Behind the B! Envisage Dental discusses some of the features and initiatives of the business which helped it achieve B corp status.
When Dr Sandy Dau and Harry Gill founded their business, they wanted to use it as a force for good. Their aim was to help people to be happier, healthier and more fulfilled. It was more than just delivering dentistry. It was about their teams, their patients, the local community and the positive impact a business can have in society.
‘We didn’t know much about group dentistry when we started. But we knew two things,’ Dr Sandy Dau said. ‘First, we knew we wanted only the highest quality private clinics to join the group – this meant we could deliver the best care with excellent teams.
‘Second, we knew we wanted to create a group that would set the gold standard – which meant we wanted to take a long-term view to everything.’
With every business decision our ‘culture of care’ became the guiding light to serve our purpose to use business as a force for good. One year ago, Envisage Dental became the first dental group to achieve B corporation certification, solidifying our founders’ ideals with an impactful certification.
Understanding what a B corp company is
If you’re new to the idea of B corporations, here’s a quick explanation of why we’re proud to be one.
All of us play a part in shaping the world around us. Both through the companies we work for and the companies we do business with (on a personal level or professionally). Humanity is at a crossroad with enormous challenges to solve around the environment, equality, ethical business standards, social governance… the list goes on.
For a long time, marketing campaigns have attempted to put the responsibility for setting things right on individuals. But the truth of the matter is that we need businesses themselves on board to realise substantial lasting change.
To that end, a non-profit organisation called B Lab created the concept of B corporations. These are businesses that put their social and environmental impact into their definition of ‘success’. It’s the proof of putting purpose before profit.
Businesses that wish to become B corps undergo a lengthy assessment. This addresses their environmental impact, treatment of workers, impact on their communities, and leadership. After the assessment, businesses are given a score based on their responses. Those with a high enough score eventually become B corps.
All B corps must re-certify every so often in order to maintain their B corp status. This provides a chance to showcase their improvements. Thousands of businesses worldwide, including Envisage, have achieved B corp certification, and the community is constantly growing. By achieving a B corp accreditation, we have proven our dedication to meeting standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and accountability.
What we’ve been working on for the past year
Becoming a B corp was a clear way for Envisage to evidence its commitment to using business as a force for good. It’s also now become a way for Envisage to hold ourselves accountable to improving on these standards.
Upon certification, Envisage was able to pinpoint areas in which we could grow and improve even more. Today, we’re excited to look back at our efforts across the five pillars we are assessed upon. We also look forward to years of using our business as a force for good.
Patients
We are proud that our clinics have a very localised patient journey as we don’t believe in ‘one-size-fits-all’. Our NPS score is already an impressive 87, reflecting the high-quality clinics that join the group.
While we are proud of the care each clinic provides in its unique way, we recognised that we could unlock best practice across clinics through our newly formed patient retention team. This is a dedicated team who are focussed on sharing best practices to help improve the patient journey in a localised way, and the results of this team are already coming through in improved patient scores.
Environment
Within the last year, we’ve taken steps toward carbon neutrality by offsetting the carbon emissions of our entire support team – the first in the industry! We appreciate becoming environmentally friendly within dentistry has some challenges.
So, we started by ensuring our entire support structure is carbon neutral. For every mile we travel to visit clinics or the energy we use in our support centre – our entire carbon footprint is captured and offset with our partnership with Ecologi.
What’s more, every support member has personally made a financial commitment, highlighting how this matters to us as individuals as well as a company.
Colleagues
Our colleagues are the heartbeat of our business. Therefore, every relationship we establish with our 1,000 + colleagues across the country is handled with extreme gratitude and a culture of care. We go to great lengths to ensure our support teams are real experts in the area of support we offer. Our bi-annual colleague survey showed a 97% engagement score. But more importantly, it gave us the feedback and steer to help ensure we keep on the right track as we grow.
Transparency
Within the past year, we’ve doubled down on our commitment to transparency. Our bespoke ‘Ensights’ platform gives clinics all their data in a simple and easy to understand dashboard. We’re regularly sharing best practices about our patients, our colleagues, and our communities – and not hiding from the areas we need to improve on too. We know that to be trusted, we have to communicate and show what we are doing to constantly improve.
Community
We actively contribute to the communities we serve. Through community engagement initiatives, we aim to make a positive impact beyond the walls of our practices, fostering a sense of responsibility and care for the areas we operate in.
Our clinics participate in many local initiatives as well as support Operation Smile, where we have delivered over 100 transformational surgeries to date. As we grow, we are looking to set up the ‘The Foundation – envisage a better future’ where our collective fundraising efforts can support multiple charitable initiatives both local and national.
Watch our full video below where Dr Sandy Dau talks more extensively on our B corp initiatives.
What does this mean for practices that want to join Envisage?
For private dental practice owners contemplating the future, Envisage is the only B corp certified nationwide dental group. By joining our group, you have the comfort that we care about the patient journey, we care about your teams, we care about the environment, and we care about keeping your clinic very much in the heart of the local community.
If you’re thinking about a home for your high quality dental clinic, contact our acquisitions director, Jon Toh ([email protected] | 07881436719), for a completely confidential conversation about your options.
