Social enterprise offers an answer to the Occupy movement
The article that I will be sharing about, is mainly to discuss about two things.
Firstly, the article mentioned about a social enterprise Boxed Water, where the company sells water that are better for the planet. So how exactly does Boxed Water help the planet? Boxed Water uses cartons that are made from 76 percent recycled material, and ‘Boxed Water’ gives 10 percent of their profits to reforestation and 10 percent to cleaning the world’s water supply. (Gourarie, 2012, Para.1)
In my opinion, I feel that Boxed Water is an example of a good social enterprise that can help the environment in the long run. While the model might seem to be fairly simple, donating 20% of their profits and to use recyclable materials, I feel that this social enterprise is able to help save the environment. Even though Boxed Water might not be able to solve all environmental problem by itself, I feel that it provides a good example to other business, that it is easy to do their part in helping the environment.
Secondly, I will be talking about the Benefit Corporation Status, or B Corp, that the article mentioned. B Corp is a legal status for organization in several states at America. While there are quite a number of social enterprises in Singapore, I feel that there is a need to establish a legal status for social enterprises, as to clarify an organization's status. By having a proper legal status for social enterprises, it allows social enterprise to be more clear in their operations and when they are dealing with legal frameworks. It will also be easier for them to acquire grants or tax exemptions.
Another reason for doing so, is to ensure that business wont be abusing the term "social enterprise" I feel that in order for an organization to be called a social enterprise, it must be driven by it's mission and social impact, rather than profit-maximization. As social enterprise is gaining more awareness, the public are more willing to patronize social enterprises, as they feel that it will help the society. However, some companies abusing this fact, by claiming themselves to be social enterprises, thus gaining competitive advantages over their competitors.
In my opinion, if Singapore were to have a legal status for social enterprises,they should be required to provide a "social report card" as mentioned in the article. It will allow shareholders and consumers to able to better view the social impact of the organization, and ensure that the term social enterprise is not being misuse.
Gourarie, Chavi. (2012, April, 5) Social Enterprise offers an answer to the Occupy Movement. Retrieved 6th November 2012 from: http://www.thecorsaironline.com/lifestyle/2012/04/05/social-enterprise-may-offer-an-answer-to-the-occupy-movement-2/
Sup Nicholas,
ReplyDeleteDefinitely agree on your views. Some businesses started off as a social enterprise and then they divert their business motive and changed into a commercial business yet leveraging on their past social enterprise status to garner support.
We definitely should need such a check put in place to prevent such misleading business to abuse the marketing system.
Although in Singapore, there is a association called Social Enterprise Association(SEA) who do these checks but they are legally binding and are done privately; not through the government.
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