Editorial: The Age of Social Enterprise
Design by the creative-coop
The business model that has served us since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution is now defunct. That model only worked for as long as man had unlimited access to resources. To cope with our growing population and the impact of climate change we need to re-invent how we do business.
Becoming a Social Enterprise (SE) is no longer just a matter of choice; companies that do not embrace social and environmental issues will ultimately struggle to survive, especially as we are in the early stages of a recession that could potentially become one of the deepest in modern history.
Social enterprise start-ups abound, coming in all shapes and sizes. Though technically an SE may be defined as a CIC (Community Interested Company), Fair Trade, NGO or Non-Profit organization, the boundaries between traditional SEs and the commercial sector are becoming blurred. Indeed, arguably a number of commercial companies are equally, if not more effective, at equipping society to make a difference in relation to issues such as climate change, pollution, poverty and species extinction. Such companies tend to be fast-growth start-ups launched in the past decade by young entrepreneurs whose vision of success is based on how much impact they can have on the market place rather than how many zeros they can add to their profit margin.
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