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Socially Responsible Entrepreneurship: Now With Profits!
By Bizbox
Entrepreneur.com runs a good article on young entrepreneurs trying to cash in on the New Big Thing: socially-conscious business. In other words, companies that aim both to do good while also very much turning a profit. Our latest BizBooks forum, with Scott Cooney, sort of barked up this tree: Cooney is a booster for ecopreneurism, which trumpets the notion of businesses that are sustainable both economically and environmentally. (There's also a very interesting Website about the notion of simultaneously doing good and doing well called Creative Capitalism.)
Lots of the profiled businesses' prime avenue for doing good is "green" in one way or another. But the article cites reasons for the increased popularity, among young people in particular, of do-good entrepreneurship that go well beyond the hipness of eco-consciousness. Did you know, for example, that each of the top ten U.S. business schools have at least one faculty member who teaches social entrepreneurship? The article also points to the prominence of philanthropic entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and a recently increased emphasis in our society on seeking out of your occupation not just money but also intangible personal fulfillment as further reasons for the rise of this sort of entrepreneurship.
One other point we love is that one advantage to having a business that makes an important social contribution is that your business's counterparties--whether investors, suppliers, distributors, or what-have-you--are going to be more amenable not only to cutting you slack but even to helping you out, which in turn enables you to work within otherwise narrower profit margins. "Everybody feels invested," says one entrepreneur whose water company donates ten cents to charity for ever bottle sold. "We have retailers who feel like it's their product. Distributors feel like it's their product. Everyone takes ownership in it all the way down to the consumer, which is what I think makes it work."
You heard the man: make it work.
Comments (1)October 14, 2008 4:41 PM
Comments (1)
Great article and great point about the way consumers, suppliers and everyone involved with the green or socially responsible product feels invested.
That does make a difference in how much slack a company is given. The goodwill generated by socially conscious businesses has yet to be measured but it can come in handy in times like these.
Green companies span the spectrum of products and the 3PL approach I believe will become more and more prevalent, as low price as a strategy becomes harder and harder.
MC Milker
Lead Writer, Ecopreneurist.com
Posted by MC Milker | October 15, 2008 8:22 AM
Posted on October 15, 2008 08:22