ROUGE Collective Becomes B Corp Certified
We're officially B Corp certified, and we are the first animation studio in Asia to earn it.
It's a milestone we're proud of, but the journey here taught us as much as the certification itself.
Why we pursued this
We make animations for organizations trying to make the world slightly better. Cartoon series about protecting Bornean elephants. Interactive museum exhibits celebrating Balinese culture. Films about political upheaval in Thailand. Work where "impact" gets mentioned often.
But what does impact actually mean? How do you measure whether your work creates genuine change, or just sounds good on paper?
That question kept coming up. B Corp offered a framework, a certification that requires you to prove you're considering your impact on workers, community, and environment. It forces you to examine: Who are we buying from? How are we protecting our makers? Where are our blind spots?
100+ hours of assessment later, we got certified. The process revealed gaps we hadn't noticed and pushed us to implement practices we'd been postponing.
What we learned along the way
Thomas puts it simply: "It's the impact equivalent of ready-to-wear fashion: it's accessible and relatively cheap and doesn't fall on your hips just right but it's good enough for people who can't afford a tailor-made solution."
The reality is that any measurement system has limitations. When you turn impact into a score, there's always tension between genuine improvement and optimizing for points. We're aware of that trade-off.
But without some framework, we were making decisions based purely on gut feeling. Now we have structure, accountability, and a clearer view of where we need to improve.
For Vann, the value is practical:"I personally have felt that doing good needs no certification. We don't do good to earn acknowledgement or accolades. But I do acknowledge the structure the B Corp standards enforce, and we can hold ourselves accountable with a shared framework to measure and make these efforts visible."
What we're building
The numbers from 2024:
90% of our revenue came from purpose-driven projects
20% of our spending went to suppliers from underrepresented groups
89% of our makers are based in Southeast Asia (59% Malaysia, 20% Singapore, 10% Indonesia)
Beyond the metrics, we're investing in the regional creative ecosystem:
We run accountability groups where creators share work-in-progress and push each other forward. We hold internal upskilling workshops because skill development shouldn't only happen when clients are paying for it.
Vann's been developing original Southeast Asian stories. Not because it's immediately profitable, but because understanding how independent animation works here means living it ourselves. What we learn feeds back into how we support other voices in the region.
What B Corp certification means to us
Is B Corp perfect? No. Any system that reduces complexity to numbers will have limitations. But it's the most rigorous framework we've found, and going through the process made us better operators.
Thomas reflects: "It was genuinely hard to obtain. We spent over 100 hours making changes to how we operate. There's real intention behind wanting to use business as a force for good. I'm aware of no better alternative, so despite the imperfections, it's a meaningful step forward."
A principle isn't a principle until it costs you something. This one cost us time, investment, and comfortable assumptions about how we were operating.
What's next
B Corp is our baseline, not our finish line. We'll continue making animations that move people, supporting creators in Southeast Asia, and building systems that work for everyone involved.
We're committed to maintaining this level of accountability. Questioning our impact, improving where we fall short, and staying honest about the journey.
Southeast Asia deserves world-class storytelling and studios that sustain their people while creating it. That's what we're building.
