Breadcrumbs
- Home
- Events
- Previous events
- Vitae researcher development conference 2010
- Conference blog 2010
- Social Credits - Lessons from Carbon Credits and the Clean Development Mechanism
Social Credits - Lessons from Carbon Credits and the Clean Development Mechanism
06 August 2010
By David Maher
Globally the world of social enterprise and social investment could learn vast amounts from the commercialisation of carbon and the creation of a Clean Development Mechanism for those wishing to offset their carbon usage.
Social enterprises as trading entities are in the business of 'selling' social outcomes. The people who 'buy' those outcomes are a range of statutory commissioners and providers, foundations, philanthropists and those with a defined CSR budget. Increasingly we will see individuals and businesses buy those outcomes as personal budgets become more commonplace and businesses look at ways to meet CSR budgets. However, what would it take to 'commercialise' those social outcomes? Could an outcome be categorised on a unit basis and assigned a value. For example: could a value for one person being supported and maintained into employment be measured and fully costed? And if it could, who would 'buy' that outcome? And if someone 'bought' it and it appeared on a social balance sheet, could the outcome be sold again - and if so could it be traded on an open exchange?
So many questions. And so many potential dilemmas and ethical questions. I would suggest that if we could arrive at a process of measuring social outcomes in a consistent way then we were certainly on a meaningful track to developing an exchange mechanism for social investment which would have international impact.
So what are its implications. Well, in the Carbon offset world (and to some extent the Carbon Cap and Trade world) we see organisations having to 'buy' or invest in green initiatives if they want to exceed a certain threshold. We see those who are falling short of their threshold (carbon surplus) being able to 'sell' their allowances to others who are failing to trade within a set range. So now let's assume that we replace Carbon for Social Outcomes (one person in a job, or a disabled person having x amount of personal assistance to live an ordinary life) what process would we need to design to engage corporations with CSR budgets to spend? Could we develop a system of trading so that enterprises delivering certain outcomes can have Initial Public Offerings and the like to open up a whole new spectrum of revenue beyond the staid grant aid, block grants, SLA's etc etc?
Reading the news from the airport after a recent trip to the West Indies on CSR related work, I am beginning to see some further clarity emerging in the mist. The energy sector there is extremely engaged from a CSR perspective but despite their best attempts their investment barely impacts. Not because the need is so great (it is), mainly because their investment is so badly targeted and the investment targets or outcomes are so badly defined. Or not defined at all.
The UN COP15 Climate Change Conference reminds us of the gap in the market for the social entrepreneurs amongst us to begin to develop a Social Development Mechanism to take and expand the best bits from the carbon worlds Clean Development Mechanism.
A new opportunity for supporting corporations invest as socially minded citizens may well provide a clear and unambiguous way of harnessing and measuring their outcomes 'pitching' for social investment from CSR funding. The private sector involved in this way is the missing link in Mulgan's Collaborative State. Roll it on. I for one am geen to engage the social enterprise sector on a more entrepreneurial and tangible results focused footing.
In the meantime I am going to continue working on CSR Brokerage, Social Development Mechanism and Social Credits business plan. The future’s bright, the future is Social Credits.
Paul Spencer25 August 2010 at 12:26 PM
permalinkreport this comment
What an interesting piece David. Reading this with some knowledge of the topic leaves me wanting to talk with you more on the topic of encouraging investment in social businesses and enterprises. It seems to me that many of philanthropic organisations invest in the people behind the venture and not necessarily the social and/or environmental impact that it may generate, perhaps to minimise risk by backing "winners", social entrepreneurs with track records. I heartily agree that the social impact that third sector venture generate needs to be much more explicit. I think times are changing though and that there is increasing interest from investors for getting a social return on their contributions. I recently came across a useful website on this topic, worth a look in my view: http://www.clearlyso.com/ However, if I was reading this without any knowledge of the third sector I might be asking myself the question, "What is social enterprise?" and, maybe a follow up question "Why do they need investment as opposed to donations/grants/gifts?". I've found that although the concept of social entrepreneurship, social enterprise and/or social business has been around for quite sometime, the current terminology isn't widely understood. Indeed many of the early career researchers that I have come across in the last 12 months have not heard the term and indeed many folks who actually operate social enterprises may not recognise it as such which is, in part, the driver behind the awareness raising campaign that is the "Social Enterprise Mark". At the #Vitae10 conference, I shall be reporting back on the outcome of a collaborative project to develop resources aimed at early career researchers on the topic of social enterprise. Part of the impetus for creating resources in the first place was to help raise awareness of a different way of doing business which I passionately believe engages researchers because it aligns better with their collective value set (moreso than trying to engage them about enterprise in a purely commercial context). It'd be great to have your input & feedback on what we have done. We are scheduled to run the workshop on this project in session B on the programme (workshop number B14) entitled: "Towards a common good: a collaborative project to produce resources on the topic of social enterprise for early career researchers". Paul (S)