The New Zealand-headquartered toy company and creators of the reusable water ‘balloon’, Sustained Fun is celebrating its B Corp accreditation this week, having met the platform’s high bar for environmental and social standards.

The company – headed up by Helen Townsend – now joins over 6,000 companies from around the world to be ‘redefining business-as-usual’ to place an emphasis on people and protecting the planet, as well as profit.

Through the B Corp accreditation process, Sustained Fun was assessed on four key areas: governance, community, environment, and customers.

“When my co-founder, Anthea, and I conceived the idea for Sustained Fun, we asked ourselves the following: ‘What type of business are we going to be? What is important to us? How can we make sure we keep doing good as we grow? How can we be held to account? And how can we run a business making products when consumption is the biggest environmental problem?’,” said Helen.

“Establishing Sustained Fun in line with the external standards of B Corp helped us formalise the answers to these questions and balance purpose with profit.”

As such, Sustained Fun is a purpose-led company. The business was established two years ago with the goal to develop children’s toys, games, and activities that reduce rubbish, address climate anxiety in children and catalyse sustainable change in the toy industry.

Among its offering to date is EcoSplat, the team’s range of reusable water ‘balloons’. Each EcoSplat reusable water balloon replaces more than 3,000 single-use water balloons, a product sector that produces more than 3.2 billion pieces of rubbish each year.

“We want to operate at the highest ethical and environmental standards and be a force for good in the world,” added Helen. “The B Corp certification allows us to formally embed these values at the heart of Sustained Fun and we’re so pleased to be a part of a community of people who also believe that together we can transform the meaning of business-as-usual.”