Changing business

Could social enterprises offer an alternative to mainstream business in the future? This section presents a range of perspectives on the topic of what might be possible.

We kick off this first group of interviews with Sophi Tranchell, who wants us to stop assuming that it is ‘natural’ that businesses exist to maximise private profit and who reminds us that there are many other ways of doing business that can benefit a broader range of people.

In the next piece, Karin Christiansen highlights how the choice to do business differently can be part of a wider political agenda to promote democracy and mutual self-help.

Roger Spear offers words of caution over the danger of talking up social enterprise as an alternative to both mainstream business and public services without a clear idea of what it can and can't achieve in the current political and economic environment.

Vivian Woodell suggests that people interested in using business to change the world need to be aware of lessons from the history of co-operation but also to engage with what co-operation means in the twenty-first century. They need to be shown what's possible by pioneering and innovative new social enterprises.

Lucy Findlay explains why it's important to define what a social enterprise is and how it is different from mainstream business, in order to help promote the model to a wider audience.

Fergus Lyon also picks up the idea of definition, suggesting that without clarity over what social enterprise means, approaches to social enterprise are coming at the idea of changing business from two different directions at once: one being standardisation as a form of protection against mission drift away from social purposes, the other being the greater variety of approaches to providing all types of value through all existing forms of organisation.

“The future will be as good or bad as we let it be. We as citizenshave to participate,” insists Sophi Tranchell, managing director at pioneering Fairtrade chocolate company Divine. “People have fought hard for political rights but responsible participation is even more than that, it's about where you buy goods and services and where you work.”