Harnessing the Power of Social Enterprise

Social enterprises are organizations that apply commercial strategies toward resolving societal issues with sustainable business models. This new group of change agents can provide a meaningful alternative to existing approaches for achieving inclusive growth and sustainable development. Social enterprise – with the appropriate support based on effective policies and cross-sectoral collaboration – can further contribute toward addressing many of the complex social issues that we face.

Social enterprise has emerged as a key term in SK’s corporate sustainability practice. SK’s social enterprise initiatives are based on a holistic approach that aims to create a nourishing and encouraging ecosystem for amplifying the potential impact delivered by social enterprises. SK’s engagement with social enterprises consists of a balanced combination of intellectual knowledge-building and hands-on field experience to help improve the business practices of social entrepreneurs and to inspire future social innovators.

Helping social enterprises grow to the next level

SK supports and incubates social enterprises in such ways as to unlock their unrealized potential. Happynarae, for example, is one of 16 social enterprises in which SK has made a direct investment. Transformed into a social enterprise from a for-profit MRO business with an annual turnover of $150 million, Happynarae is one of the largest social enterprises in the world. Happynarae currently hires more than 10 percent of its employees from the underprivileged, such as senior citizens, North Korean defectors, and low-income families. Moreover, as it is implementing structured support programs designed to enhance the capabilities of social enterprise suppliers, Happynarae is now being recognized as a “social enterprise helping other social enterprises.”

SK recognizes the importance of building a strong pipeline for talents with passion and new ideas for social innovation. SK is now working with a top university in Korea, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, in offering a full-degree MBA program focusing on social entrepreneurship. All students admitted to the program are eligible for full-tuition support on one condition: They must launch a social enterprise or find a job in the social enterprise sector upon graduation. In addition to rigorous academic training in the areas of management skills and business startups, the curriculum features special lectures and mentoring programs by experts from various disciplines that are designed to equip students with professional capabilities as well as social consciousness. Students are also required to work on multiple field projects to engage closely with local communities. SK expects this social enterprise MBA program to contribute toward shaping and producing a new breed of leaders with empathy and compassion for social progress.

Catalyzing a cross-sectoral collaboration for social entrepreneurship

SK believes in the importance of collaboration across different sectors – public and private, industry and academia, among others. Integrating the best capabilities of different sectors is essential to create an enabling environment for social enterprises to flourish and attract new, innovative ideas while encouraging investments for positive social change.
Recently, SK supported a research project conducted through the combined efforts of industry, government, and academia. Recognizing an imminent need for a comprehensive policy framework, the Schwab Foundation, Harvard University, and SK teamed up to survey policy examples on nurturing social entrepreneurship around the world. The results of this research were published as a report, The Policy Guide to Scaling Social Innovation. The report highlights various models of social innovation that tackle pervasive challenges in our society, and it demonstrates policy examples that help social enterprises to produce greater social impacts.

Organizing and fostering social entrepreneurship on a global scale

Actors in a social enterprise ecosystem have different skill sets aimed at resolving targeted social issues. The sky is the limit if we can have a platform for organizing the global best practices of social entrepreneurship while inviting supporters such as corporations, investors, governments, and NGOs to provide resources and take collective action to create positive social impacts. 

Since 2011, SK has been working with the UN Global Compact and its partners to establish an online platform that facilitates cross-sectoral collaborations to organize ideas for social innovation under the framework of the UN’s post-2015 development goals. As a system for catalyzing cross-sectoral learnings, testing and experimenting new ideas, and creating significant social impacts at both the local and global levels, the Global Social Enterprise Action Hub is designed to inspire, connect, and enable participants to share and collaborate. The Hub showcases innovative business models that can have an impact; inspires stakeholders to engage in collaborative action to create and advance market-based responses to sustainability challenges; and catalyzes partnerships for projects that create mutual benefits for supporters and beneficiaries.
During the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit 2013, the beta version of the Global Social Enterprise Action Hub was launched. As of December 2013, there were 34 projects from 57 companies and organizations posted on the Hub. The Global Social Enterprise Action Hub was also presented in a series of Global Compact Local Network meetings as a key outcome of the 2013 Leaders Summit. 

At the local level, regional Collaboration Labs are being organized to implement online collaborations that are committed to the Global Social Enterprise Action Hub and being turned into actionable initiatives. Participants are provided with opportunities to learn more about innovations that can address sustainability challenges and given access to resources to create achievements on a bigger scale. During the India Collaboration Lab meeting held in 2013, businesses and social entrepreneurs were paired to articulate better approaches on water and sanitation issues. This resulted in multiple partnerships between social enterprises and corporations that will deploy new solutions for water transportation and purification in the most water-stressed regions in India.

Harnessing the power of change agents

Sustainable development can be achieved if there are combined and concerted efforts from different sectors that share a common goal of supporting social entrepreneurs for positive social progress. SK is committed to harnessing the power of these change agents and building an ecosystem with capabilities that can provide opportunities for innovative social entrepreneurs to help turn their ideas into solutions.