Result
Discoverability first, then scale
2024 made the directory easier to find and maintain. 2026 rebuilt it again so the platform can support ORB’s next generation of digital services.
Case study
The Responsible Business Directory
A public membership directory rebuilt twice — first to make it discoverable and maintainable, then again to make it scalable and future-ready.
About the project
The public directory for businesses that have earned ORB membership
The Responsible Business Directory is the public face of the Organisation for Responsible Businesses (ORB). It showcases businesses that have completed ORB’s membership process and demonstrated a genuine commitment to responsible practice. This case study covers the third generation of the platform: an original directory that served members for around fifteen years, a 2024 CodeIgniter 4 rebuild focused on SEO and maintainability, and the current Next.js rebuild launched in 2026.
Client
Organisation for Responsible Businesses
Focus
Public membership directory
Built with
Next.js
Scope
Multi-phase platform rebuild
The challenge
A fifteen-year-old directory that still worked — but could no longer grow with ORB
The original directory had been in service since around 2009. It was functional, but outdated techniques made search engine visibility difficult and ongoing development increasingly hard. In 2024 we rebuilt it in CodeIgniter 4 to modernise the codebase and improve discoverability. By 2026, ORB’s wider digital platform had moved on again. The brief was not another cosmetic redesign — it was to create a foundation that could support ORB’s future services while giving members and visitors a faster, clearer experience.
Our approach
Keep the information architecture that worked, rebuild the platform underneath it
We rebuilt the directory as a modern Next.js application, retaining the successful structure introduced in the CodeIgniter version while modernising the experience and the underlying stack. The new platform improves search and category navigation, tightens information hierarchy and typography, renders pages faster, and strengthens SEO with cleaner semantic HTML. It also sits on a simpler self-managed cloud deployment with Cloudflare in front and privacy-friendly Plausible analytics — forming part of a wider ORB ecosystem rather than a one-off site.
Platform evolution
Three generations of the Responsible Business Directory
Each rebuild solved a different challenge.
2009–2024
2024–2026
2026
The results
A modern directory experience — and a platform ORB can keep building on
The rebuilt directory gives visitors a clearer way to find responsible businesses, while giving ORB a maintainable codebase and deployment workflow designed to grow alongside the rest of their digital platform.
Result
Clearer search and navigation
Improved category browsing, search, and information hierarchy help visitors reach the businesses they are looking for with less friction.
Result
Built for an ongoing partnership
This was never a one-off website. It shows long-term ownership of a client platform — rebuilding when the architecture needed to catch up with the organisation around it.