It's official, HomeExchange has just renewed its B Corp certification with a score of 100.9, up 10.7 points since our first certification in 2022! To mark the occasion, we're taking you behind the scenes of our first three years as a B Corp: our progress, our challenges, and what the future holds.

B Corp: a movement of companies that demonstrate a high level of social, societal, and environmental commitment

B Corp in a nutshell

The B Corp movement was founded in 2006 in the United States with a simple idea: what if companies measured their success not only by their profits, but also by their impact on society and the planet?

Today, B Corp is both an international certification and a global community of more than 10,000 companies in over 100 countries that share this belief.

At HomeExchange, becoming and remaining a B Corp (because you have to prove that you are making progress to remain certified!) is a way of lending credibility to our commitments, seeing what can be improved, and above all, joining a collective movement for a more responsible world.

How does the label work?

The label is based on a demanding questionnaire (more than 200 questions!) that assess companies according to five main categories:

  • Governance
  • Employees
  • Community
  • Environment
  • Customers

Each answer must be backed up by concrete evidence including internal policies, figures, processes, contracts and so forth. No promises, only what the company actually does.

In addition to these categories, B Corp evaluates the company's business model (how the company places impact at the very heart of its business model).

B Corp: a continuous approach to improvement

The main projects implemented

The spirit of the B Corp movement is to constantly strive for progress: this is an opportunity to take a step back and look back at the progress we have made since we first received certification.

Over the past three years, we have:

  • Improved the measurement of our environmental and societal impact by conducting ambitious impact studies with our partners OuiAct and Goodwill.
  • Gained maturity on CSR issues, notably by conducting our first materiality analysis (more details on this project below).
  • Raised awareness in our community: with educational content, updates to our website (homes accessible by public transport, comparison of CO2 emissions by mode of transport, eco-friendly equipment etc.), initiatives to promote sustainable tourism, a responsible travel charter, and more!
  • Made our work environment more inclusive by creating a Diversity and Inclusion hub, focusing on training and awareness, and conducting our first DE&I survey.
  • Improved our governance practices, with compensation practices that incorporate impact criteria, our first impact report, and actions to strengthen cybersecurity and transparency.

And that's not all! We have also expanded our philanthropic activities, refined our HR policies, launched a collective focused on sharing... and much more!

A look back at a key project: our first materiality analysis

With the support of Transition&Co, in 2024 we conducted our first materiality analysis. The aim of this was to identify the environmental, socia, and governance issues that are most important to HomeExchange.

The B Corp movement encourages this analysis because it ensures that a company's CSR strategy is based on issues that are truly relevant and a priority, not only for the company itself, but also for its key stakeholders.

Nearly 500 people participated in the exercise (team members, community members, our investors, suppliers and institutions such as ADEME), which enabled us to increase the team's knowledge on these issues, prioritize our impact topics, and clarify our CSR strategy.

The results highlighted the importance of security issues (members, data, privacy), social issues (inclusion, diversity, accessibility), and carbon reduction, while emphasizing HomeExchange's role in promoting sustainable tourism within its ecosystem and defending its collaborative model.

This formative step now guides our priorities and informs our thinking.

What now?

New standards on the horizon

In early 2026, after nearly four years of groundwork, B Corp will change its rules. Gone is the traditional overall score: companies will now have to address seven major impact themes, with minimum requirements in each: governance, employees, community, customers, human rights, environment and collective action.

Until now, it was sufficient to score at least 80 points on the B Corp questionnaire to be certified. This could create somewhat paradoxical situations: a company that performed very well in some categories but less well in others could still be certified. With the new standards, each theme must achieve a minimum score, which means that no aspect can be neglected.

What about HomeExchange?

This is an opportunity to go even further, explore new practices, and consolidate those already in place. Our first priority will be to train ourselves and embrace these new standards, so that they become a genuine shared management tool.

The goal: to involve more people in the team, help everyone develop their skills, and make the B Corp approach an increasingly collective endeavor, rooted in our everyday way of working.

More than just a label, it's a way of moving forward together, with transparency and consistency. That's the spirit of the B Corp movement!

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One last thing

As you can see, this recertification is not an end in itself, but another step in our B Corp journey. The new standards mark the beginning of an even more ambitious chapter: making progress on all fronts, developing the skills of more team members, and continuing to explore new practices while consolidating those already in place. It's a demanding challenge, but one that we will take on with enthusiasm!

“One idea that could work would be to promote home exchanges that include local transportation.” - Pablo

“I would just like to thank you on your effort and initiative!
I am extremely happy that you are promoting this topic and would like to encourage you to even be a little louder in this, especially about avoiding (long-distance) flights!” - Vera

Thank you all for your questions and feedback, which inspire us every day. If you would like to write to us, please do so here: impact@homeexchange :)

And finally: A BIG thank you to Camille Balduyck, our B Leader consultant, for her invaluable support and expert advice throughout our recertification process!