Most B Corp news moves slowly, a standard revised here, a fee adjusted there. This quarter was different. Between July and early October 2026, a European law turned the B Corp logo into a regulated claim, and the first large companies finished certifying on B Lab's new standards. If you hold the certification or are working toward it from BC, some of this reaches you sooner than you'd expect.
Europe made the B Corp logo a regulated claim on September 27
The EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, usually shortened to ECGT, started to apply on September 27, 2026. It bans sustainability labels that aren't based on a certification scheme with independent verification, and B Lab rebuilt its rules around it. B Corps that communicate with consumers in the EU had two ways to keep the logo: submit for recertification on the new standards by July 15, or sign the 2026 Amendment to the B Corp Agreement by September 27. Companies that did neither lost the right to use the logo or call themselves a Certified B Corporation.
The part that matters for a BC business is that ECGT follows the customer. B Lab's guidance says a company that communicates with consumers in the EU may be affected wherever it's based. A Vancouver skincare brand shipping to Berlin through its online store is exactly that case.
Check which pathway your company is on before you run another EU campaign that shows the logo. Signing the Amendment keeps the logo for now, and it commits you to certifying on the new standards later, so the work is deferred rather than avoided. If you aren't sure whether your online sales count as communicating with EU consumers, ask B Lab before you assume they don't.
The B Corp logo now comes with rules about how you describe it
Alongside ECGT, B Lab released a new brand book with stricter logo use and claims guidelines. B Corps had until August 31, 2026 to bring their digital channels in line, and anything printed from that date has to follow the new rules, while packaging already in stock can be used up. The guidelines ask companies to point people to bcorp.com wherever the logo appears, so anyone can check what the certification actually covers.
Canada is moving in a similar direction from a different angle. In March 2026, Parliament amended the Competition Act again, removing the requirement that environmental claims about a business be backed by an internationally recognized methodology. The baseline didn't go away: a claim about your business's environmental benefits still has to be adequately and properly substantiated. A B Corp logo on your website is a claim like any other, and the certification behind it is your substantiation.
"A B Corp logo is now a claim you have to be able to back up, wherever your customers happen to be."
The first big companies have certified on B Lab's new standards
In September, the L'OCCITANE Group announced that the entities within its certification perimeter had certified or recertified on B Lab's new standards, making it one of the first companies of its size to get there. The new standards drop the points system. Instead of scoring 80 out of 200, a company has to meet specific requirements across seven impact topics, checked by independent third-party audits, with further audits between certification cycles.
Large companies going first is useful for everyone else. They have sustainability teams and supplier programs, L'Occitane's includes EcoVadis assessments for its suppliers, and they're the ones finding out where B Lab's auditors actually draw the line. For a small business, the takeaway is that the new standards are now being audited, not just published. What used to be a score you could top up in one area now has a floor in every one of them, which is why the 2026 standard changes matter more to your timeline than they did on paper.
A Canadian company certified on the old standards in July
Butterfield & Robinson, the 60-year-old Toronto travel company, became a Certified B Corporation on July 6, 2026 with a score of 85.1. Its directory listing shows version 1.6, the old points-based standard, even though B Lab stopped accepting first-time submissions on it in early 2026. That gap is the verification process at work: you submit, then wait while B Lab reviews your evidence.
The score sits about five points above the 80-point minimum, so the margin was real but not large. B&R had also been measuring its company-wide environmental impact since 2023, working with an external consultant to keep that assessment independent of its own reporting. Anyone starting now certifies on the new standards, where there's no score to clear, only requirements to meet. A comfortable lead in one impact area no longer covers for a gap in another.
None of this changes what the certification is for. It does mean the evidence behind the logo carries more weight than it did a year ago, in Brussels and in Ottawa. If you're weighing whether to start, the readiness work hasn't changed much, but what counts as finished has. Start with the free score. Two minutes, and you'll know where you actually stand.