10 years of BCorp UK – 10! 

In some ways 2015 feels like forever ago but also, yesterday. To get us in the mindset of 2015 – think rose gold everything, selfie sticks being a constant hazard, the word Brexit wasn’t in our lexicon and Adele dropped “Hello” (living rent free in our minds ever since!).

While 10 years seems like a lifetime, it’s hard to remember a time when we weren’t a BCorp. The ethos behind the movement has always been at the core of what we do. Our founders’ original vision in 2007 was to create a better web for a better future. Ethical screening has been part of our business since 2009. What B Lab UK did is solidify that we are not alone in conducting our business with purpose. It pulled like-minded organisations together, creating community and fostering positive growth. Most importantly it created frameworks for others who didn’t know where to start.

Having certified in 2017, we have grown up alongside B Lab UK with many fun collaborations! The B Impact Assessment was a catalyst for our growth and gave us something to continually hold ourselves accountable too.

Let’s Take 10 to reflect on where we started and what we’re fired up about for the future!

• In 2015 we introduced a no-fly policy.
• In 2017, we were part of the 2nd cohorts of BCorp in the UK and launched the first version of the Website Carbon Calculator.
• Joined 1% for the Planet in 2018 to date, supporting organisations like International Rivers, B Lab UK, Business Declares, The Green Web Foundation, Eden Project, Surfers Against Sewage, Solar Aid, Catalyse Change, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, COAST, and Re-Action Collective.
• We released the Sustainable Web Manifesto and co-created the Sustainable Web Design Guidelines with MightyBytes.
• In 2021, we worked with B Lab UK to build the Better Business Act website.
• We only went and won a B Corp Best For The World accolade for Governance in 2022.
• A true mark of growing up – in 2023 Tom & Vineeta graduated to Founders roles and brought in a Senior Leadership team that not only maintains Wholegrain’s values but builds on them.
• We attended the largest gathering of BCorps in Oxford September 2024, a monumental moment packing out the whole city for 2 days!
• 2024 was a big year! Employee-led benefits were introduced and we took ethical screening to the next level by becoming Clean Creatives.
• Finally in 2025, we launched the 4th version of Website Carbon Calculator! 

We’re very proud of the past, but honestly, reflecting on the last 10 years did fire us up for the future! Particularly for:

• Seeing the Better Business Act become a legal requirement in the UK with an amended Section 172 of the Companies Act. You can pledge your business today on their website (designed & developed by us!).
• Evolving people’s knowledge of digital sustainability from benchmarking to Human Web Principles. In a world where we can generate anything, how can we take a step back to create self-paced online experiences that are adaptable? We do have more on this to share with you..
• Our team! With the introduction of non-bias recruitment, strong flexible working policies and employee led benefits – we are seeing incredible talent enquire to be part of our team. They aren’t hindered by location or stuffy CVs, we are prioritising the human behind the talent so they feel supported to do their best work possible.

This is our impact but there are over 2,600+ other BCorps in the UK alone.  Each and every organisation has  grown in the last 10 years spreading a network of purpose and positivity. We are driving the business world to a more impactful future. 

Take the time to see who in your network is a BCorp and where they’re demonstrating how powerful it is to lead your organisation with people, planet and purpose at the forefront.

#10YearsOfUKBCorps

We recently launched version 4 of the Website Carbon Calculator, our free tool to help accelerate the shift toward a more sustainable Internet. We make this available because we can’t build or maintain every website in the world, that in itself isn’t sustainable! Tools like this help to contextualise website emissions to take steps on your own digital estates.

But the ones we do build? We make sure they’re sustainable as they grow.

We work with many people post launch, and after retesting our current client’s homepages and service pages, the average score was a ‘B’. 

A ‘B’ is a good score that indicates sustainable progress, but we’re never satisfied with ‘good enough’. We know it’s possible to reach an ‘A’, and that’s what we strive for. Websites should always be evolving toward better performance, in line with their business growth.

Where there’s growth, there can be bloat

Okay, I recognise that is not the sentence we all wanted to read – but it’s the truth! As businesses grow, there’s often an urge to add more to the website. It’s natural, but sometimes it leads to unnecessary bloat. And while adding more can feel like progress, it can hurt the site’s performance and impact the user experience.

We start builds with low-carbon, efficient code, but that’s just the beginning. The real goal is to make sure that every person interacting with the site has a meaningful, enriching experience. This is where education and collaboration come in. Together, we can make sustainable design choices that benefit both the planet and the people interacting – internally and externally.

A true balancing act! But it is possible; Humanitarian Practice Network is a shining example of displaying varied types of content without increasing its impact on the planet and giving a rich experience for a global audience.

Digital sustainability is not a one and done

We always aim for an ‘A’ score at site launch, but we need to think of websites as living things that need care and attention to stay healthy and high-performing. That’s where continuous iteration of the site is key and keeping Experience Principles front of mind.

With us by our client’s side, we design thoughtful solutions to business developments, campaigns and product launches – demonstrating to your audiences you care about all their interactions with you. We’re on a mission, and we want to bring you along with us! If an image upload is too big, don’t worry, we’ll help you fix it and share a tip or two with your team to prevent it in the future.

Long-term vision

We can’t improve what we don’t measure. Regularly benchmarking our websites helps keep sites in flow with new tools, user needs, and the ever-changing digital landscape – like AI. It’s important to us to be transparent about our own work too because digital sustainability is a journey, not a destination.

Iterating is one of the most sustainable approaches to web development; It ensures that an organisation’s site stays relevant and responsive to audience needs as they change.

In Tandem’s case the site was able to grow and evolve as their funding increased. Tandem fosters meaningful connections by inspiring, supporting and equipping leaders in the humanitarian and development sector to create a brighter future for all. As they prepared to open applications for their second cohort of leaders, there was encouragement from within the team to improve the website navigation and journeys in order to speak to a wider audience.

The main goal was to position their social impact programme attracting a global audience. Building on their MVP website, we collaboratively addressed three key project challenges:

• It wouldn’t be as sustainable as the MVP.
• We had a precise budget.
• The Tandem team had fixed resources & time.

Maintaining sustainable practice, while facilitating growth

Through collaboration and research with Accenture Development Partnership (ADP), they decided sustainability was a pivotal pillar of Tandem’s global executive leadership programme. They envisioned the website communicating sustainability throughout. 

When we developed the original MVP site, we built strong, sustainable code foundations that were prepared to scale. When phase 2 began, we needed a Discovery session; the inputs were the programme’s values and the Tandem community’s feedback. Due to the immense collaboration with the Tandem team, we truly understood the intended experiences needed for expanded audiences and calls to action.

For those who don’t know, sustainability isn’t only low carbon code, it’s designing optimal journeys for your people so they can go on a structured, self paced journey with an effective outcome.

With website growth comes more content, navigation and imagery. However, when additions were made to their site, the carbon footprint was minimally affected. This resulted in a more dynamic and higher functioning website, with an A rating on Website Carbon Calculator.

Maximising the design & development on an efficient budget

Limited budgets do not equate to limited design. For Tandem, having clear acceptance criteria resulted in effective decision-making on what was required to appeal to a global audience.

The refreshed/expanded visual design focused on representing the dynamic nature of the work Tandem does and compellingly communicating to leaders why applying is an enriching experience. The key outcome was to maximise the dynamism of Tandem’s existing assets to grab and guide attention around the site.

Delivering within a strict development budget came down to two factors: the collaboration of our creative and technical teams (identifying opportunities to utilise existing functionality), and the swift and detailed feedback we received from Tandem themselves; allowing us to move at pace through design, build and UAT and remain fully aligned throughout. This helped to convert new cohorts via design and navigational elements that provided clear purpose and a path forward to applying.

Expanding the graphical elements of their brand with transitions and iconography:

Pushing brand retention with interactive content:

Demonstrating a world view of system change was fundamental for Tandem to be able to recruit new members of the cohort. We understood this was business critical, so we updated the navigation to include ‘Leaders and Impact’. This showcased authentic stories and diversity of the leaders so potential applicants could start to see themselves in the programme and get a sense of the value and skills they’d develop.

Putting the leaders front and centre:

Empowered Internal Team for Content Entry

As an organisation set on inspiring and empowering audiences through their work, we recognised the need for internal teams to feel equally as empowered when it came to managing their communication through the website itself. A difficult back-end results in out-dated content and high reliance on your developer to implement simple tasks.

We provided a virtual WordPress CMS training session to teach the team how to use their website. Prior to launch, they were confident in uploading and editing the site with informative content. 

Successful Launch of Phase 2

Through our partnership we overcame limitations and harnessed mutual strengths:

• Strong, open collaboration and communication between Tandem and Wholegrain
• A sustainable design lens to maximise the elements we already had
• Clear expectation setting during Discovery to stay on course towards expected outcomes

As we said, iterating is one of the most sustainable approaches to the web development journey. By clearly mapping out what developments Tandem’s audience needed from the original MVP site, we were able to deliver their updated website on time and budget. Now, they have a dynamic website that represents their vision and work, connects leaders, evolves skills, and cross-pollinates knowledge across sectors and countries.

Check out Tandem’s website for yourselves!

Most countries’ government websites already prioritise accessibility, however the European Union is ensuring its usability doesn’t just stop at government websites, many product and service websites will be affected too. 

As of 28th June 2025, the European Accessibility Act 2025 comes into effect requiring any business that is trading, or plans to trade, in the EU needs to provide accessible digital services. This also affects UK businesses that provide services to EU consumers and to public or private bodies that are in the scope.

Why does web accessibility matter?

Our founder, Tom Greenwood, described this clearly when writing about the public sector accessibility regulations for the UK in 2019. Succinctly, it comes down to the fact “a huge part of our world is now online, if we don’t take accessibility seriously then people with disabilities will be excluded, creating a two-tiered society.”

What do the European Accessibility Act 2025 regulations require?

The Design for All (DfA) approach is a design philosophy for products, services and systems to have maximum usability by as many people as possible without the need for adaptation. This philosophy was responsible for the development of the European Standard on Design for All, published in 2019. In the same year the European Accessibility Act (EAA) was officially published by the European Union.

The regulations are not new as such, but the deadline for implementing them, June 28 2025 is now fast approaching. 

So what are the key requirements for websites?

• Depending on which EU country is involved, websites must at least meet WCAG 2.1 compliance at level AA. Ensuring that websites are WCAG 2.2 compliant at level AA is a more prudent, robust and future proof approach.
• Non-text content such as images, videos and products must have associated alternative text providing clear, simple descriptions for screen reading technology .
• All parts of the website should be usable with just keyboard navigation.
• Audio and video, must be accompanied by captions or transcriptions and offer alternative formats. Auto play of videos should be avoided.
• Adaptable website design so it can be adjusted to suit different needs, such as changing text size or colours for better readability.

Accessibility is not a feature, it is a universal human right

Universal design isn’t new or novel. The result of designing for additional needs, benefits everyone, sometimes in ways we couldn’t have predicted.

• The dropped curb? Originally created to assist wheelchair users, also benefits people pushing a pram, shopping trolley, or suitcase.
• The electric toothbrush? Designed for those who lacked the movement or dexterity to brush thoroughly, and now many people own one as it can clean your teeth more effectively.
• The world wide web? Yup! Even in its inception, the inventor of the world wide web, Tim Burner’s Lee created it with universal design in mind. He stated: “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect”.

The above are three examples of things we all benefit from frequently, if not daily. 

When the web was launched, it prioritised universal accessibility. However, when you release things into the public domain, you lose control of how people adapt it. Legislation and laws are often required to maintain our universal human rights, especially as we continually iterate and improve our digital platforms.

Happily there are many people and organisations who took it upon themselves to make sure this knowledge is shared and accessible to drive change sooner. Here are a handful of those improving accessibility through education, community alliances and free tools:

• WCAG 1.0 was published in 1999 and 26 years on WCAG 3 is fast approaching;
  • You can evaluate WCAG standards for webpages with WAVE.
  • Reminder! For the EAA 2025, as a minimum, websites must meet WCAG 2.1 compliance at level AA.
• The A11y Project is a community-driven effort to make digital accessibility easier as well as providing a list of resources.
• Web Sustainability Guidelines which was created by the W3C Sustainable Web Design community group. Designing for not only audience needs, but data & WiFi bandwidth means that no one is hindered from information or interactions online based on data inequality.
• WebAIM colour contrast checker is a useful, free tool to validate colour combinations in design.
• Accessibility Insights is a free browser extension to test accessibility of webpages and web applications.

Wholegrain supports all moves that increase inclusion online

We’re encouraged that accessibility protections are written into law and continually iterated. However for us, accessibility online has always been and continues to be non-negotiable, meaning anything we create is done through the lens of universally accessible digital design.

We’ll keep doing what we’re already doing, putting the human behind the screen, first.

This is exactly why we prioritise user testing because without representation, we can never truly understand how to create a fully inclusive digital experience.

From a UX standpoint, accessibility is intertwined with usability. When we design with accessibility in mind, we’re creating experiences that are not only compliant but also intuitive and enjoyable for everyone. Accessibility means removing barriers for people with disabilities, but it also enhances the experience for all.

For example, clear navigation and logical content hierarchy improve usability for those using screen readers, while also benefiting people in noisy environments or those unfamiliar with a website. Captioning videos helps people with hearing impairments but also supports those watching content in quiet spaces. Keyboard navigation is essential for people with mobility challenges and it also improves efficiency for those who prefer shortcuts.

Designing for accessibility encourages empathy, helping us focus on the diverse ways people interact with the web. It ensures that we’re building websites that are not just functional but delightful and impactful, reinforcing trust and inclusivity. For Wholegrain, accessibility isn’t a box to tick, it’s an integral part of creating human-centered, sustainable digital experiences that serve everyone.

It’s important to restate our mission to frame our position on accessibility:

Sustainable web design is accessible design.

In a world that is increasingly prioritising algorithms and non-human users, we stand strong in putting the people using a website front and centre. Through collaboration, we can uncover usability we’d never discover on our own, that discovery may even benefit you one day!

The scene – South East London on an unusually warm mid-October day. Georgie, Anneliese, Tom, Vineeta and I travelled via train from all directions to attend the 2024 Blue Earth Summit at Woolwich Works to join over 7,000 other individuals keen to learn from one another on how we can move the needle when it comes to the intersection of sustainability and business. 

The venue itself was not only very fitting given the building’s purpose has “expanded and adapted as the world around it changes”; but also evoked nostalgia for Georgie recognising the imprints her family physically laid on this very site! Her grandfather worked in the building for over 50 years, her mother would buy pie and mash in the nearby square, and we passed the building society her parents got their first mortgage from. The foundations of yesterday are peppered throughout the area, and it was inspiring to see how the community is repurposing what was a Royal Arsenal into a vibrant, community cultural hub.

Community was a throughline for this entire event. Personally, all of us were eager to catch up with familiar faces from various organisations, however more critically, wider community engagement was demanded in almost every presentation, panel and workshop.

It feels like an obvious and imperative action to embed in all organisational goals, but even reflecting on our own community we were eager to engage with, it was important to take a step back and think – how do we ensure we considerately and continually engage communities beyond our sphere? Especially when it comes to sustainability and equitability, are we all taking a bottom-up approach and considering those on the ground as well as those generations to come? Additionally, are we as a sustainability-focused community creating an inviting environment for those not in the space to come learn to be better, rather than be shunned? If you are asking yourselves these questions too, I’m pleased to tell you, there are some serious trailblazers who are doing just that, that you should look into:

• Cool Earth and Joycelyn Longdon trailblazing climate justice on the ground, authentically with community-led conservation projects.
• Sulaiman R. Khan demonstrates how disabled people are excluded from the climate movement, and also how they’re disproportionately impacted by climate change. Climate change is disabling. We need to change how we view disability and think of ourselves as ‘pre-disabled’ rather than non-disabled, then make the world more accessible.
• Earth Minutes amplifying youth voices at the event and asking the tough, but necessary questions. You can watch their intergenerational content series from the event, but on a day to day basis they work with young people to communicate their environmental research, campaigns and projects more effectively.
• Those on the panel regarding how high-investment ensures equitable community benefits, by demanding businesses start putting nature on the board. Most GDP is reliant on nature and businesses need to start treating it as an asset class. Investing in nature and the communities that business directly affects, results in regeneration on both fronts.
• Environment Bank – With a dedication to high-quality nature restoration, they actively connect organisations with UK farmers and landowners to evoke sustainable and local biodiversity conservation – rewriting futures and safeguarding the planet.

We’re miles better than where we started when it comes to community engagement, but it does not mean we have arrived. We must do what we can, every time, to create a seat at the table for all stakeholders when it comes to climate justice. Kalpana Arias, of Nowadays On Earth said it best “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu”. 

We know that risk is the most powerful motivator and when it comes to businesses, it was clear and this event and in world events, our climate is at risk thus businesses are too. So as businesses – we must challenge the status quo of trailblazing through resources for the sake of shareholders and start prioritising people, not pockets. 

If we all advocate for the collective community, we can evoke positive change. I’m encouraged by how many businesses are designing alongside their communities, but it’s time we create spaces that draw other businesses, outside of the sustainability space, to start prioritising this as well. That’s how we’ll see systematic change.