Social enterprise: a new business model for Europe

[rooster59]

Social enterprise: a new business model for Europe

This week Business Planet looks at the concept of social enterprise – sustainable, innovative entrepreneurial answers to society’s challenges.

It’s fast becoming a real new business model in Europe today.

Loïc Van Cutsem is the General Manager of Oksigen, a company that believes society’s most pressing issues need to be tackled using an entrepreneurial approach that simultaneously creates social and economic value.

“Social entrepreneurship is a movement that is growing around the world,” says Loïc. “In Europe, it represents roughly five percent of the working population. But beyond that, and what is more interesting, is that the phenomenon is causing traditional enterprises to rethink the way they do business.”

Mushrooms from coffee

PermaFungi based in Brussels, is a good example of what we are talking about.

They grow mushrooms using using coffee grounds as a fertilizer. A cyclists collects around one-and-a-half tons of used coffee from restaurants every month.

The company produces around three to four hundred kilos of fresh organic mushrooms, which are then sold in markets. They also make kits for growing mushrooms at home.

Once production is complete, the coffee grounds are again re-used as a fertilizer, this time by farmers.

Another interesting aspect of the project is that it creates local jobs for the low-skilled staff, who might otherwise have difficulty finding a job.

“The project has given me a sense of responsibility, a lot of confidence in myself,” says PermaFungi worker William Berger. “Now I am able to approach people with confidence.”

Launched eighteen months ago, the company now employs six people, and plans to diversify its product range.

Martin Germueau is a co-founder of the company:

“From the mycelium, which is the basis of the fungus, we can produce insulation panels for example. And with the coffee grounds, there are also different possibilities such as making soap.”

So there are many opportunities, but the main idea is to come up with a dynamic new entrepreneurial model.

“Our goal is not to become a huge mushroom producer,” says Martin. “But rather to help other social entrepreneurs to start their own mushroom production in different locations.
In Brussels, around 5,000 tons of used coffee grounds are produced every year, giving us the potential to grow a thousand tons of local mushrooms.”

Social enterprise has particular potential in terms of the circular economy, or recycling. Collective financing is also a good way to raise funds for such projects.

PermaFungi raised over 10,000 by way of crowdfunding. So does that mean that the crowdfunding system is particularly suitable for social enterprise?

“Yes I think it does,” Loïc Van Cutsem. “There’s an underlying trend. More and more people want to give meaning to their money and their work, and crowdfunding is an adequate response since it allows them to directly support these social enterprises.”

Loïc Van Cutsem says that social enterprise is not only possible but that there are an increasing resources available throughout Europe to help and support projects.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-12-12

[SgtRock]

The UK is full of Social Enterprise Business.

Its a great way to get Government funding for doing next to nothing.

[NeverSure]

Wow. They've created six low skilled jobs for people who otherwise might have difficulty finding a job. Six. That's international news for sure if you're a feel-good idiot.

I know people without skills who've gone to work for Google with great pay and benefits and learned on the job. That's simply because the tech explosion has outstripped the supply of skilled people. There's a ton of opportunity for advancement over time, also. Google, coming out of nowhere, has 24,000 employees and treats them very well.

Cheers.

[RickBradford]

"Social" is a word you place before a noun to reverse its meaning.

Thus:

Social enterprise => no enterprise

Social justice => no justice

Social freedom => no freedom

Social equality => no equality

[Credo]

Wow. They've created six low skilled jobs for people who otherwise might have difficulty finding a job. Six. That's international news for sure if you're a feel-good idiot.

I know people without skills who've gone to work for Google with great pay and benefits and learned on the job. That's simply because the tech explosion has outstripped the supply of skilled people. There's a ton of opportunity for advancement over time, also. Google, coming out of nowhere, has 24,000 employees and treats them very well.

Cheers.

Not exactly true. I knew a guy who was growing and selling some mushrooms that were worth a lot of money. Unfortunately, he got into a lot of trouble for it.

[ozyjon]

I'm social

[arminbkk]

This reads like the concept of social workplaces, which have been around for decades already.

So you have a business model that employs re-use of used materials/resources and

you get low-skilled workers employed, at low salaries still, of course, who still have to live

in an environment where cost of living keeps increasing.

Those workers, finally getting a job, are then happy as they get a sense of self-worth and self-confidence.

Later of course they will want higher income, as most people do (human nature - better life means more comfort, more stuff),

but nobody is going to pay a high salary for picking up bags of used coffee grounds, so that feeling of self-worth is replaced

by a feeling of discontent. Therefore social inequality and wealth gaps remain and the workers' situation

has only slightly improved, as opposed to that of the employer.

[Credo]

I think it is easy to dismiss stuff like this, but there will be someone who finds a better, easier way of growing the mushrooms, or who through his contacts takes his situation to a new level.

It's not always whether the idea is a money maker, it is about people willing to put in some work, start at the bottom and work there way up to the ladder of success, if that's what they want to do.

I don't think anyone got rich selling newspapers door to door, but it was the start, the work ethic and the willingness to start somewhere and set some goals that makes the difference.

Personally, I'd rather sit around watching mushrooms grow than standing in the welfare line waiting for my next handout.

[Dumbastheycome]

The example of an enterprise is mushrooms. Automatically the human mushroom ( Fed well on <deleted> and kept in the dark) response is to deride . Makeup your minds ! If communism/socialism is a negative why is corporate domination a better deal? Both rob you of choice.

Commercial free enterprise with legal social protection to negate monopololistic control should be the balance.

Perhaps this is an indicator of that balance occurring.

Viva la revolution !