Based in Atlanta, Sunpath Solar is a clean-energy firm founded by Seth Gunning, a two-decade veteran of the Southeastern solar sector. Their team of NABCEP-certified experts provides residential, commercial and nonprofit solar solutions—but just as importantly, they build training programs, workforce pathways and financial bridges so that traditionally marginalized communities can access the environmental and economic uplift of solar power.

That kind of alignment between business model and mission is why it’s so meaningful that Sunpath has achieved B Corp Certification. By committing to measure and manage their impact, they’re not just talking about change, they’re architecting it. And it’s a big step: from offering clean energy services, to embedding accountability, equity and long-term inclusive outcomes into the very DNA of the company.

Nathan recently sat down with Seth to discuss his decision to certify, how Sunpath navigated the journey, and what’s next on their growth journey.

18 Months to Certification

Nathan: I still remember talking to you in early 2024. You worked with my MBA students at UGA, and then with our team to get you across the finish line, almost 18 months to the day after that first call. How does it feel to finally be certified, and to be the first Georgia based solar company to certify?

Seth: The process of getting B Corp certified has been both challenging and incredibly rewarding for Sunpath. The B Corp assessment and verification processes helped us to mature quickly and to do so with a crystal-clear focus on our broader purpose as an organization. Without a doubt, it’s an honor to be certified and to be recognized for the impactful work we’re doing in the community beyond the profitability of our company.

It’s especially humbling to be recognized as the first Solar Company in Georgia to achieve B Corp certification, because I know so many of our peers are mission-driven in their approach to their work in the solar industry. And, while we are celebrating internally for the recognition and milestone that Certification represents, we’re also using it as fuel to re-direct us to our purpose of doing solar in a way that does the highest social good for our customers, for the community, for our employees.

Why B Corp Certification?

Nathan: 18 months is a long time for a strategic initiative. What drove your decision to certify, and why did you feel like it was the right decision for Sunpath?

Seth: I’ve been in the renewable energy space in the Southeast now for over two decades. First working in policy and then in the renewable industry itself, and I’ve come to understand that for a whole host of reasons: Georgia is a very tough place to be in the rooftop solar business.

We have 100 different electric utilities in Georgia each with their own unique solar policy, making the landscape incredibly difficult for both consumers and well-meaning solar companies to navigate with certainty and clarity. For that reason, the solar market in our state has been a real boom-and-bust business over the past decade. That disparate policy landscape has made the state ripe for bad actors to move in and take advantage of consumers, and it’s caused even well-meaning solar companies to cling to specific and often fleeting programmatic changes to stay alive. It’s been very common here for companies to see their boats rise and then sink off the whims of one-off utility policy changes. Simply put; in the South, mission-creep kills solar companies.

“Rather than drafting off the winds of policy changes we knew out of the gate that our purposeful path, our Theory of Change, needed to be cemented in our identity.”

We started Sunpath not just to be a trusted, quality, and local shop for homeowners, businesses, and nonprofits to get reliable solar installations, but to also push the envelope of access and to expand who in our community is able to obtain benefits of the renewable energy economy. We trust that maintaining a clear focus on that mission will produce the returns we need to continue to grow our impact. In this roller-coaster of a marketplace we know that in order for us to stay focused on that work we have to be intentional about embedding the mission into our understanding of what success looks like, into how our roadmaps to achieving goals are drawn, and into the measurables we watch to ensure we remain on that path.

When we started the process of B Corp certification, our firm was very young, just a year old. Going through the assessment process helped us to define not just our internal employee policies but also how we strive to show up in our community impact, and to start encoding those measurables into the way we’re doing business.

The Certification Process

Nathan: Even the best companies are usually shocked by how hard it is to certify as a B Corp. What stood out to you during the process, and what improvements did you have to make to achieve certification?

Seth: I have to first say – as such a young company we would not have been able to achieve certification on the timeline that we did, without the support of Profitable Purpose Consulting. Having the expertise of your team, and I have to specifically shout out Nathan and Jenna both here, to help navigate and understand the nuanced questions in the assessment was invaluable.

BCorps has and uses a particular language for its worldview in the assessment that can be very different from how we talk about our work on a daily basis and having that translation team there to understand Sunpath, our mission and operations, our financials and our purpose, and to help translate that back into the assessments demands saved us months and made the verification portions of the certification process so much smoother than they otherwise would have been.

In terms of improvements, I think the process helped us begin to align our purpose driven work with our book-keeping practices.

What’s Next for 2026

Nathan: With this achievement in the rearview (well, at least for a couple of months), what’s next for Sunpath Solar in 2026?

Seth: The Solar industry is changing rapidly and the future is uncertain for lots of our peers in the industry. Tax Credits for solar are being eliminated, tariffs on solar products are being imposed, and grant funding for projects are being terminated but Sunpath is leaning into the strength of our community partnerships to build upon our work of providing access to no-cost solar energy systems and to continue to help train the next generation of solar workers to build this critical infrastructure in the community.

In 2026, we’re focused on building our programs to provide solar for churches, community centers, municipalities, and to homeowners at zero capital cost to our customers. Through partnerships with innovative financers we’re able to install solar infrastructure without our customers spending a dime, and then offer the clean electricity those systems produce for less than the cost of energy from utilities like Georgia Power; so systems are installed at no cost and in month one are generating cheaper energy than would otherwise be purchased from the grid.

With that pipeline of work we’re also hoping to re-launch a workforce training program with community partners to help train two co-horts of solar installation professionals just entering the workforce.

Profitable Purpose Consulting (PPC) is a full-service culture and social impact agency. A division of fellow B Corp karmadharma, PPC works with clients around the world to design and implement social impact strategies that positively impact their bottom line.