-based charity (or nonprofit organisation):

We began in 2006 with the idea that a different kind of economy was not only possible, but necessary — and that business could lead the way towards a new, stakeholder-driven model. B Lab became known for certifying B Corporations, which are companies that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

But we do much more than that. We’re building the B Corp movement to change our economic system — and to do so, we must change the rules of the game. B Lab creates standards, policies, tools, and programs that shift the behavior, culture, and structural underpinnings of capitalism. We mobilize the B Corp community towards collective action to address society’s most critical challenges.

By harnessing the power of business, B Lab positively impacts companies around the world, helping them balance profit with purpose. Together, we are shifting our global economy from a system that profits few to one that benefits all: advancing a new model that moves from concentrating wealth and power to ensuring equity, from extraction to generation, and from prioritizing individualism to embracing interdependence.

We won’t stop until all business is a force for good.

Which is all well and good, and I suppose I’m vaguely on board with that, but how dare the Cumberland Building Society’s board of directors think that its constitution should be amended so that these values are imposed on its members? By the way, the board knows that the special resolution will be passed, since it achieves approval levels at AGMs that would make Putin and Kim Jong Un envious. Its membership is usually harangued on attendance in-branch in the run-up to the AGM by put-upon staff to let them deal with the AGM paperwork by putting a X in the box that appoints the board’s nominee as proxy to vote on all of the resolutions. I wonder if this behaviour complies with B Lab’s standards? But I digress.

Elsewhere on B Lab’s website we find this:

As the climate crisis intensifies and societal inequality grows, the need to bring about systemic change is clear. That’s why B Lab has strengthened its standards for business impact, equipping companies to drive meaningful, sustainable change….

…B Lab’s new standards require businesses to take meaningful action across key social, environmental, and governance Impact Topic areas….

Again, I don’t think this sort of political stance is remotely something that a small regional UK building society should be involving itself with. Worse still for a self-confessed climate sceptic, is this:

…the new Climate Action Impact Topic requires larger companies to set science-based targets for their Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions… To set credible science-based targets and ensure claims are accurate, companies must have their GHG inventories verified by an accredited third party. Additionally, their targets must be validated by the Science-Based Targets Initiative or verified by an independent third party.

Acting on climate change is not just an environmental imperative—it’s also becoming a business necessity. Given the urgency of the climate crisis, it’s crucial for smaller companies (Small and Medium Enterprises – SMEs) to take action now, rather than delaying efforts in the pursuit of perfecting emissions measurement. Measuring GHG emissions can be particularly resource-intensive for smaller companies. These businesses may also face the risk of greenwashing if they set targets without relying on accurate and verified emissions data. 

Therefore, this Impact Topic emphasizes action and requires smaller companies to have a climate action plan with measurable targets that don’t rely on GHG measurements but still demonstrate their commitment to the Paris Agreement. The key expectation is that companies demonstrate real, tangible actions and track their progress, without necessarily needing perfect GHG data. Likely focus areas for smaller companies include business travel, purchased goods/services, and transportation….

…Additionally, SMEs are required to publicly share their climate action plans and progress, ensuring their efforts are credible and accountable to stakeholders….

B Lab’s 2023 Annual Global Report tells us that it “helps rewrite the rules of the game. In 2023, our community mobilized to advocate for policies aligned with our social, environmental, and governance standards in…” various countries around the world, including the UK. It brags about “Nudging Behavior Change, Turning Climate Awareness into Action”.

We also find overlap with my research in Avarice in Funderland when it comes to finding out who funds B Lab. The biggest donor (in 2023) was Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. He was followed by, inter alia, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (a search of its website brings up 45 separate articles referencing climate change); Porticus (“our climate is no longer ‘changing’, it’s a full-blown emergency.”); the Rockefeller Foundation, and many, many more.

Its 2024 Global Annual Report includes information like this:

In December 2024, B Lab U.S. & Canada celebrated a major policy win with the passage of New York’s Climate Change Superfund Act—a groundbreaking law that will hold major polluters financially responsible for the cost of climate damage. As part of the New York Businesses for Climate Justice coalition, B Corps across the state helped push for this legislation, which is projected to raise $75 billion over 25 years from the largest oil and gas companies. The funds will support infrastructure upgrades to enhance New York’s climate resilience, including stormwater and sewage systems and grid modernization. The success of this work in New York has also inspired work in 2025 on a similar bill in California.

I may be alone among the members of the Cumberland Building Society in not being happy about this, or others might be unhappy too, if they knew what it was all about. But they don’t, because the information supplied by the board was limited, to say the least. And I’m angry about that. Needless to say, I have voted against the proposed rule change and I have also voted against all the directors, for having the audacity to propose this nonsense to its membership. I want directors who are interested in the day job rather than in saving the planet.

As I asked, rather plaintively, at the end of my earlier article about the shenanigans at the Cumberland Building Society:

Remind me. What are building societies for?