The School for Social Entrepreneurs

Consumerism gone mad

Recently, after coming back to SSE as an intern for a few months (info at the bottom), I came across The Story of Stuff, a 20 minute web documentary hosted by "American critic of excessive consumerism" Annie Leonard. In the video Leonard goes through the process of consumption in five steps from extraction, production, distribution, consumption and then disposal. Though the video at times seems meant for younger age groups, perhaps a straightforward approach is what we all need; mixed in between the jaw dropping statistics Annie's message is clear and obvious: ever-growing consumption has become a dangerous force in human society.

As Leonard explains, this didn't just happen. In the 1955, economist Victor Lebow prophesied a version similar to our contemporary environment: "Our enormously productive economy ... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.... we need things consumed, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."

What does this have to do with social entrepreneurship and our current financial environment?
As Leonard amply points out, environmentalism affects us all, in all sectors. It is a timely reminder that while 'going green' has become a fad of its own, there is still much to be done. Here SSE Fellows like Becky Barrett at Love Eco and Dave Miller at Bikeworks play crucial roles. That being said, they are continuously dependent on you, the consumer, to purchase products strategically. It is no longer about finding the cheapest price, but rather the locally produced, environmentally friendly, and sustainable product.

That's easier said than done, particularly with the economy down the tank. Thus, we must not only buy smart, but also defy Victor Lebow and his theory of an ever-accelerating rate. Here is where the economic crisis may help us all, by forcibly slowing down our rate of purchasing. However, as we have seen such a change will lead to a slow-down in production, higher unemployment, higher prices. So what do we do? Leonard is brilliant in her analysis, but not so much in her aim. Next time I would like to see a video where she debates and convinces a parent who is fighting to keep his or her job, to shop more sustainably. Until then I won't hold my breath for a new type of consumerism.

Thor Steinhovden currently interns with the School for Social Entrepreneurs in Bethnal Green, London. He recently finished a BA in Political Science and History at St. Olaf College in Minnesota. This fall he will embark on a MSc in Comparative Politics (Nationalism and Ethnicity) at the London School of Economics.

   

Estates of mind: the relationship of place & people

I finished reading Estates by Lynsey Hanley last night. I'll admit that it isn't the most alluring title, but it's been hugely interesting. I first came across the book when responding to an exchange in Society Guardian between Lynsey Hanley and Andrew Mawson (who wrote the Social Entrepreneur). In a nutshell, she felt that Mawson was claiming that his people-led approach was the key to regenerating areas, whilst she felt that, ultimately, this had to be placed in the context of government intervention and place-based changes to the physical space. My letter, in response to her response, was that grassroots social entrepreneurship was not a panacea, but also that it should not be thrown out with the bathwater...and that it was the combination between government intervention, place-based stuff AND people-powered action that would work best.

[And I'm delighted to celebrate the launches of The Hub at Kings Cross and Shine at Harehills: congratulations to all involved; more on these soon]

I did have some empathy with her words, though. And, having been raised as a good middle-class boy in various semi-detached places in suburbia, thought that it would also give me a level of insight that I wouldn't (couldn't) otherwise have. Although, as Hanley points out towards the end of the book, ultimately you can never understand unless you've lived / been raised on an estate.

It's a great book: a mix of memoir, sociology, history, politics and solution-seeking, and I warmed to her authorial voice as it went along. She's exceptionally good at drawing a vivid picture both of what it was/is like to live on an estate geographically, but also psychologically. Indeed, the central section of the book is the one where she talks of how the physical barriers (poor location, poor quality building, poor transport links, poor schooling on site, poor design) create psychological barriers in the person's mind. Or, as she puts it (borrowing from East / West Germany), it creates a "wall in the head". It was here that I found myself moved and provoked:

"To be working-class in Britain is also to have a wall in the head, and, since council housing has come to mean housing for the working class...that wall exists unbroken throughout every estate in the land"

Breaking through (or climbing) over that wall is about combating isolation, about gaining aspiration, about learning about what's possible (or even exists) from the people you know....which chimes hugely with our recent report, Sustainable Paths to Community Development which talks of the crucial need for social 'linking' capital, for the connections to different networks to be made. Contacts that are outside of the family or the estate, and that provide knowledge, information, opportunities, resources and role models. Hanley says that "Social capital is more important for people who live on class-segregated estates than for anyone else", and our experience would back that up. Otherwise, the kind of entrenchment and isolation that Hanley details in the book becomes dominant.

What the book has helped me understand, though, aside from how council housing and council estates have ended up being where they are and looking like they do (it's fascinating to trace the history through various governments right up to the recent housing associations), is the sheer difficulty of scaling the wall. Much of this, it must be said, is to do with the architecture, design, quality, siting, spacing and heights of the buildings involved; there is some evidence here of lessons learned (tenants involvement, high quality, mixed design and so on), but there is vastly more to be done. As Hanley details with passion and frustration, estates are paved with good intentions as well as concrete, but many of the slum replacements have effectively become new slums.

But a central part of scaling the wall, at least for individuals, is about personal support, development and opportunity. People who ask why we need to support people for a year, or why they need high levels of personal support, or why we mix cohorts of different backgrounds and educational qualifications should read this book. Without support, confidence, inspiration (for aspiration) and connections, it remains incredibly hard to make the change....hard, to a degree, frankly, I don't think I understand or can communicate. So here are the final words of the book from someone who does, and can:

"Breaking out of [the estate] was like breaking out of prison. For all its careful planning and proximity to the city and the country, the estate was ringed by that invisible, impenetrable force field: the wall in the head. That may say as much about the closed ranks of the working class as it does for the failures of town planning. But I know that I will never scale another wall quite so high"

News barrage: ECT, added value, the future of enterprise

One of the (few) benefits of the lengthy commute in to work for me is to do some reading / listening of relevant information on the way in. Inevitably, on Wednesdays this means Society Guardian. Sometimes, there's little of direct relevance, and then sometimes the whole thing feels like it's waving at me. Like this morning:

- Big article on ECT; I think it's a very good article. Though it doesn't clear up the precise details of the CIC stuff, it does give some reasoning behind what has happened and, rightly, emphasises the most important outcome: jobs secured for those in the company. I spoke to the journalist writing this, and am pleased that he interviewed Steve Sears directly and told it this way. Still unanswered questions about CICs (nothing from the regulator, and the legal person behind it could only say that it made being taken over much easier....as if that was a positive?), but the story is clearer.

- An editorial on the the lack of evidence / proof that the third sector is any better (or provides any significant added value). I'd agree with much of this, and the need to measure and demonstrate social impact....but am disappointed at the emphasis on cost ("The third sector says it offers "something extra". But extra will cost extra. Buying services from the third sector requires an uneven playing field or, as the MPs diplomatically put it, "intelligent commissioning", which could well raise unit prices") without a similar emphasis on the benefits. For example, a place on the SSE programme has a higher unit cost than, say, 4 Business Link advice sessions....but the benefits are of a completely different order (and there is proof). Also what about the savings in other areas (benefits system, health service, social care, crime etc) that result from the (minimally) greater investment?

- The third thing was Peter Grigg's piece promoting the new report from Make Your Mark and Demos called The Future Face of Enterprise. There's some interesting stuff here, though I confess the commute isn't long enough to have read all 157 pages yet. It ALL seems relevant, in different ways, though much won't be new to regular readers of this blog, namely:

• people (especially young people) are seeking more meaning / purpose from their work
• people (esp. young people) are seeking outlets for their innovation and creativity
• money still motivates, but (increasingly) so do other things: frustration, personal mission, inequality
• self-employment can be a route out of frustrations (and flexibility / work-life balance)
• unlocking entrepreneurial talent, regardless of sector / organisation, can be key to success
• there are significant problems in society that need addressing that government can't do (alone)

All of which leads to a growth in those interested in, engaging with and involved in social entrepreneurship and social enterprise. I'll try and get to read it all in the near future...

Thursday round-up: Sunlight, shares, scale, SROI

Quick round-up, as there seems to be lots coming in and lots of interest:

- Peter Holbrook has written a blog post about David Cameron launching the Tory green paper at Sunlight Development Trust, and has some interesting initial thoughts from a practitioner's point of view on its recommendations; more reaction on Bubb's blog (who's on rare form of late), here, and here.

- Paul Miller of School of Everything has written an interesting post about why their organisation is a company limited by shares and how they balance the need for start-up investment (in a silicon valley web2.0 type way) with a social mission at their heart....

- Fall-out from the ECT news continues; apparently the recycling arm is keeping its CIC structure, despite (or as well as?) being taken over by a private sector operator....will be interesting to see how that turns out. In the meantime, here's a piece in New Start about it all; as I mentioned previously, this can be seen as a positive as much as a negative, but I do think that the issue of scale is at the heart of it all

- On which subject (scale), some food for thought: The Fetishization of Scaling Up (Small is beautiful versus Big is essential....and local+local+local = global...) and a magazine/event called De-Growth

- The SROI-UK conference has spawned a network: SROI-UK is chaired by the evaluation legend Jeremy Nicholls, who we'll be doing some work with in mid-June

- DEFRA announced a big £4.6 million deal for the various third sector waste and recycling networks who have come together to form a new organisation, REconomy. Huge kudos to (former SSE Director of Learning) Matthew Thomson for masterminding the deal: word on the street is that the celebrations were substantial.....but well-deserved.

- Interesting article by Matthew Taylor of the RSA on the (independence of the) third sector and the need for accountability and transparency

- How to set up a refugee community organisation; consult this guide?

- And a brief final thought: Word of mouth is not created, it is co-created

Eco-friendly office printing

Inspired by Greenpeace's new EfficienCity, I have been trying to cut down on my printing in the office; although we do all the stuff you'd expect (double -sided, re-use of one-sided, recycling cartridges), my big problem was with widows and orphans...the unwanted few lines + images which cause you to print another page.

Delightfully, I can recommend GreenPrint World, a free bit of software (endorsed by a whole range of US eco non-profits) which you select as your default printer. It basically introduces on extra stage between pressing Print and the printer starting to whirr; at this stage it offers you the option of cutting off extraneous pages, removing images (great for website ads) and removing unnecessary text. Best of all, it keeps a running total of how many pages you've saved, and how much money this has saved you/your organisation. You can use it in your office if it's not for 'commercial' purposes, and use it at home as well.

Takes a bit of getting used to, but very useable once you get going. Their special font, on the other hand, I'm not quite as sold on....but you can't have everything.

Gore, greenness and giving

I watched An Inconvenient Truth last night (I know: bit behind the times etc) which was good, if fairly depressing, Sunday night viewing. I found the powerpoint / argument / evidence compelling and got increasingly frustrated with the Gore-centred family interludes. Well worth seeing, as it does (re) inspire you to act and do what you can (particularly the credits, which are brilliantly done).

It was also remarkably relevant, given the conference in Bali currently and the news that Australia (as promised in recent election) has signed up to the Kyoto agreement. Which, at least according to Gore's film, leaves the US as the only 'advanced nation' left who hasn't. Nuff said. Of course, there will be those wondering why everyone has to fly to a beautiful location in Indonesia for the event (and, btw, it's remarkable how many shots of Al Gore in an airport there are in the film), but let's hope the outcomes justify the carbon outlay.

In other Gore-related news, my favourite headline of last week was "How the other half give", which discusses a hugely glamorous event to raise cash from, and engage/involve, celebrities for charitable causes. Those attending included Al Gore, Bob Geldof, Benazir Bhutto, Bianca Jagger and..er... Jon Bon Jovi. Very much like the SSE Xmas party, then, just with less glamour but a slightly larger budget. Apparently, the last event involved spending of £800,000, of which half was on fundraising costs; which doesn't seem like a great return, but there you go. If, as the organisers put it, it is as much about "educating" those present as it is about philanthropy, then let's hope those objectives are achieved. The power that celebrities have to raise awareness and model behaviour remains extraordinary in today's world.

But raising awareness has to translate into action, and that is where some high-profile figures do better than others. What stayed with me most from Gore's film, alongside all the science, was his quote from Winston Churchill, and it seems to be very much about that urgency to act...not just speak and reflect.

"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing, and baffling expedience of delays is coming to a close. In its place, we are coming to a period of consequences."

Do you do the green thing?

I met up the other day with Rod Schwartz of Catalyst to chat about social entrepreneurs, his trip to the Balkans and SSE. Having taught in a school for the blind in Bulgaria back in the dim and distant past, I was interested to hear about social business / social entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe, and the potential for the movement over there.

In the course of our discussions, Rod mentioned that he was involved with an initiative called 'Do the Green Thing', and that it was launching today....I vaguely remembered signing up to something and, sure enough, got an e-mail through today encouraging me to, well, do the green thing. Which this month is: walk more, drive less. It's kind of a We Are What We Do meets iCount meets GlobalCool meets TipThePlanet. With extra advertising savvy and web (2.0)-usability thrown in.

They describe it as: "a not-for-profit online community uniting people to act against climate change. Green Thing's basic principle is to tempt people to do one delightful thing a month and so build up a programme of green behaviour one easy step at a time".

I like it, mostly because it has a sense of humour, a bit of personality and engaging content. Whether it gets (drum roll) critical mass and really takes off remains to be seen, but there's some smart, plugged-in people behind it. And good use of the blogs/videos/podcasts/audio/wiki stuff out there, without it seeming chaotic (a challenge in itself).

Worth a bit of your valuable time.