How 1% for the Planet has strengthened its model for the next era of impact
For nearly 25 years, 1% for the Planet has worked to build a world in which every business, everywhere, gives back to the planet. This North Star hasn’t changed, but our environment has, and so has the global landscape of corporate environmental impact.
As a trusted environmental certification, it’s our responsibility to ask: How can we make the 1% for the Planet model even more effective and globally inclusive for the next 25 years of impact, while maintaining rigorous accountability and credibility?
To answer that, we listened to feedback from across our network and consulted experts and brands outside of it, too. As a result, we have improved our model to offer more pathways to credible impact.
Here are three structural updates that position us to drive meaningful change for the next 25 years:
Partner-led validation: More control for nonprofits
1% for the Planet has served as the framework for tens of thousands of partnerships between members and nonprofits over the last 25 years. And one thing has become abundantly clear over that time: the most effective impact occurs when member capabilities align with a nonprofit’s unique needs.
Sometimes that need is monetary, and sometimes it’s a need for services, goods or volunteering.
Until now, our members could meet up to half of their 1% commitment with in-kind contributions or volunteering. Under our evolved model, there is no longer a cap on this type of support.
In place of the 1% for the Planet limit, nonprofit impact partners will have full control over the type and amount of in-kind support they receive. Because who better to judge what resources they need to succeed than the nonprofit itself? This way, organizations can determine what is most valuable to them, while we stick to providing the third-party certification that validates a member’s contributions are real, rigorous and accountable.
This update represents an intentional focus on supporting direct one-to-one relationships, fostering deeper, more impactful partnerships between members and nonprofit impact partners.
More rigorous vetting standards
Our updated Certification & Vetting Standard introduces a more consistent and rigorous framework across all impact partners.
Partners have always been evaluated for their legal status and programmatic alignment with 1% for the Planet’s impact areas. Under the evolved model, every impact partner must now meet a unified three-pillar vetting standard focused on the following, to be renewed every three years:
- Legal Accountability
- Organizational Credibility
- Solutions Alignment
This creates a more transparent and consistent framework that strengthens credibility, aligns with emerging anti-greenwashing regulations and ensures that certified contributions are supporting verified environmental impact.
Welcoming market-based environmental solutions
When 1% for the Planet was founded after the dawn of the new millennium, options for corporate environmental impact looked quite different from what they do today. Most environmental challenges were addressed outside of the marketplace by nonprofits.
And while nonprofits continue to play an essential role in advancing solutions that markets often do not serve—such as biodiversity protection and environmental justice—a diversity of entity types that did not exist at our founding now deliver meaningful environmental solutions sustained by markets rather than institutional grants and donations.
In recognition of this multifaceted landscape, we have added a new partner type, enterprise impact partners, whose work complements, and is often interwoven with, that of nonprofits by offering mission-locked, market-based environmental solutions like plastic pollution recovery, carbon sequestration and land conservation.
This new partner type is vetted to the same standards as our nonprofit impact partners, and only solutions that drive public benefit will be eligible for certification, ensuring clear alignment with their impact and the 1% for the Planet model. As the future of the environmental movement will continue to rely both on market-based and non-market-based solutions, contributions to enterprise impact partners are capped at half of a member’s 1% commitment.
Whether through contributions to market-based solutions or to nonprofits, our members are giving back voluntarily for the sake of public environmental benefit, not because of any direct benefit to their supply or value chain.
Growing the movement
Our mission is to accelerate smart environmental impact and prevent greenwashing. These updates strengthen that promise by clarifying the components of our certification model, deepening the credibility of the movement and ensuring that the 1% for the Planet logo remains the most trusted stamp of excellence in corporate philanthropy.
By widening the scope of vetted solutions while fortifying our certification rigor, we make our network more globally inclusive—ultimately directing more resources where the planet needs them most.
Our shared destination remains the same—a healthier planet so future generations can thrive—now with more paths to get there.
Interested in joining the movement? Get in touch here. For any other questions, reach out here.
Read more:
.png)