Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost?

There is a one-time sign-up fee of £150 for organisations up to 50 employees and £300 for organisations with 51+ employees. For SMEs, in recognition of the financial pressures they are under, the sign-up fee includes the first year of accreditation.

To find out about the annual accreditation fees, please visit our costs page.
Why should I accredit?

The Good Business Charter is a simple way to be recognised for your responsible business practices. You may find you are performing well in most of the components but can improve your practices further in two or three which will be of overall benefit to your organisation. Our third-party accreditation will also point people to your doors as more and more people look for evidence of responsible business practices. Application is through an online self-certification process and takes less than one hour to complete. We hope the GBC, because of its simplicity and cost effectiveness, will quickly gain support and therefore critical mass, which will give it important and influential authority to change business practice for good. To find out more about why accredit, see here.
How long does the process take?
What can I expect from accreditation?

The Good Business Charter is not a membership association with a range of benefits for those who pay a membership fee. It is an accreditation where you commit to uphold your commitments and we commit to uphold the accreditation itself.

Yet we are also a community of people passionate about responsible business behaviour and a movement seeking to raise the bar on good business standards in the UK. So we do want to energise you in that mission and move forwards together in it. We set out here our commitment to our accredited organisations.
How will you enforce it?

We view businesses in a positive light and hope that they would not knowingly give false information in the self-certification. However, to ensure robust monitoring, we undertake appropriate checks as part of our accreditation process and we use a system of whistle-blowing where we invite any stakeholder of one of our organisations, who believes that they are not upholding the standards of the GBC, to contact us and alert us to this. We will then initiate a full investigation with that member and will not hesitate to remove their accreditation if they are found to not be compliant. GBC accreditation is not finalised until the organisation displays our logo – holding them to account internally with their workforce and externally with their customers that they are making this commitment and have done their due diligence to ensure they are compliant.
What if I can't qualify for one component?

The Good Business Charter requires you to qualify for every component. That is the way we keep it simple and straightforward so that everyone understands what an organisation displaying the GBC accreditation stamp has committed to. We do include within the self-certification process the intention to meet the requirements of a component and you have three months to start putting in process these changes.
I am a sole trader with no employees. Can I still accredit?

Yes you can! The Good Business Charter is for all sizes and shapes of organisation and we are proud to have sole traders, limited liability partnerships and charities as part of our membership, alongside small, medium and large companies. We do recognise, however, that the accreditation questions are directed at organisations that have employees. With 5 of our 10 components applicable to workers, we can see why some sole traders, working from home, would feel the GBC is not the right fit for them. We accept this reasoning, recognising that it was not designed with sole traders in mind, but we are also delighted to welcome sole traders who do want to accredit.

Sole traders can have significant reach in spreading the word to their clients and suppliers – some like to do this through first accrediting, others choose not to. If you do choose to accredit, you need to answer the employee questions as a commitment if you were to employ someone.
Do you have any guidance or templates for any of the components?

No. The Good Business Charter is an accreditation scheme and does not have the capacity to provide specific guidance on how to meet each component. There are other organisations working in this sector who we feel are better placed to do this. Some key ones can be found here.
My team is small. Is an employee satisfaction survey still necessary?

This may sound unnecessary with only a few employees who all have direct access to the boss, however we do think it is good practice to provide an anonymous way for a concern to be raised – even though in practice the best way to address it would most likely be to get everyone together anyway!

There is something useful also, as a minimum, in rating how happy your employees are in their workplace rating 1-5 and measure against prior years (or every 2 years which is what we ask). A Survey Monkey survey with 3 or 4 questions would be sufficient to meet this requirement.
What does the application process consist of?
We have fewer than 250 employees and are a private company. Why do we need to collect and report diversity data and the CEO pay ratio?

We appreciate that publishing your gender pay ratio and your CEO pay ratio to median employee is only a legal requirement for listed companies with over 250 employees. However, the Good Business Charter seeks to go beyond legal compliance and set a high standard for what responsible businesses are doing.

While we are not advocating that all employees should earn the same we do believe that reporting the CEO pay ratio is good practice in terms of transparency, accountability and reducing inequality. We also wherever possible like companies to show a clear commitment to ensuring a diverse workforce where everyone can thrive.
What standards do I need to meet for environmental responsibility?
Ethical sourcing is irrelevant to me. Why do I need to commit to the ETI Base Code?

We do not expect organisations to sign up to the Ethical Trading Initiative and recognise that for non-trading organisations, the Base Code may not seem relevant.

There is an established principle of leverage in due diligence, which reduces your responsibility the less you consume. If an organisation does not buy very much, it would be disproportionate to expect them to spend as much time checking suppliers as we would expect a large trading organisation to. Every organisation should still do something – we recommend a modern slavery act statement which outlines the steps it takes to avoid human rights abuse in its services and supplies. With agency staff, which can be an area of risk, we would recommend an organisation ask the companies they use to supply labour for their own policies on avoiding abuse and ethical practices.
I run a small business with a high number of temporary or occasional staff. Do I apply as a small or large orgainsation?
Where an organisation’s core team is small (and well within the 50 employees limit for the streamlined GBC accreditation) but the nature of their business means they have a high number of no guaranteed hours, zero hours, minimal hours, temporary, or occasional workers that takes them above 50 employees, our position is this: 

The organisation should count and tell us the individual number of people paid through their payroll when registering with our portal; so that will include those on no guaranteed hours, zero hours or other minimal hours contracts (e.g. 8 hours per week, but where flexibility is required to work additional hours in excess of 20% of normal hours to meet demand), as well as occasional workers.

We ask for each individual person to be counted, not FTE’s (Full time equivalents).

This does not include freelancers, where you are procuring and paying for the services of an organisation/individual for professional services.

Our first 5 components MUST be applied to the total number of all workers, not just the core, permanent team.  So, they must all be paid the Real Living Wage and have fair hours and contracts, experience employee wellbeing, representation and diversity and inclusion. These may be worked out in different ways for different groups of workers as befits the situation, but all of the GBC components must be applied to everyone on your payroll. 

Regardless of the size of your organisation, we expect all our ‘Fair Hours and Contracts’ conditions to be complied with and applied to all of the individual people on your payroll, regardless of their contract type (for example permanent, temporary, no guaranteed hours, zero hours, minimal hours, other). This means giving at least two weeks’ notice of shifts scheduled and paying them in full if cancelled with less than 2 weeks notice. Workers must understand their employment rights, face no penalties for declining shifts or requesting more fixed hours and have annual meetings to review actual hours worked for potential adjustments to their contracts.

However, an organisation should contact us or add in the comments box if they employ a very high number of people for very occasional employment.  (For example, a football club who employs many people on a casual, seasonal basis to work some match days or a charity that uses zero hours contracts to cover sickness or leave for essential services or very occasional fundraising events.) We want to ensure the fee you pay is fair, and can support you around how a company with a high number of staff working flexible hours manages the questions for larger companies, including pay gap reporting and reference to reporting to a Board of Directors.

Please also contact us if you’re unsure – we want to make sure we accurately capture the size of your operation and that your practices cover the support and well-being of all your staff, but also ensure the cost of accreditation is fair.
How do I sign up to the Prompt Payment Code and how much does it cost?
What does the renewal process consist of?
We pay real living wage but are not Living Wage Foundation accredited. Does that matter?

We support full accreditation to the Living Wage Foundation which costs little and ensures you are committed to the payment of a living wage. The Living Wage Foundation also ensures your regularly-contracted staff are paid real living wage, not just those on your payroll.
We are in the public sector/a charity. What does the GBC offer us?

The Good Business Charter offers a GBC for charities which measures your responsible business practices on 9 of the 10 components given that the tax component is not applicable. We believe there is huge value in all organisations, whether for profit or not, committing to care for their employees, customers, suppliers and the environment and that is why charities such as Shelter and The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Housing Trust have signed up to us.
How do I promote the Good Business Charter?

Let’s get creative! We want to get the accreditation stamp as visible as possible and get recognition from the general public as to what it is for your benefit as the public look for and favour your business as a result. There are lots of different ways we suggest here
How does it differ to Business in the Community, Blueprint for Better Business and the various accreditation bodies such as B Corporation?

The Good Business Charter is UK based and is designed to be simple and not expensive, whilst at the same time encouraging businesses to be more responsible (and recognise those already doing all our 10 components). The B-Corps, whilst worthwhile, is a lengthier process with a higher cost. We believe the simplicity and cost effectiveness of the Good Business Charter will encourage many organisations of all sizes to sign up so we can quickly get a critical mass which we hope will in turn encourage other businesses to join them and in turn encourage wider good business practice. See here for more information on how we compare to other accreditations.

We are a small charity and are therefore not experts in each of the ten components. As such we offer what advice or support we can, and are happy to introduce you to other GBC accredited organisations who may specialise in a particular component. We also encourage our members to go to other organisations such as Blueprint for Better Business and BITC to further develop the way they are doing responsible business, but the GBC enables them to set out as a baseline what they are committed to.
I believe an accredited organisation is not holding up to one of the components. For example, I know they are not paying their employees the Real Living Wage. What do I do?
I would like more information, how do I contact you?
How do I ensure the whole organisation understands and embraces the Good Business Charter?
What is the GBC's expectations of accredited organisations?