Zurich, June 16, 2026 — At a moment when many companies are growing quieter about their sustainability claims, a first cohort of companies across Europe and North America — Switzerland’s family-owned Ricola among them — has done the opposite: choosing a high-standard certification, and the public scrutiny that comes with it. They are Cohort 1: the first companies worldwide to achieve B Corp Certification under B Lab’s newly revised global standards, the most significant overhaul of the certification in its 20-year history.
B Corp Certification is an independent assessment that a company meets high, verified standards for how it treats its workers, its community, and the environment. Under the new framework, companies must clear independently audited performance thresholds across seven Impact Topics — including Climate Action, Human Rights, and Fair Work — with mandatory improvement milestones built after three and five years.
Switzerland sits at the heart of a fast-moving shift. Though not an EU member, Swiss businesses are deeply integrated into European markets and increasingly subject to the same pressures. The EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECGT) takes full effect in September 2026 — prohibiting generic environmental claims and requiring that any sustainability label used to reach EU consumers be independently verified, which the new B Lab Standards are built to meet. At home, the Federal Council has signalled its intention to align domestic disclosure obligations with EU frameworks, with new climate and human-rights due-diligence requirements expected from 2027. For Swiss companies, this is not a distant horizon.
That a Swiss heritage brand like Ricola is part of Cohort 1 is a signal to every Swiss business leader that how a company treats its workers, its community, and the planet is not a peripheral question. It is a strategic one, which B Lab has argued globally over its 20-year history.
The B Corp movement has always been built by pioneer companies, leading the way for others to follow. The founding group was small and determined; within a year their number had grown to 81, and the community has expanded every year since — with the first Swiss B Corp certifying in 2013. The companies part of this Cohort 1 open the next chapter of that same story under the new standards, setting a marker for the businesses, sectors, and markets certifying behind them.
Today, the B Corp community spans over 10,800 Certified B Corporations across 102 countries, collectively employing more than one million people. In Switzerland, 150 Swiss-headquartered companies are certified and over 700 B Corps are active in the country (as publicly available on the Global B Corp directory).
“For Swiss businesses, the question of environmental and social accountability is no longer abstract — it is reality,” says Jonathan Normand, CEO of B Lab Switzerland. “The regulatory landscape is aligning, consumers are paying closer attention, and the space for vague sustainability claims is closing fast. What this first cohort has done is demonstrate that meeting high standards is not only possible, but already happening in Swiss companies, in family businesses, in organizations of all sizes. That is a powerful signal for every Swiss leader to follow.”
“For a company with our legacy, having our performance independently verified and measured isn’t a constraint.
It shows that we’re on the right track and that, even in a dynamic environment, we’ve taken responsibility and stayed the course rather than waiting to see what happens.”
– Jenny Kunz, Director of Sustainability at Ricola
“Ricola and the other companies in this first cohort have demonstrated that sustainability is most powerful when it moves beyond reporting and is embedded in how all parts of a business are governed and managed,” says Patrick Headon, Director of B Corp Certification of B Lab Switzerland. “The new B Corp standards are not about claiming perfection; they are about making a credible commitment to improvement and being transparent about the journey. By stepping forward early, these companies provide insight, inspiration and practical examples that will help others across the B Corp movement and beyond accelerate their own progress.“
B Lab Switzerland is a non-profit foundation dedicated to the development and support of organisations engaged in the transition to a more inclusive and sustainable economy. Our work ranges from training practitioners to creating legal norms and assessment standards, such as the B Impact Assessment which can lead to the B Corp Certification. We also provide free programs and tools designed to help companies measure and improve their social and environmental impact.
B Lab Switzerland undertakes a variety of activities to commit companies to a sustainable mission. To do this, it creates regional engagement programs such as Swiss Triple Impact (STI), to align companies with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Swiss Impact & Prosperity Initiative that connects and scales sustainability projects, as well as national events (Swiss Impact Forum). Today, more than 800 organisations from 85 different sectors take part in the B Lab ecosystem, measuring their actions.
