Hope named among ‘best for the world’

GENERATIONHOPE Inc. (Hope), the company behind the Hope In a Bottle brand, has for a fourth straight year been named among the world’s best by a non-profit organization that certifies companies based on how they create value for their employees, local communities and the environment.

B Lab has certified Hope as a “Best for the World in Community” company for 2022.

The bottled water maker, founded by child rights advocate and philanthropist Nanette Medved-po, ranked in the top 5 percent of over 5,000 companies certified as “B Corp.”

B Corp companies meet the highest standards in terms of social, environmental and legal accountability, public transparency, and a commitment to balance profit and purpose.

“I would like to express our immense gratitude to all our partners who have allowed our collective effort to once again be recognized as Best for the World in Community for the fourth consecutive year since receiving our B Corp certification,” said Medved-po.

she said Hope is proud to be part of “this prestigious group of corporate stewards who are ensuring that they meet the high standards of verified performance, accountability and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials.”

Hope was recognized by B Lab as Best for the World for Community in 2018, 2019 and 2021. The program was paused in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hope became the first Filipino company to be recognized as B Corp in 2017.

Celebrating its 10th year in 2022, the company has since expanded its impact areas to include education infrastructure, livelihood programs through agricultural interventions, carbon sequestration projects for smallholder farmers in Mindanao, and, most recently, its aling Tindera Waste-to-cash program addressing the plastic pollution crisis.

Hope has built 116 classrooms, benefitting over 20,000 students. Its agriculture program has distributed over 700,000 coconut seedlings to over 15,000 farmers.

It has also collected over 30 million kilograms of plastic waste with its partners at Plastic Credit Exchange and via its aling Tindera program.

“Each Best for the World edition is an opportunity to raise the bar for how businesses can and should operate to create real and lasting positive impact for their workers, customers, communities and the environment,” said Dan Osusky, head of standards and insights at B Lab Global.

“While no company is perfect and even the best companies can and should continue to strive to improve, the B Corps recognized as Best for the World can provide us all… with inspiration on what true leadership in business can look like to make progress on addressing our current global challenges,” he added.