Our translation agency’s Benefit ethos is enshrined in our dual status as an Italian Società Benefit and a certified B Corp.
The path that led us to this rebirth was long and complex but very rewarding, and today we are proud to be the first LSP (Language Service Provider) in the world to have embraced this innovative business model, which we continue to champion.
We regard this transition as a kind of rebirth because our origins go back further into the past, to 1988 to be exact.
That was the year Trans-Edit Group was founded, a Milan-based professional translation company that spent 30 years harnessing the potential of globalization and the digital revolution, becoming one of the top 100 language services providers in the world.
One of the founding partners was Laura Gori, now the founder and CEO of Way2Global. Drawing on her experience as a translator, coupled with her insatiable curiosity for artificial intelligence and machine translation, Gori was able to drive the growth of Trans-Edit Group, turning it into a small localization multinational that would go on to win a prestigious award from the Italian Stock Exchange due to its innovation and leadership in the sector.
Although Trans-Edit Group was a just a regular company, it always had a strong innovative spirit, earning the praise: “You’re a B Corp and you don’t even know it!” Indeed, the company’s biggest strength was its commitment to social causes, reflected in its innovative policies and practices spanning corporate social responsibility, company benefits, flexibility, employment and female empowerment.
Fuelled by an ambition to be much more than a company that simply pursues profit, and by the belief that “doing business is about having an idea and turning it into value for others”, in 2017 Trans-Edit underwent a transformation, with Way2Global emerging as a result.
Way2Global was (re)founded as a Benefit start-up in August 2017 as a result of CEO Laura Gori’s admiration for the revolutionary appeal of this new, disruptive American-style business model, which has now grown to over 8,300 companies in more than 96 countries worldwide.
Our agency was therefore founded by drawing inspiration from the B Corp philosophy and, as a sign of an evolutionary break from the previous traditional company, was set up with the legal form of “Società Benefit”, fervently championing this model around the world.
Indeed, after the USA, Italy was the first country on the planet to add Benefit Corporation to its list of legal forms through the Stability Law of 2016. Referred to as “Società Benefit” in Italy, these newly conceived conscious enterprises combine the pursuit of profit with a commitment to the common good, measured by strict criteria and made binding by statutory obligations.
Being a Benefit Corporation has enabled us to evolve our CSR and innovation to join a model for revolutionary change that contributes to laying the foundation for a new, more regenerative and sustainable world in terms of economic, social and environmental development.
B Corp: the certification for companies of the future
In January 2019, having passed a rigorous audit by certifying body B Lab Europe, based on the B Impact Assessment, we officially joined the B Corp world.
B Corps represent a select group of companies that believe in business as a driver for common good, attaching the same importance to sustainable business practices as they do the pursuit of profit.
This business vision is perfectly in line with the mission enshrined in our slogan: “Translation that cares”. For us, translation means fostering understanding between different languages and cultures, but also translating the value gained into benefits for our stakeholders.
It is a vision that has also been endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly, which on 24 May 2017 officially recognized the role of professional translation “in connecting nations and fostering peace, understanding and development”.
Our commitment to stakeholders, the community and the environment is reflected in our signature projects, which are our “B Corp way” of providing translation, interpreting and localization services.
With Made in B Italy, we want to spread the knowledge of Società Benefit around the world as an all-Italian model of outstanding social innovation, responding to the need to adopt more sustainable business models and corporate governance.
With Green Translations, we are aiming to raise awareness and involve companies in the value chain in environmental initiatives, thereby making our contribution to the fight against climate change.
Language Industry 4.0 and Way2Academy are projects designed and implemented to promote digital transition as a lever for women’s empowerment, so as to democratize the use of technology and counteract the digital mismatch in the labour market.
Last but not least, Anywhere Office is an innovative work organization model that prioritizes employee well-being. The need that arose during the pandemic to rethink and reconfigure the geography of work was made structural at Way2Global by a collective desire to offer greater security, well-being and flexibility. A physical office, flanked by a cluster of meeting, co-working and home office spaces that promote work-life balance are the building blocks of our Anywhere Office, the “dispersed office” that prioritizes every individual’s quality of life.
These projects meet the common benefit aims and protection of stakeholder categories that we have decided to adopt as part of our articles of association, as well as the achievement of the KPIs integrated with the UN 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that constitute our business plan.
Our determination to pursue these initiatives stems from our civic conscience and from the role that we believe today’s companies must urgently assume in driving transformation of the economy toward sustainable development.
This is why we wanted to embark on the journey to obtain B Corp Certification: to attest to our activities’ positive impact on society and the environment, in addition to the care we have always dedicated to people, corporate governance, welfare, community relations, and the ecosystem.
The B Corp mark is a certification of excellence that qualifies the companies of the future, transformative companies working toward a paradigm shift that promotes solidarity, interdependence and sustainability, with the aim of responding to the major global challenges codified by the UN in the 2030 Agenda SDGs.
Acting for the collective good and generating more value for the world than the resources consumed to run the business is the only way for today’s companies to provide a better future for later generations. At Way2Global, we work every day to make this wish a reality.
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