The Global Social Enterprise Action Hub

As social and environmental issues change and become more complex, a new approach is required beyond the existing efforts of governments, NGOs, and corporations to tackle global challenges. In this regard, social enterprises are becoming significant players in bolstering global sustainability and addressing social challenges in innovative and sustainable ways. With the objectives of creating both economic and social value, social enterprises adopt managerial efficiency and market mechanisms in their social operations to offer more customized and efficient solutions that deliver larger and more sustainable impacts.

For social enterprises to grow, support from – and cooperation among – different players is necessary. Large corporations can play an especially important role in supporting social enterprises through their state-of-the-art technologies, financial firepower, and global networks. Recognizing social enterprises can be a vehicle to effectively deal with fundamental problems.

SK has been focusing on creating a vibrant and robust ecosystem that supports social enterprises. SK has tested various ideas by establishing new social enterprises and supporting existing ones in Korea. SK is endeavoring to leverage its core competencies in supporting social enterprises to maximize their impacts. SK established Happy ICT, a social enterprise that offers IT training and field IT experiences to the underprivileged to help support their employment opportunities. Happy ICT is working to narrow the information gap between different socioeconomic classes and to build a social safety net in the telecommunication sector. SK has also transformed one of its subsidiaries, Happy Narae – a maintenance, repair, and operations company – into a social enterprise. As a social enterprise that supports other social enterprises, Happy Narae purchases products of other social enterprises, thus providing a healthier and broader sales channel. To find and nurture prospective social entrepreneurs, SK also launched a website called “Sesang,” a collaboration network that brings together the expertise of diverse sectors such as social enterprises, governments, and NGOs. Through the website, SK is consolidating the foundation to support social enterprises through information services, communication, and research.

Reflecting the increasing interest of the UN in enhancing its partnerships with the private sector, the UN Global Compact and SK came together to launch an online platform to connect social enterprises with corporations and other stakeholders such as impact investors.

At the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum in June 2012, which was hosted by the Global Compact, SK announced a collaborative project with the Global Compact called The Global Social Enterprise Action Hub (SE Hub), an online platform for social enterprises and impact investors. The SE Hub collaboration was also reiterated at the World Economic Forum in January 2013, and it is being pushed ahead as one of the Global Compact LEAD priority projects. The Global Compact and SK plan to unveil the beta version of the Hub at the 2013 Global Compact Leaders Summit and to launch the final version by the end of 2014. As members of the steering committee, key organizations including Abraaj Capital, Intel, World Resources Institute, UN Principles of Responsible Investment (UNPRI), and New Ventures-Brazil will also play an active role in deciding policies and developing strategies of the SE Hub.

The SE Hub is an online platform to connect social entrepreneurs, corporations, impact investors, NGOs, policymakers, and other stakeholders. The SE Hub aims to catalyze partnerships among these groups to co-create and scale the most promising solutions to global development challenges and to advance the UN Post-2015 Development Agenda.

The SE Hub will facilitate various collaborations between social enterprises and other participants in the areas of strategic investment, joint venture, product development, incubation, and procurement opportunities. This participation is expected to help further drive the development of social enterprises, impact investing fields, and boost public interest in social enterprises and inclusive economies.

To address a range of UN priorities in relation to the Millennium Development Goals and the Post-2015 Development Agenda, the SE Hub aims to balance its activities across emerging markets, underdeveloped countries, and OECD member countries.

In spite of innovative ideas and commitments to solve social problems, many social entrepreneurs confront difficulties in successfully launching and managing their businesses. To provide effective and substantive support for these social entrepreneurs, the SE Hub takes an action-oriented approach by encouraging collaboration and inviting participants to post current sustainable development projects. The SE Hub seeks to support a range of functions such as progress monitoring. The platform is intended to be robust and will evolve to include a reporting element that will allow participants to assess the progress and performance of projects posted on the SE Hub.

The SE Hub will also create an online community of social entrepreneurs and investors by providing networking and information-sharing channels in addition to matchmaking services. Through information and communication technology, all experiments in supporting and managing social enterprise will continuously evolve in order to build a more robust platform.

The growing complexity and scale of social problems requires the solutions to be collaborative rather than independent. Reflecting this trend, the Global Compact is developing the UN Global Compact Partnership Portal to encourage cooperation among UN entities, corporations, and other organizations in support of the UN Development Agenda. The SE Hub will be integrated into the portal.

As one of the components of the UN Global Compact Partnership Portal, the SE Hub will contribute toward fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals through facilitating an action-oriented approach. The Hub is expected to provide new strategies and ideas in effectively implementing the Global Compact’s Ten Principles and will spur more business participations in other Global Compact issue platforms, including Caring for Climate, CEO Water Mandate, Women’s Empowerment Principles, and Children’s Rights and Business Principles.