60+
Hours per student spent engaged in experiential learning each semester
100%
Hands-on learning
100%
All participating client companies have improved their impact scores
What is the B Impact Clinic?
In the spring of 2019, we partnered with New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility (NHBSR) to launch UNH’s first B Impact Clinic. The B Impact Clinic gathers teams of undergraduate students from many majors and disciplines to serve as consultants for regional companies that are working to complete their B Impact Assessment. The BIA is an open-access, rigorous assessment tool, which is widely regarded as a comprehensive way to assess a company’s impact. Students help company leaders who want to address their social and environmental impact. Students are matched with companies to help them complete the BIA, become B Corp certified, re-certified, or to simply understand how they perform.
Learn about the details of the program in the dropdowns below.

This program is possible thanks to the generous support of the Henry David Thoreau Foundation!
Info-session: learn about the B Impact Clinic
Thursday, March 02, 2023 - 5 - 6 p.m.
Nesmith Hall, 111 or join us virtually!
B Impact Clinic info-session
Thursday, March 2, 2023 - 5 - 6 p.m.
Nesmith Hall, 111 or join us virtually!
STUDENTS
We accept applications on a rolling basis for future semesters.
Spring Participation Application Deadlines:
October 15: Priority
November 1: Final
Fall Participation Application Deadlines:
March 15: Priority
April 1: Final
Apply
COMPANIES
Applications accepted on a rolling basis; now booking for fall 2023.
Apply
QUESTIONS? Contact Kat Hand at Kat.Hand@unh.edu
2021-22 Academic Year Impact
51 tudents
volunteered
over 2,856 hrs
Creating
> $81,000 of value
for the community
B Impact Clinic Evolution
Launch Fall 2018:
Planting the Seed
2 tudents
1 faculty mentor
1 client:
Koya Leadership Partners
Spring 2019-Spring 2020: Letting it Sprout
31 tudents
8 peer mentors
10 clients:
Grandy Oats, GWI, Lonza, Orvis, Jack's Pizza, Timberland
Kennebunk Savings, Piscataqua Savings, ADay, Hypertherm
Fall 2020-Fall 2021: Growing the Sapling
72 tudents
18 peer mentors
18 clients:
Coffee by Design, Laney & Lu, Luke's Lobster, Richardson Media, Stonyfield, Bristol Seafood, Prime Buchholz, L.L. Bean, Good Start Packaging, Dirigo Collective, Kikori, 36 Creative, Dean's Beans, Allagash Brewing, Redbird Media, Atlantic Sea Farms, Bona Fide, Placework
A Two Way Street of Impact
The Clinic has been both hands on and challenging and it's been a real pleasure of just having real world experience working to assess ethical business practices and systems, sustainability methods.
Fall 2021 B Impact Clinic Student Consultant
I don't think this team will ever understand the impact that they made both for me personally, and for my business. They helped me create such a strong foundation to build our business on and their effort will positively impact Bona Fide forever.
Fall 2021 B Impact Clinic Client
Watch Team Bona Fide present their end of semester reflections
More Details for Students
The Clinic is a real-world learning opportunity for students to step out of the traditional classroom to work with local companies and gain first-hand experience of what makes a truly sustainable business and successful B Corporation.
As an immersive learning project and an excellent educational platform, the Clinic is centered around “sustainable business”, due to the comprehensive and rigorous assessment that evaluates all aspects of the company’s operations.
Participants will meet weekly to collaborate on their project and participate in lectures and activities discussing how companies can benefit from a triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit.
- Experience working with businesses in a professional environment on a project that will contribute to the company’s overall success
- Experience working with peers from all years and different majors
- Gain invaluable project management skills
- Resume building
- Expand your network to local NH and ME businesses
- Earn credit: This opportunity is available for students to receive two independent study credits (via Dr. Fiona Wilson). This program also satisfies on Business in Practice (BiP) experience requirement for PAUL students.
- Meet weekly with clients/B Impact Clinic cohort
- Spend approximately 1 hour outside of weekly meetings to prepare and complete follow-up work
- Attend and prepare for the four major events of the semester (which generally run from 5:20-7:00 on Tuesday nights)
- Student Orientation (first week of classes)
- Client Kick-off (Second week of classes. Clients present their businesses and goals for the semester and students are able to rank who they would most like to work with)
- Mid-Semester Check-in (a chance to meet in person with your clients to reflect on, and share with the cohort, what you’ve completed thus far and what your plan of action for the rest of the semester is)
- Final Presentation Showcase (each team shares the work they completed and the lessons they learned from the Clinic in a 10 minute presentation to clients, UNH faculty and staff, family and friends)
More Details for Company Partners
Small teams of motivated, cross-discipline, UNH students serve as consultants for regional businesses seeking to elevate their social and environmental impact and help them complete the B Impact Assessment (BIA) to understand performance on a full range of sustainability dimensions, including workers, customers, community, environment, and governance. Companies can also use the tool to pursue B Corp Certification.
PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
PHASE 4
Complete a first pass through the B Impact Assessment
Meet student teams and begin to gather data
Student teams perform analysis and introduce recommendations
Student teams present final recommendations at the Showcase
- Identify a single point person within your company to serve as a primary contact with the student team and commit at least 1 hour per week to the B Impact Clinic
- This person must commit to weekly video calls with their student consultants. Ideally this would be done on Wednesdays from 5:10-6:00 (as this is when the Clinic meets) but timing can be flexible
- Participating companies must complete the B Impact Assessment prior to the program start. While not every question has to be answered with 100% certainty, an initial pass through of all the questions you are able to answer is an invaluable time saver. This will allow for the students to dive into helping you with the intricacies of the assessment as well as documentation and suggested improvements as soon as possible.
- In order to participate fully, company participants are expected to have a representative participate in person or virtually to each of the semester’s three key events:
- Company Kick-off (in which clients present their businesses and goals for the semester to the student consultants)
- Mid-semester meeting (a chance to meet in person with your student consultants to reflect on the progress you’ve made and plan for the final few weeks)
- Final Presentation Showcase (each team shares the work they completed and the lessons they learned from the Clinic in a 10 minute presentation to clients, UNH faculty and staff, family and friends)
About the B Impact Assessment & B Corp Certification
The BIA is administered by the B Lab, a nonprofit that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good. The assessment examines a company's impact on their workers, community, environment, and customers along with the company's governance structure and accountability. To become a certified B Corp a company must score 80 out of 200 available points.
Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. B Corps are accelerating a global culture shift to redefine success in business and build a more inclusive and sustainable economy.
B Corp certification is about a decade old. There are now 2655 companies across 150 industries that are certified including Patagonia, Danone, Ben & Jerry’s, Cabot, Seventh Generation and Eileen Fisher. New Hampshire is proud to be home to several leading B Corps including Stonyfield, W.S. Badger, Pete and Gerry's Organic Eggs, ReVision Energy, Veris Wealth Partners, and Mascoma Bank. There are a number of certified B Corps in the surrounding states as well.
Benefit corporations and Certified B Corporations are often confused. The B Corp Certification is a third-party certification administered by the non-profit B Lab, based in part on a company's verified performance on the B Impact Assessment. The benefit corporation is a legal structure for a business, like an LLC or a corporation. Benefit corporations are legally empowered to pursue positive stakeholder impact alongside profit. Some companies are both Certified B Corporations and benefit corporations, and the benefit corporation structure fulfills the legal accountability requirement of B Corp Certification. Learn more about the difference.
The standards for B Corp Certification are overseen by B Lab's independent Standards Advisory Council. Members of the Standards Advisory Council bring industry and stakeholder expertise to bear during the three-year update cycle for the B Impact Assessment, complaints made against Certified B Corps, and material disclosures made by companies pursuing B Corp Certification.