Following a rigorous audit, Silentnight has officially achieved B Corp certification, joining a global movement of businesses committed to balancing profit with purpose. The Sleep Group’s chief executive, Tracey Bamber, speaks exclusively to Furniture News’ Paul Farley about reaching this ESG milestone …
Sustainable change takes time to effect, and Silentnight’s journey to B Corp certification started long before Tracey joined the business. As “the nation’s most trusted sleep brand”, Silentnight was already taking its sustainability journey seriously when in early 2020 its ESG director, Angela Moran, led the development of a “category-leading” sustainability plan that promised to truly “add value to the planet, rather than taking it away”.
At its heart was B Corp certification, a gold standard that recognises and validates environmental stewardship, social responsibility and corporate governance.
“It wasn’t just something the company wanted to do, but the right thing to do,” says Tracey. “Brands like Innocent and Patagonia were already there. Could we be like them? Amid all the greenwashing, we had to validate our claims, make it official – and in a way that made us better.”
Then Covid hit, and the plan was forced to take a back seat. When Tracey joined the business in February 2023, she reignited Angela’s B Corp bid, starting with a thorough assessment of environmental and social practices.
“Back then,” she reveals, “we scored around 58 points – which was pretty strong, a lot of that stuff hadn’t been documented before. But we had to reach B Corp’s threshold of 80, and saw it would take us around one-and-a-half years to get there.”
Indeed, the scoring system validated a lot of the things Silentnight was already doing, but as expected, they needed to be done a certain way to fit B Corp’s criteria.
There was also the sheer scale of the business to contend with. As a manufacturer employing over 700 people, working with an extensive supply chain at volume, certification presented a bigger challenge than that facing smaller, simpler enterprises.
“Take a ‘people’ business like a law firm,” says Tracey. “They have no manufacturing, so there’s no need for them to validate their supply chain or consider things like child labour and modern slavery. Our process had to cover every angle.”
Although they can be overlooked, the ‘social’ and ‘governance’ aspects of the ESG journey are just as crucial to the overall sustainability of a business. Staff welfare and management matter, and the B Corp remit was holistic. Again, Angela led the charge, supported by people partner Helen Zulfi “taking the bull by the horns” to cover the HR angles, and sustainability manager Jacob Lane covering matters of procurement and performance.
Ultimately, Silentnight excelled when it came to areas of environmental impact such as waste management and reduction, carbon emissions, and the use of local suppliers – but its internal culture turned a significant corner, too.
Read the full interview in January's issue.
