Outside our echo chamber – getting the bigger picture on growth
Sometimes in the social enterprise world it can feel like we are talking into an echo chamber. We all want to change the world, but we are talking to ourselves!
Earlier this moth, I was privileged to speak at the Cathedrals Group annual Lord Dearing memorial lecture panel. A question was raised about the priorities for personal action on climate change.
I was sitting alongside the eminent environmentalist Sara Parkin, and we both pointed out that essentially governments and business have succeeded in letting themselves off the hook by personalising the issue (i.e. what do I have to do ?), rather than focusing on what needs to be done at a national and international level to make businesses (by far the biggest polluters) change their ways and clean up their acts. As this is the Year of Green Action (I am proud to be an Ambassador) and we have a Climate Emergency, we should be concentrating on keeping up the pressure to see the bigger picture.
In a few weeks we will hold our annual conference. Our line-up is great and wide-ranging, focusing on the thorny topic of economic growth. It’s not just about social enterprise, it’s about the fundaments of what we need to see in changing society and business for the better. We are constantly fed a diet of messages about business being the answer to all problems… If this is the case, why do the world’s richest 1% now own more than the rest of us combined?
An Oxfam report published earlier this year shows that our economy is broken, with hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty while huge rewards go to those at the very top. With the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, it is clear we have failed to create a more socially just society. I’m really looking forward to having Alex Maitland from Oxfam’s Future of Business Initiative delivering the opening keynote at our conference on 20th June to set the scene.
Our friend Heidi Fisher has just written a great article, which questions how we can change from an intervention-based approach to a prevention-based approach, i.e. a world where social enterprises exist to prevent a problem rather than treat it. Many successful social enterprises, such as the Big Issue with their ‘hand up’ rather than ‘hand out’ ethos, help people get back on their feet, and are also taking steps to try to address the root of the problem, but homelessness is still on the increase. To achieve a solution requires a more fundamental change in thinking by government and society as a whole about the social impact of all our activities and policies.
The recent Social Mobility Commission’s annual state of the nation report reinforces what we have known for some time: many people left behind on low wages (which have not kept up with living costs), which holds them back from building a better life for themselves and their families. We know that higher levels of inequality lead to political instability, shorter lives for both rich and poor, as well as more corruption and crime. At a global level, extreme inequality is undermining the fight against poverty and widening other inequalities (e.g. gender and race inequality).
Urgent action needs to be taken to close the gap between rich and poor and to address climate change, so join us at our conference and help us to change the world!
For more information about our conference, and to book your tickets, follow the below link:
I hope to see you there!
