EBBF gains recognition at European Union and United Nations
EBBF is a partner in a two-year project to be funded by the European Commission that started on the 20th of January, titled "The Development of Indicators & Assessment Tools for CSO (Civil Society Organization) Projects Promoting Values-based Education for Sustainable Development" or ESDinds for short. In the project, academic research partners help the CSOs to develop indicators that measure what they are trying to do, i.e. implementing values or spiritual principles relevant to sustainability. The project includes two academic partners: University of Brighton (UK) and Charles University (Prague), and five CSO partners: Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC, UK), EBBF, Earth Charter Initiative (Sweden/Costa Rica), Bahá'í Agency for Social and Economic Development (BASED-UK), and People's Theatre (Germany), together with Arthur Dahl as senior advisor. In the project the CSOs define what they want to measure, the academics (with some Ph.D. students recruited by the project) help to define assessment methodologies and indicators, the CSOs trial the indicators in their projects, and there is an evaluation and sharing of experience. After the indicators are developed and tested, they will be shared more widely with many other organizations.
The project could generate a number of possible outputs at different levels of organization:
- For individuals: self-tests, employee ethical screening, evaluation of training activities (before/after);
- For work groups/teams: group self-evaluation; management tools;
- For organizations: internal reviews, external evaluation/certification.
It should produce indicators of the impact of EBBF activities, sets of indicators that we can offer to businesses to measure their progress, and assessment tools (questionnaires, surveys, checklists, self-tests) from which indicators can be generated for each of these uses.
EBBF amongst the selected stakeholders invited by the EU Commission to their Bi-Annual Corporate Social Responsibility Forum.
February 10, 2009, European Parliament, Brussels.
Daniel Schaubacher, EBBF’s representative to the European institutions in Brussels, and George Starcher, were invited by the European Commission (EC) to this bi-annual meeting of over 250 representatives of business, trade unions, government, academics, public authorities, and NGOs as well as top officials of the EC. Presentations and multi-sector working groups focused on the global dimension of CSR, Innovation and CSR, Transparency and CSR, and Education for CSR.
It was clear that both the European Parliament and the European Commission continue to support the strategic interest of CSR as a source of competitiveness. Participants were impressed by the multiplicity of the projects initiated by and often funded by the EC, including the major research and education efforts carried out and supported by EABIS, the European Academy for Business in Society. Reports from each of the member countries’ governments indicated their full support and multiple activities to encourage corporate responsibility. At the same time, the EC, national governments, and the academic community have launched programmes to research and to promote responsible entrepreneurship and CSR in small and medium size businesses.
EBBF was one of only eleven organizations included in an EC publication distributed to all participants, “Review and Recommendations for Stakeholders”. The three page EBBF article prepared by Daniel Schaubacher reiterated our vision, mission and core values; summarized our achievements and projects in 2007/8; and listed our future projects all of which support the EC strategy to make Europe a pole of excellence in CSR.
MEP Howitt invites EBBF to co-organize with the Club of Rome a session introducing Social Entrepreneurship at the European Parliament.
Social Entrepreneurship Workshop
European Parliament, Brussels April 27, 2009 16:30 h.
Host: MEP Richard Howitt, EP Reporter on Promoting a European Framework for
Corporate Social Responsibility.
Speakers : MEP Richard Howitt; Representatives of European Commission DG Enterprise; Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship by EBBF Secty Gen’l Daniel Truran; presentations by representatives of Schwab Foundation; Club of Rome,
Vienna; Ashoka Network, Social Entrepreneur, others (inv.)
The economic crisis demonstrates that the the global economy has been on a wrong track. How could we get into such a difficult situation after so many years of apparently (?) positive development?
The global economy was not only de-coupled from care for the environment. It did not only initiate a "race to the bottom" regarding social standards, there was also a large gap between the "real" economy and the financial system. In the end, the financial system was not only disintegrated from environmental and social aspects, but it was even disintegrated from goods and services production, it lost external targets related to the society.
Now, we have to get back to the basics. The common definition of the economy is "Activities related to the production and distribution of goods and services". The economy therefore does not (or should not) follow a purpose of its own, but has a supporting role for the human society.
How to re-establish this functionality? The workshop in the European Parliament will study the possible role of SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP in a renewed market economy. Social entrepreneurship means that not only segments or add-ons of the economic activity are dedicated to the benefit of society, but that the whole economic activity of an entrepreneur is dedicated to solve the problems of society.
The event will show how the concept of social entrepreneurship evolved, how it is practiced and whether it could be applied to a wider field than in the past - in order to move the economy towards a more sustainable pathway.
Social entrepreneurship is a dynamic process that incorporates a viable business model with a sound social mission. It generally focuses more on adding social and environmental value than economic value. A social entrepreneur identifies and solves problems on a large scale. Just as business entrepreneurs create and transform whole industries, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss in order to improve systems, invent and disseminate new approaches and advance sustainable solutions that create social value. Unlike traditional business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs primarily seek to generate "social value" rather than just profits. The job of a social entrepreneur is to recognize when a part of society is stuck and to provide new ways to get it unstuck. He or she finds what is not working and solves the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.
Reserve your seat registering here.
More Info: Daniel Schaubacher, EBBF Repr. To EU, 347/8 avenue Louise, B 1050 Brussels, Tel: 02 649 99 28 or 0478 87 29 29 ebbf@skynet.be
EBBF is co-hosting together with the BIC and UNIFEM Australia two panels that will offer the opportunity to spread both the value and the experience of truly embracing EBBF's core value of providing equal opportunities to both women and men in all fields of endeavour.
