BCorp and Employee Ownership

Donald Insall Associates was an early adopter of the employee ownership model, starting the transition over three decades ago in 1991. We are currently 95% owned by a Employee Ownership Trust. More recently in 2024, we joined 2,000 companies in the UK B Corp community that demonstrate high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability and transparency.

As a conservation architecture practice with a track record of social value-led initiatives through training and apprenticeships and work with educators and local communities, we achieved a score of 87.0 across five key pillars of Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers; the breakdown can be accessed here. The median score for ‘ordinary’ businesses is 50.9.

Building on our culture that embraces and welcomes change and innovation, we will now enter B Corp’s framework of continuous improvement, undertaking an assessment and verification process every three years.

Jennifer Beaumont, Director, Company Secretary, and Chair of the Employee Ownership Trust at Donald Insall Associates, said:

“The heart of conservation is the creative process of caring for a building or a place, aiming to not only make good, but make better. We apply those principles of continuous improvement to all aspects of our practice: to our clients and our team. There is a strong synergy between our ethos and B Corp’s vision of conducting business in the knowledge that people and place matter, they are at the core of all we do. Reviewing where we are and how we can do better must be a constant process.

“The certification process was comprehensive and thought-provoking; it takes a high level of determination and stakeholder buy-in for practices to  achieve certification, and going through the process has enhanced our respect for both the B Corp movement, and those who have become a part of it.”