Residential Solar Company PosiGen Achieves B Corp Certification

PosiGen, headquartered in New Orleans, is the nation’s leading residential solar and energy efficiency provider for working families, helping families save more than $190M on their utility bills to date. They are also one of the newest companies to achieve B Corp Certification.

PosiGen’s mission is to make solar affordable for every homeowner, working to close the clean energy affordability gap in lower-income communities by reducing utility bills while providing the environmental benefits of clean energy through rooftop solar and energy efficiency upgrades.

The company’s business model intrinsically focuses on social and environmental justice-the company exists to deliver easy and affordable solar power that benefits people and the planet.

What is a B Corporation?

B Corporations use their business and products as a force for good and go through a certification process to verify their impact. To become a B Corporation, businesses must meet rigorous standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on a range of social, environmental and governance criteria. To earn certification, a company must:

• Demonstrate high social and environmental performance by earning a B Impact Assessment score of 80 or above and passing B Lab’s risk review.
• Make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be responsible to all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
• Exhibit transparency and allow information regarding performance to be publicly available and measured against B Lab’s standards on B Corp’s website.

Certified B Corporations meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability, and aspire to use the power of markets to solve social and environmental problems. The certification and auditing process are overseen by B Corp’s nonprofit partner, B Lab, which allows companies to establish and maintain socially and environmentally sustainable practices over time.

What makes PosiGen a B Corp?

With 160MW of deployed solar capacity, PosiGen helps expand access to renewable energy and conserve resources for their customers. Their environmentally responsible practices have produced more than 750 million kWh of renewable energy to date. PosiGen’s environmentally responsible practices are integral to its’ business model and resulted in high scores in the B Impact Assessment, where the company outperformed other U.S. businesses in the environment category.

PosiGen also outperformed in the workers and customers categories of the B Impact Assessment. With more than 24,000 residential customers and over 600 employees in Connecticut, DC/Maryland, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Mississippi, the company makes a positive impact in underserved communities, offering annual household savings upwards of 20% on energy bills, with hundreds of millions in customer savings to date. These social benefits are intrinsically linked to the company’s positive environmental impact, with access to clean, reliable energy expanding to new homes and communities, helping reduce and avoid GHG emissions. PosiGen provides good job opportunities in communities where they operate, with more than 65% of their staff identifying as women and/or Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

To fulfill the legal requirement for B Corp certification, PosiGen elected Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) status, which provides benefits and protections for purpose-driven companies. PBCs prioritize social good alongside profits and unlock new growth potential.

PBCs also commit to high levels of accountability and transparency, undergoing regular reporting that builds trust with all stakeholders, from employees to customers. As a certified B Corp, PosiGen’s certification information is publicly available on B Lab’s website. And Builders Fund reports on their impact in our annual report. Peter Shaper, PosiGen CEO shared:

“Certification by the B-Lab not only validates the hard work of the dedicated PosiGen workforce for over a decade now, but will also help the company continue to grow in attracting top talent, building stronger partnerships and demonstrating how we make a meaningful difference for the communities that we serve.”

Why we invest in Purpose-Driven Companies

As an investor in PosiGen since 2020, Builders Fund is proud to have this purpose-driven company in our portfolio, and we applaud their achievement of B Corp certification.

Our partnership with B Corporation is an integral part of the Builders’ approach to investing — we use the B Corp standard to engage management teams on Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) topics, and to set standards, visibility, and accountability around key metrics related to our investments’ impact. B Lab helps set baselines to measure additionality, track progress toward goals, and aggregate our impact across our investments. With PosiGen’s certification, we will be able to further understand and deepen the company’s impact via both its solar products and operations.

Tripp Baird, Partner at the Builders Fund said,

“We could not be more proud of and inspired by PosiGen’s progress toward delivering on its “Solar for All” vision and the significant social and environmental benefit they bring daily to their customers and communities. We hope their approach and success can serve as inspiration for the broader B Corp and energy transition communities.”

About the Builders Fund

The Builders Fund invests to build a better world. We are a leading impact private equity platform focused on partnering with growth-stage companies whose business models directly address environmental and social challenges and where purpose can be harnessed for competitive advantage. With a rigorous approach to impact, we aim to advance a more sustainable and systemically responsible form of capitalism while generating superior returns for all stakeholders.

The Builders Fund is proud to be a Certified B Corporation since 2015 and honored to be a “Best for the World” recipient for the past 6 years running.