Bristol: Impact-led Capital
I've spent years mapping the Greater Bristol ecosystem. Starting with the West of England Growth Map and a little later the Tech for Good BB open dataset in 2019, I have a slight obsession with trying to make our community more transparent and connected. I keep coming back to the same feeling: we undersell ourselves. So let's stop being modest for five minutes and look at the evidence when it comes to impact in our city -
1. We are, quite simply, the B Corp capital outside London.
As reported by the Times, Bristol is home to more certified B Corps than any other UK city outside the capital, ahead of Manchester, Brighton and Bath. And this isn't a recent trend. Back in 2021, a survey of the Bristol & Bath B Corp group found over 90% of member businesses were predicting growth even as the country limped out of the pandemic, more than half had female board representation (against 35% for the FTSE 100), and over 70% had already committed to Net Zero by 2030. That's not a handful of feel-good outliers. That's a critical mass of businesses proving, year after year, that purpose and profit aren't in tension.