What is a social enterprise?
Most of us like to think of ourselves as caring for our community and our environment; we recycle where we can, choose to walk instead of drive and buy fair trade coffee when possible, but imagine this mentality on a grander scale. Imagine if your local authority thought like this when buying products and services. Imagine businesses all over the UK whose main aim was to improve the lives of others.
Sound crazy? We don’t think so. There are already 62,000 of these types of business in the UK, contributing over £24bn to the economy and employing approximately 800,000 people. (Annual Survey of Small Business UK).
With the government moving towards the Big Society, we can all do more than ever before to make this vision a reality. Social enterprises operate in almost every industry in the UK including health and social care, housing and education, employment and retail. These businesses operate in a similar way to private businesses, but they are driven by their ethics and a social or environmental mission. They are focused on the community they serve.
For a more detailed explanation of social enterprise, download Social Enterprise UK’s social enterprise explained booklet from their website www.socialenterprise.org.uk.
You may not know it, but social enterprises are everywhere. Well known examples include The Big Issue, Jamie Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen, The Eden Project, The Co-op and the fair-trade chocolate company Divine Chocolate. For more information on local social enterprises, their efforts and achievements, take a look at our case studies.