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Invest Stockholm och Norrsken Foundation vill skapa världens bästa plats för sociala entreprenörer och investerare

Invest Stockholm ingår partnerskap med Norrsken Foundation för att stötta entreprenörer och innovatörer som vill lösa samhällets största utmaningar. Världens ledande klimatforskare varnar för att vi bara har 12 år på oss att begränsa de negativa effekterna av klimatförändringarna och förhindra att hundratals miljoner människor drabbas av fattigdom. Därför har Stockholms stad beslutat att fokusera ännu mer på hållbara lösningar och klimatsmart teknik.

Under det senaste decenniet har Stockholm blivit världskänt som ”enhörningsfabriken”, med fler företag i miljarddollarklassen per capita än någon annan plats, näst efter Silicon Valley. Tack vare den starka entreprenörsanda som kännetecknar staden har Stockholm förutsättningarna för att kunna hitta hållbara lösningar på de allra mest akuta världsproblemen.

– Stockholm siktar mot att bli en enhörningsfabrik även för sociala entreprenörer, som skapar innovationer som bidrar till miljön och samhället på ett positivt sätt. Det är ett mål som vi har gemensamt med Norrsken Foundation, och därför ser vi fram emot att kunna stötta de drygt 300 sociala entreprenörerna hos Norrsken som jobbar med att lösa viktiga problem åt kommande generationer, säger Erik Krüger, tillförordnad vd för Invest Stockholm.

– Stockholm har blivit ett av världens främsta drivhus för så kallade enhörningsföretag, delvis tack vare stödet från Invest Stockholm och det fantastiska arbete de utför. Vi är oerhört stolta över att tillsammans med staden skapa lika lysande förutsättningar för sociala techentreprenörer – företag som löser samhälls- och miljöproblem med hjälp av teknik och entreprenörskap, säger Erik Engellau-Nilsson, vd för Norrsken Foundation.

Genom sitt partnerskap strävar Invest Stockholm och Norrsken Foundation efter att göra Stockholm till världens bästa plats för sociala entreprenörer och investerare.

För mer information om partnerskapet, kontakta:
Ariane Pousette, Project Manager Start-ups, Invest Stockholm, ariane.pousette@stockholm.se
Thom Feeney, General Manager, Norrsken House Stockholm, thom@norrskenfoundation.org

Om Norrsken Foundation
Norrsken Foundation är en svensk ideell organisation som grundades 2016 med syftet att lösa några av världens mest akuta utmaningar. Stiftelsen driver den prisbelönta teknikhubben Norrsken House, en social riskkapitalfond på 30 miljoner euro för investeringar i framstående entreprenörer som löser världens största utmaningar, samt två egna startupinitiativ: Klarity och 29k. Stiftelsen grundades av Niklas Adalberth, en av medgrundarna till betaltjänstföretaget Klarna.
www.norrskenfoundation.org

Källan: http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/investstockholm/pressreleases/invest-stockholm-och-norrsken-foundation-vill-skapa-vaerldens-baesta-plats-foer-sociala-entreprenoerer-och-investerare-2827737

The Hidden Revolution – new initiative in the UK to map social enterprises

The Hidden Revolution, supported by Nationwide and Co-op Group, presents a fresh analysis of the size and scale of the social enterprise sector. According to independent analysis, the social enterprise sector makes a £60bn contribution to UK GDP, compared to £24bn in previous research. The Hidden Revolution also brings together key statistics which show that social enterprises are more competitive than traditional firms, confirmed that social enterprises are the Future of Business.

For the first time, research has considered the impact of 5,000 larger social enterprises, as well as small and medium-sized social enterprises. Taken together with other data, this means that there are around 100,000 social enterprises, contributing £60bn to the UK economy and employing 2m people.

In total, social enterprises are worth around 3% of UK GDP – three times larger than the agricultural sector – and 5% of all UK employment, employing as many people the entire creative industry sector.

Social Enterprise UK, the Co-op Group and Nationwide Building Society are calling on the government to take greater notice of the growing importance of the sector and back its growth through a comprehensive package of measures. This would build on the Civil Society Strategy published last month and the Industrial Strategy published by government last year. Measures could include:

  • Using public procurement policy to support social enterprise through strengthening the Social Value Act
  • Amending company law so that businesses have to give more regard to their social and environmental responsibilities
  • Consider how the tax system can incentivise businesses which have a social as well as an economic impact on society
  • Embedding social enterprise in the school curriculum so that young people are aware of the option of starting or working for a social enterprise

Without backing social enterprises, the country will struggle to remain competitive leaving communities up and down the country more vulnerable.

Download here

Should you “internationalise” your social enterprise?

The pioneer Post recently published an interesting article on the internationalisation of social enterprises. Here is a short excerpt and lin to the full article:

Social entrepreneurs are great at tackling locally-rooted problems – but they may be overlooking opportunities to grow and develop if they’re not considering overseas markets. Research suggests much more support is needed to help them get there.

In 2015 Samuel Kalika was looking to set up a creative project in Portugal. But his idea “completely tilted”, he says, when he arrived and saw the extent of poor-quality housing in the country, contributing to high mortality rates in winter. Today, he’s the founder and director of Critical Concrete, a company that researches and educates on sustainable architecture and design.

Kalika, who has also lived in Germany and China alongside his native France and has hosted numerous entrepreneurs from overseas at Critical Concrete, is perhaps not the typical business founder. But less nomadic entrepreneurs could also benefit from looking beyond national borders.

“If you’re a farmer in Italy, you might think: why do I need to connect with others abroad?” Ivelina Fedulova, senior project officer at Eurochambres, told Pioneers Post on the sidelines of Euclid Network’s Gathering to Grow event last week. “But maybe people in Portugal are doing something similar, in a completely different way that’s more efficient.”

Gathering to Grow

Eurochambres runs the support office for the European Commission-funded Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme, which enables new or aspiring entrepreneurs to spend one to six months working alongside more experienced counterparts in another country. Since 2009, some 6,000 exchanges have taken place or are about to start, including nearly 400 participants working primarily in the fields of social economy, responsible entrepreneurship or corporate social responsibility (plus many more working primarily in other sectors such as food, who may also be social businesses).

Entrepreneurs sign up for different reasons, according to Fedulova. In some countries – like her native Bulgaria – the concept of social enterprise is “completely foreign”, she says, making it much easier to develop a business where one’s field (or, say, consumer appetite for ethical products), is more established. On the other hand, says Fedulova, an innovator might be developing “a very specific concept” – something unique that they’d be reluctant to share widely close to home. Discussing and testing ideas in overseas markets means less risk of sparking direct competition.

Please continue to the Pioneer Post.

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Reconfiguring the social and solidarity economy in a Danish/ Nordic welfare context

When looking at definitions and understandings of the social and solidarity economy, one issue stands out as particularly significant. The issue of how it links to organizational (micro and meso level dimensions) and societal specificities. Whereas social enterprise also in the EMES ideal-typical version (Borzaga & Defourny, 2001) is only indirectly linked to a Polanyian framework (Gardin, 2006), the notion of solidarity economy can hardly be understood at an elaborate level without reference to the Polanyian framework of plurality. Accordingly, in this paper, researchers will first highlight the difference between adopting a social economy and a solidarity economy approach to social enterprise and social entrepreneurship. Within the framework of a social economy perspective, social enterprise is first defined through a set of organizational criteria leaving the relation to the broader and deeper issues of economy and democracy open. As a contrast to this, solidarity economy links the organizational dimension of a particular social enterprise to the broader political and economic framework of the particular society (Laville, 2010: 230 ff.).

Secondly, it will be presented and discussed two specific social enterprises that both reflect the diversity of social enterprise and social entrepreneurial initiatives in a Danish welfare context and provide important insights for developing theories on solidarity economy. The two initiatives differ in shape, space/geography and organizational structure but are important examples of pluralism in a Danish welfare context (Andersen, 2015). Roskilde Festival and Skovgård Hotel share a number of features that place them as interesting agents of solidarity economy. They both display a differentiated activity portfolio of business; public and civil character and they display a differentiated profile of reciprocity, redistribution and democracy that place them as influential in local, regional and national/international contexts.

Finally, in the concluding section, it is discussed how an analysis based upon solidarity economy differ from one based solely upon a social economy perspective, and secondly some future perspectives for the continued evolution of the Danish/Scandinavian welfare model.

To read the full paper, please download the pdf:

https://emes.net/publications/members-publications/reconfiguring-the-social-and-solidarity-economy-in-a-danish-nordic-welfare-context/

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Impact investing for climate change

As maintained in a report recently issued by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD, 2017], policies on climate changes are key for development and growth, as are structural reforms and environmental investments. The combination of these three elements is crucial to promote inclusive and sustainable growth, contributing to the increase in market competition and fostering access to employment and the improvement in people’s skills.

Therefore, along with policymakers, the finance sector can give – and is giving – a considerable contribution. Finance that protects the environment and supports the social fabric could necessarily become the finance of the future and, maybe, also of the present. In the wake of the Paris Agreement, the concern for climate changes has become a driver, new “green” financial products have started to be used and climate bonds continued to be in high demand. Finally, pension funds from all over the world are demonstrating that they consider sustainable investments as critical factors for long-term investments and are increasingly asking for their investment to be supplemented with environmental, social and governance (ESG) elements. Evidence of this is the first report on ethical and sustainable finance in Europe, which has estimated that this sector accounts for a total of Euro 715 billion worth of assets, close to 5% of the EU gross domestic product.

However, even though finance plays a key role in addressing climate changes, most players involved are less than transparent in reporting the impact of their investments. This is the reason why this document focuses on impact finance, which includes investing in businesses, organizations and funds that operate with the goal of achieving a measurable, positive social impact alongside and a financial return [Social Impact Investing Task Force, 2015]. Impact investing stands out for the investor’s express intention to generate social and/or environmental impacts; moreover, the investor must be motivated by an expected financial return. The flexibility of the expected rate of return may come below the average market level or in line with it. Therefore, very briefly, we are speaking of external investors that invest capital, which is remunerated based of the measurement of the generated impact.

Impact finance is becoming more and more important in Europe, as stated in the recent interim report published in July 2017 by the European High Level Expert Group on sustainable finance, during the international “One Planet Summit” on 12 December. In Italy, the interest in this topic is also growing: participation in the G8 Social Impact Investment Force (2014) and the creation of the Social Impact Agenda (2016) are two big steps in this direction. Moreover, institutional investors and banks are paying constant attention to this topic. As regards the climate change challenge, a lot still needs to be done in terms of impact investing tools and supporting metrics, both at a domestic and at a European level. The report gives an overview of the metrics and indicators used, along with some significant cases.

You can download the report here:

http://www.aiccon.it/en/pubblicazione/impact-investing-for-climate-change/

Financial tools for Social enterprises

FIT4SE – Financial Tools for Social Enterprise, co-financed by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) 2014-2020, is a project promoted by Legacoop Romagna, in consortium with AICCON and Demetra Formazione. The project is aimed at identifying the financial needs of social enterprises in an attempt to meet them at the local level (Romagna: provinces of Forlì-Cesena, Ravenna and Rimini). This is to be achieved by involving social cooperatives present in the territories in a training course that will develop starting from the results of the project research Work Package (WP1) carried out by AICCON.

This link leads to the project report on Financial Tools for Social Enterprises.