News Release: Growing Opportunity
28 March 2007
BUSINESS + SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS = SOLUTIONS TO INSOLUBLE PROBLEMS
New study demonstrates potential for next-generation partnerships to positively impact socio-economic and environmental challenges.
A new breed of entrepreneurs is making progress in solving social and environmental challenges that many have been struggling with for decades. Growing Opportunity: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Insoluble Problems, a report launched today by SustainAbility, Ltd. at the 2007 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, explores how business partnerships with these ‘social entrepreneurs’ offer benefits to both companies and communities.
Through a quantitative survey of 100 social entrepreneurs around the world, SustainAbility learned about their challenges as well as their perspectives on the opportunities - and barriers to progress. The report provides specific examples of entrepreneurial approaches to intractable problems with a particular emphasis on the health care and energy sectors. The report also makes recommendations for ensuring the field of social entrepreneurship continues to grow and achieve a disproportionate impact on global challenges.
The survey shows that entrepreneurs face a variety of limitations, but access to capital was cited by 72% of respondents as a primary challenge. Promotion and marketing of organizations and programs was the second most frequently cited issue (41%). In addition, many respondents noted the issue of developing their organizations and balancing their need for talented professionals who also were passionate about the mission and entrepreneurship.
Overwhelmingly, the social entrepreneurs surveyed were interested in working together with business. In an effort to categorize business’ approach, SustainAbility describes three phases: early engagement often driven by compliance with regulatory requirements (Mindset 1.0), a shift in focus to corporate citizenship, based on transparency and accountability (Mindset 2.0), and – the emerging trend – increased emphasis on linking business growth and profitability to sustainability outcomes (Mindset 3.0).
Within the Mindset 3.0 framework, Paul Achleitner, Allianz’s CFO, notes that “Social entrepreneurs are one potential wellspring of insight and inspiration. Individuals from Bonn to Bangalore are seizing the chance to turn challenge into opportunity, in the process pioneering new markets. Microfinance, as an example, is now a $9 billion market that is increasingly empowering citizens to realize their full potential in society. Our hope is that collaborating with creative thinkers will help our people realize their full potential – and to better serve the needs of present and future customers.”
Chris Elias, MD, PhD, President of PATH, speaking at The Skoll World Forum, commented that “Combating socio-economic problems across the world is easier for a more nimble organization that can gain access to markets that a more established corporation may not be welcome to enter. However, to increase our programs’ scope and scale requires skill sets and finances that many entrepreneurs don’t have, but businesses do. At PATH we count on government, foundation, corporate and individual donations and partnerships to make a greater impact.”
PATH is an international, not-for-profit that specialises in global health. They identify critical gaps in healthcare systems, then establish partnerships and leverage technology to develop resilient and enduring solutions. Examples include the adaptation of food industry technologies to develop a means of telling health workers whether the polio vaccine they plan to use has expired on its journey from Europe to Africa.
“Social entrepreneurs question the ways things have ‘always been done’. By reconsidering how market needs are best met and who the consumers are—and might be, and by being transparent and accountable while rebooting the process of value creation, these people are set to have a profound impact on the world’s most complex societal and environmental challenges. Their impact may be limited by their current scale, but could be limitless with the right business partners. We see this as the next wave of change,” noted John Elkington, Founder and Chief Entrepreneur of SustainAbility, Ltd.
Research and understanding of business and social entrepreneur partnerships has just begun. During the next two years, SustainAbility, Ltd., with support from the Skoll Foundation, will further explore best practices for such collaborations, with continued feedback and debate from the relevant parties and sectors.
Growing Opportunity: Entrepreneurial Solutions to Insoluble Problems is available at www.sustainability.com/growing-opportunity
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NOTES TO EDITORS:
SustainAbility Media Co-ordinator, London:
Julia Lalla-Maharajh, T: 020 7401 2156 / 07876 654 243 julia@societymedia.co.uk
SustainAbility Media Co-ordinator, Washington DC:
Samantha Lasky, T: +(1) 202 249 0235 slasky@sjlgroup.com
Founded 20 years ago in March 1987, SustainAbility is a strategy consultancy and independent think-tank specializing in the business risks and market opportunities of corporate responsibility and sustainable development.
Growing Opportunity will be launched at a panel debate on Wednesday 28th March at the Skoll World Forum (see below) on “Partnering with Business” – featuring Sophia Tickell, Chair SustainAbility; Maggie Brenneke, Director SustainAbility; Blaise Judja-Sato, Founder, Village Reach; Chris Strutt, VP European and Govt Affairs, GlaxoSmithKline; John Schaetzl, Health Care Analyst, GE Asset Management; Hannah Kettler, PhD Economist, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Christopher J Elias, MD, MPH, President PATH.
The 4th Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship will take place at Oxford University on 27th – 29th March, with hundreds of social entrepreneurs convening at the Said Business School. The theme of this year’s Forum is social innovation. For media accreditation to the conference, please email dominic@societymedia.co.uk
The Skoll Foundation’s mission is to advance systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs are proven leaders whose approaches and solutions to social problems are helping to better the lives and circumstances of countless underserved or disadvantaged individuals.
