Falling Colors Among World’s Most Ethical Companies

Santa Fe-based behavioral health financial services and technology company Falling Colors Corporation (FCC) has been re-certified as a B-Corporation under the rigorous Business Impact Assessment (BIA), again receiving the highest score in New Mexico – and this time around, one of the top scores worldwide.

 The BIA, a rigorous third-party certification framework established by the non-profit B Lab, evaluates companies on hundreds of metrics in five “impact areas”: governance, workers, community, environment, and customers. While a company need only score eighty out of two hundred possible points on the BIA to be certified, FCC’s new score is 181.5 – making it the fourth-highest scoring B-Corporation in the world. According to data released by B Lab, the highest score in the world in the last round of certifications was 206.7.

 “Falling Colors believes in a new business model – ensuring that a company has the assets it needs to grow and support it employees and surrounding community, with the ethics to keep its governance structure transparent and accountable,” says Jorie Koster-Hale, CEO. “We’re moving away from a traditional dichotomy between for-profit, maximizing shareholder profits without regard for other stakeholders, and non-profit, with great intentions but limited resources – and towards a new model: a for-profit business supporting our employees, our communities, and our environment. This, combined with a transparent and ethical approach, makes the B-Certification model perfect for us.”

B Lab works to “make business a force for good” and brings a quantitative approach to its mission of “…transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.”

 “We’re tremendously proud of this result,” said Mindy Hale, founder and CFO of FCC. “We beat our last score – which was already the highest in New Mexico – by fifty points, and we’re in good company among the highest scoring B-Corps on the planet. This incredible showing reflects the dedication of our team and our commitment to showing that business can be done differently.”

 “We believe that the B-Certification model is best practice for all businesses,” says CEO Koster-Hale. “Its structure helps us measure our social impact (serving communities in need); employee impact (living wages, 100% employer-covered healthcare premiums, and profit sharing); and community impact (supporting our non-profit Falling Colors Foundation and donating to local non-profits including Tewa Women United and the Cancer Foundation for NM.)”