Soap company Dr. Bronner’s says it will no longer be a B Corporation — those are companies that adhere to high standards for their treatment of workers, supply chains and the environment.

They get certified by a nonprofit, but Dr. Bronner’s now says that the standards the nonprofit applies aren’t high enough. The move exposes a long-standing tension in the B Corp world.

There are two factions in the B Corp community, according to Suntae Kim, a professor at Johns Hopkins University: One focused on meeting higher standards, the other on expanding what counts as a B Corp. They need each other.

If you just focus on the highest standards, you become a smaller movement, Kim said — “which doesn’t really have any impact on the mainstream economy.”

On the other hand, “if you expand without authenticity, you become co-opted,” he said. “You’ll be a tool for greenwashing.”

Dr. Bronner’s argues that’s been happening to the B Corp movement for a few years.

“We’re just definitely very concerned with this move to really embrace multinationals and bring them into the B Corp ecosystem,” explained David Bronner, the company’s CEO.

And that’s without making them clean up their supply chains, Bronner argues. 

B Lab, the nonprofit that governs all this, declined an interview request. But it says it’s developing a new, more “holistic” set of requirements for companies.