Johannesburg-based firm Shift Social Development is seeking to
expand investments by large established businesses into social good for
profit.
The initiative dubbed Shared Value Africa
Initiative looks to encourage businesses to expand their
social goods initiative from philanthropy to include sustainable business models that benefit both consumers and businesses.
social goods initiative from philanthropy to include sustainable business models that benefit both consumers and businesses.
“This idea of
creating shared value comes from work that we have done at Harvard
Business School and it is rooted in the idea that companies can create
value for themselves and for society at the same time, that companies
can be a very powerful force for addressing societal challenges,” says
co-founder and managing director of non-profit consulting firm FSG Mark
Kramer.
“This idea of creating shared value has been
very powerful all over the world but we have realised that social
challenges are different in different parts of the world. And the local
business leaders who can get involved are different and so the Africa
Shared Value Initiative is an ongoing project to identify opportunities
for shared value, to bring African business leaders together to
understand shared value and to implement shared value strategies,” he
added.
Interested businesses can attend the SVAI summit
that took place on Thursday and Friday as well as enrol as members of
the SVAI access a network of businesses with which they can collaborate,
optimise business value chains and access research on African
businesses.
SVAI could not disclose the cost of
membership. The cost of attending the summit ranged from Sh18,500 for
students and NGOs to about Sh37,000 for a two-day ticket.
Safaricom is among the founding members for SVAI. Other members
include Enel Green power, Discovery, Barclays(Absa) and UAP Old Mutual
(Old Mutual SA).
“We had a very interesting discussion
with senior executives at Nation Media Group. Media can help to reduce
social problems not just by reporting on the problem but reporting on
effective solutions that people have found to that problem,” said Mr
Kramer.
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