Ostrom, the smart & green energy provider with the aim of being Europe’s leading consumer energy management platform, is elated and extremely proud to say it has officially become a Certified B Corporation™!

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This culminates the hard work our team has done and continues to do, a recognition and a standard that keeps us accountable towards our efforts towards sustainability and a great place to work.

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This makes Ostrom just one of 71 companies headquartered in Germany to be a Certified B Corporation. With a score of 129.1, this gives us the second highest score in Germany as of March 2023.

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What is a B Corp?

B Corporation is a global accreditation given by the non-profit B Lab that certifies companies to uphold a high level of standards and best practices in five areas: Governance, Workers, Community, Environment, and Customers.

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As of today, there are 6,519 companies in 89 countries that have been certified to be a B Corp.

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Examples of prominent B Corp companies include sustainable clothing retailer Patagonia and the tree-planting search engine Ecosia.

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The Journey of Becoming a B Corp

The application, evaluation and verification journey was no easy step. We had started last year with the B Impact Assessment of over 300 questions—covering everything from our hiring, training, sourcing and much more. It is only then that we enter the evaluation and verification queue, where companies need to show they have the bite to match their bark.

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To become a B Corp, a company must get 80 out of 200 points in their application. While it may seem easy, less than 50% of applicants are successful in their certification journey.

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Why This was Important for Us

While Ostrom has sought to combine the incentives of the company, its customers and our climate since Day 1—through our one fair electricity-at-cost tariff that removes our financial incentives for customers to use more energy—becoming a B Corp holds us accountable to these high standards going forward.

Governance

• Having sustainability goals as an internal metric of equal weight to financial results
• Internal training on the mechanics of energy generation, use and the green transition

Workers

• Fair compensation that uses industry-wide benchmarks
• Internal progression opportunities for our growing team
• Fair hiring practices, as seen in our diverse workforce
• Stock options for all employees
• Remote-first culture prioritizing flexibility for everyone

Community

• Diverse workforce representing 12 different nationalities
• 60% women in contrast to the very male-dominated tech and energy industry
• High ratio of female managers and leaders such as in Operations, Marketing and Product

Environment

• Uncompromising sourcing of green energy via TÜV Nord certificate & direct PPAs
• CO₂ emissions tracking as part of our investor reporting
• Encouraging remote work and green forms of transport such as e-bike benefit

Customers

• High standard of customer satisfaction from Day 1
• Aligning our incentives with our customers through our tariff & app that helps them track and save their energy use

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To The Future

We see the B Corp certification not as the end but just the beginning. This means that we at Ostrom need to hold ourselves to a high standard—to avoid the too-often-seen backsliding and compromise companies make as they move from startup to scaleup to enterprise. B Lab requires recertification after 3 years—making the B Corp process not just a one-off but a continuous journey.

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We are highly looking forward to the future and increasing our impact as Ostrom grows further!