We’re B Corp certified. You’ll see the logo on our website, on our packaging, on our B Corp profile. And we’re genuinely proud of it - not as a marketing badge, but as a reflection of the way we operate.
But here’s what we don’t talk about: how difficult it is to get Certified. And stay Certified.
Not because we aren’t doing things right. We have - from day one. Fair wages. Safe working conditions. Natural materials. Carbon compensation. A team built on dignity, not just productivity. These weren’t B Corp requirements we worked backward from. They were just how we decided to do business. The hard part was proving it.
Slow fashion. Even slower paperwork.
We’re a small company. A handmade footwear brand operating in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Our production team is small, tight-knit, and all-female. Every pair of wool slippers and cotton espadrilles leaves our workshop through skilled hands - not a factory line. That’s a choice we’re proud of.
But small companies don’t have compliance departments. They don’t have sustainability officers or legal teams. They have people who wear twelve hats juggling a hundred tasks.
So when B Corp asks for documented policies, formal training records, supplier declarations, and written evidence of everything you do - the first honest answer is often: we do all of this, we just never wrote it down.
That gap between doing the right thing and being able to prove it is one of the most underappreciated challenges in ethical business. Especially when you’re running lean. Especially when every hour spent on documentation is an hour not spent developing the business. We’ve spent a year closing that gap. Documenting everything. Creating the paper trail. Not because our practices changed - but because audit readiness requires a different kind of discipline than simply doing good work.
Cambodia is not a Western context. B Corp sometimes forgets that.
B Corp is a remarkable framework. We believe in what it stands for. But it is largely developed through a Western lens - and that creates friction when you’re operating in a developing country.
Take tax and business registration. In Cambodia, the administrative burden on small businesses is significant. Navigating requirements, renewals, and filings isn’t straightforward - and the system doesn’t always make it easy. Staying compliant takes real time and resources. That’s time a small team can ill afford.
Take workforce training. We’ve a commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion - we’ve even published a formal JEDI Action Plan. But translating these concepts meaningfully for a team with limited formal education, in a language and cultural context that doesn’t always have equivalent terms, takes patience, creativity, and humility. You can’t hand out a policy document and call it done. Understanding must be built slowly, through conversation, through example, through trust. That takes time that doesn’t show up on a B Corp scorecard.
Take supply chain transparency. Cambodia doesn’t produce our raw materials. Our New Zealand wool, our Lyocell blend, our leather - these come from outside the country. Much of what’s available in our region is sourced from China, where language barriers and limited supplier communication make traceability genuinely difficult. We don’t have the budget for formal third-party audits. We don’t have the leverage of a large brand to pressure suppliers into better disclosure. We do what we can. We ask questions. We request declarations. We choose suppliers who share our values, as far as we can verify. But let’s be honest: as a small buyer in a global supply chain, our influence is limited. We’re largely dependent on what the market offers and what suppliers are willing to share. That’s not a comfortable thing to admit. But it’s true - and we think it’s important to say out loud.
What we can control (and what we can’t).
We can control how we treat our team. And we do - fair wages, safe conditions, a culture where people can grow.
We can control our direct environmental footprint. And we do - natural materials, zero-waste manufacturing, leather off-cuts turned into labels, leftover yarn donated to local Cambodian charities, we offset the little carbon we make through the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project.
We can control how we show up for our community. And we do - hosting students and entrepreneurs who want to understand what ethical manufacturing looks like in practice. Sharing our B Corp journey, the messy parts and all. Having conversations that we hope make the idea of doing business differently feel more possible for someone else.
What we can’t always control is what happens further up the chain. What materials exist. What suppliers disclose. What standards developing markets have adopted. We work within those constraints as responsibly as we can, and we’re transparent when we hit a wall.
Three years. That's how long B Corp Certification lasts before the whole process begins again. New evidence. New documentation. New questions about whether our practices have kept pace with a framework that's constantly evolving. For a small team that spent the better part of a year getting audit-ready the first time, that's not a small thing to absorb. But maybe that's the point. Certification isn't a trophy you put on the shelf. It's a commitment you renew - to your team, to your supply chain, to the standard itself. We knew that going in.
Why we still believe in certification.
None of this is a critique of B Corp. It’s a reflection of what it means to pursue certification earnestly - not as a marketing exercise, but as a genuine commitment to being held accountable.
The framework pushes you. It exposes the gaps between intention and evidence. It forces you to ask hard questions about your supply chain, your governance, your culture. That’s uncomfortable. It’s also valuable.
We’re not perfect. We’re a small company in a developing country, making handmade footwear with a team of women who take genuine pride in their craft. We’re doing this differently - not because it’s easier, but because we believe it’s right.
From thread to toe, we’re working on it. One stitch at a time.
Interested in our products? Discover your next pair of B Corp slippers here.
