The 5 Cs of Business Model Innovation for Sustainability These are a few of the questions posed by SustainAbility’s latest think tank work, Model Behavior: 20 Business Model Innovations for Sustainability.
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Sustainability Strategy
Challenges, Performance and Accountability
Challenges, Performance and Accountability For the first time in this survey series, experts were asked not only for their views on which issues are most urgent for particular industry sectors, but also which sectors are most accountable for reducing their impact on, or providing solutions for, each issue. By comparing … Read More
Purpose Drives Profits And Confidence, According To Latest Study From Deloitte
Purpose Drives Profits And Confidence, According To Latest Study From Deloitte This article discusses how not only is having a sense of purpose a driving force for business success, but that focusing on purpose rather than just profits builds business confidence.
New Report: Can Social Enterprises Really Solve Poverty?
New Report: Can Social Enterprises Really Solve Poverty? This article addresses the problems of global poverty and the efforts social enterprises are making to fight it. Despite the growing number of such businesses, many are struggling to find an efficient impact strategy.The systematic nature of these hurdles need to be … Read More
The Quadruple Bottom Line
By Sue Funkhouser Last week I was catching up with Ari Durfel, Co-founder of Gather Restaurant and Back to the Earth Catering. I had last seen him and his partner, Eric Fenster, at a seminar I was conducting about building inspired workplaces. A little bit about them. Eric and Ari, … Read More
Becoming a B: What Is The Difference Between a B Corporation and a Benefit Corporation?
By Dirk Sampselle Although “B Corporation” and “benefit corporation” are terms commonly used interchangeably, the B Corporation name is not just an abbreviation for the benefit corporation legal entity. As a benefit corporation consultant, former member of the B Lab policy team, and frequent speaker in the social enterprise startup … Read More
The Benefit Corporation: An Economic Analysis with Recommendations to Courts, Boards, and Legislatures
“The Benefit Corporation: An Economic Analysis” was authored by B Revolution Founder Dirk Sampselle and Affiliate Attorney Kyle Westaway and was published in Emory Law Journal, a leading journal for legal scholarship. The article analyzes the benefit corporation legislation and provides recommendations to state legislatures, boards of directors, and courts of … Read More
Benefit Corporation White Paper: The Need and Rationale for the Benefit Corporation
This article was authored by B Revolution Founder Dirk Sampselle with other B Lab staff and volunteers in 2011 (Dirk served as a volunteer in B Lab’s policy team 2010-2011). Executive Summary There is significant interest in state legislatures and bar associations across the United States regarding legislation to introduce … Read More
Assessing Impact: A Guide to Third Party Standards for Benefit Corporations
“…in many ways the third-party standard is the heart of benefit corporation legislation, and for many observers, the most contentious and misunderstood provision”—Clark and Babson “How Benefit Corporations are Redefining the Purpose of Business Corporations”[1] Introduction: Benefit Corporation legislation carves out unique legal protection for enterprises that are concerned not … Read More
Shaping the Future: Solving Social Problems through Business Strategy
Pathways to Sustainable Value Creation in 2020 As companies look forward with an eye to 2020, there is a uniquely powerful opportunity to shape the evolving relationship between business and society. Doing so, however, requires taking an uncomfortable step that even today’s most intrepid strategic planners infrequently take: making predictions … Read More
Institutional entrepreneurship capabilities for interorganizational sustainable supply chain strategies
Sustainability has been increasingly addressed in the supply chain management literature… arguing that organizations should expand their sustainability strategies into their entire supply chains (e.g. Ciliberti et al. , 2008; Handfield et al. , 2005; Neto et al. , 2008; Vachon and Klassen, 2008; Zhu and Sarkis, 2004). An important … Read More
Investigating corporate social responsibility in supply chains: a SME perspective
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can be defined as ‘‘the voluntary integration, by companies, of social and environmental concerns in their commercial operations and in their relationships with interested parties’’. The economic, social and environmental benefits achieved when adopting socially responsible behaviors go beyond the boundaries of a single firm and … Read More
Social Enterprise: A Portrait of the Field
The Social Enterprise Alliance recently partnered with Community Wealth Ventures and Duke University’s Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship to assess the state of social enterprise in the nonprofit sector in the United States and Canada. The survey effort, which was funded by REDF, was designed to advance the … Read More
The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship
The idea of social entrepreneurship has struck a responsive chord. It is a phrase well suited to our times. It combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associated with, for instance, the high-tech pioneers of Silicon Valley. The time is … Read More
Scaling Social Impact: Strategies for Spreading Social Innovations
Strickland’s experience illustrates an all too common challenge in the social sector: How can social entrepreneurs effectively scale their impact to reach the many people and communities that could benefit from their innovations? As policy expert and author Lisbeth Schorr observed: “We have learned to create the small exceptions that can change the lives of hundreds. … Read More