US State Department Celebrates Collaboration
By Andrew O’Brien, Special Representative, Global Partnerships The word “partnership” seems to be everywhere these days — and the U.S. Department of State is proud to be at the center of it. While public-private partnerships (P3s) have been around for years, they are increasingly becoming a primary way to achieve our objectives in diplomacy and […]
Business Impacts – Action Where It Matters
The UN’s Global Goals herald a new era where companies are being asked to play their part in solving some big global challenges. They require more action; collaboration; scaled impact; faster change. Business now has to step up. But where should companies focus their efforts? Which impacts matter most for development? In today’s fast-changing world, […]
Helping Families Identify and Overcome Poverty
At Fundación Paraguaya, we work with businesses to improve the standard of living of their employees. Many other organisations focus on this, but our approach as to how and why we are doing it is quite different. Read on, meet the Poverty Stoplight for Business and learn how it can leverage on collective intervention and […]
Design Thinking and Solar Power for BOP Markets
In Africa, two-thirds of the population is without access to electricity. To fuel economic growth and empower people to become more productive with their lives, governments, business, and the nonprofit sector have been working on providing people across the continent with solar energy. While progress has been made, many obstacles and barriers remain. Besides the […]
New Survey Launched on Inclusive Business Policy
How can governments more effectively support inclusive businesses? Give us your input. The G20 Global Platform on Inclusive Business (GPIB) invites you to participate in the GPIB Inclusive Business Survey. The survey is open to any company that is working with people living at the base of the pyramid (BOP) – companies implementing an “inclusive […]
Building Smallholder Resliance to Drought in Ethiopia
“There will always be a solution as long as we have food, but if a person has nothing to eat, there is no solution for any problem.” Collective savings and access to loans have helped a group of women in Ethiopia cope longer with the ongoing drought, but now resources are running out. The El […]
Unlocking Solutions with Inclusive Business Innovations
Over 300 representatives of companies, social enterprises, and governments Asia-wide will gather next week at ADB for the 2nd Inclusive Business Forum for Asia. The forum, organized by ADB and 8 development partners, is one of the year’s most significant regional events on inclusive business in Asia. ADB defines inclusive business as a private sector […]
iDE: Reaching 20 Million More People
Since 1983 iDE has leveraged the power of business to help rural entrepreneurs work their way out of poverty. From our first social enterprise in Somalia to our more recent businesses from Vietnam to Latin America, we have helped more than 23 million people gain access to a technology or service. We strive for tangible, […]
Why Renewable Energy Matters: What Your Business Can Do
Around a quarter of all carbon emissions come from electricity generation, and almost half of that is used by businesses. Following COP21 in Paris, where 195 countries agreed to keep global mean temperature rise 2 degrees below pre industrialised levels, the call for businesses to invest in renewable energy has never been so strong. Experts […]
Narrowing the Divide between the Rich and Poor
Upon arrival into Panama City, one is struck by the new skyscrapers, architectural wonders and causeways in celebration of the prosperous trade traffic navigating the Canal, reporting fiscal revenues of $2.61 billion in 2015. Panama is booming, with an average economic growth of 9 percent in the past five years, the highest in Latin America. […]
Introducing a New Database on Inclusive Business
If you search Google for ‘inclusive business’ you get 46.5 million results in under a second. But it would take you years to get through them. And if I search for inclusive business solar, or inclusive business models, or inclusive business Malawi, you find some good stuff and some not. So what would you do […]
The Ripple Effect of Vision Care on the SDGs
When the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) were formally adopted last year, many in the sustainability community saw this as a moment of triumph. The seventeen goals are not only ambitious but also universal, and the private sector worked hand in hand with government and academics in their development. Yet sceptics have wondered whether the […]
Sustainable Living: Engaging with Social Entrepreneurs
By Jeremy Basset, Head of Unilever Foundry Through the Unilever Foundry, social impact businesses can engage with Unilever to access mentorship, explore partnership opportunities and receive funding. In the same way that we help entrepreneurs in the digital marketing space go from start-up to scale-up, we’re now looking to bring those capabilities to the forefront […]
Transcending Boundaries to End Hunger
Ending hunger is in everyone’s interest. Succeeding in this Goal #2 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals means not only ending the misery and debilitation of the starving and malnourished, but also stemming the spread and persistence of disease, and enabling at least 2 billion people, if better nourished, to be more productive for themselves […]
Supporting Cocoa Smallholders to Combat Climate Change
Climate change poses a multitude of risks to business. From the effects on agricultural commodity production, to the cost of rising fuel taxes, to human health threats caused by extreme weather events. As a result, businesses are increasingly building a climate change agenda into their own risk management strategies. But how can a company such […]
Living Well within Planetary Boundaries
By far the biggest boundary we have to transcend today is our compulsion to keep on transcending boundaries! Over the last 40 years, I’ve collected any number of definitions of sustainable development. One of my favourites is this: ‘To live on Planet Earth as if we were planning to live there forever.’ Right now, we’re […]
Corporate Impact Venturing at the BOP
The base of the global economic pyramid (BoP) comprises 4 billion people and represents a $5 trillion USD market opportunity. Both corporates and entrepreneurs recognize this large and growing opportunity. Both struggle to realize it. Corporate Impact Venturing allows them to complement each other’s weaknesses and reinforce their strengths. Together, they can reach the scale […]
Goodbye Cotton, Hello Hemp?
Cotton. You love it, I love it, but Mother Nature freakin’ hates it. About 20 million tons of cotton are produced each and every year, making it far and away the world’s most profitable non-food crop. But it’s resource intensive in a big way. It takes about 20,000 liters of water to produce just one […]
What Happened at COP21: 10 Things Your Business Can Do
In December, world leaders agreed to tackle climate change – what should your business do next? At a top level the signal is clear. The world is taking climate change seriously and every business needs to be part of the solution. In December 195 countries were present at the Conference of the Parties in Paris. […]
Understanding and Tracking Social Impacts of Business
2015 was a year of progress. We have a long way to go to understand, track and strengthen the social impact of business. But we are beginning to ask the right questions and shape better tools. In case you missed them, these are my top highlights of 2015 for building the impact measurement space for […]