Developing an Eco-social Enterprise Session 5 Friday, 28 April, 2023 Tim Crabtree, Wessex Community Assets & Plymouth University Natural capital Human capital Financial capital Physical capital Social capital Piketty on wealth v. income 2 types of household •The 99% - sell their labour and rely on income •The 1% - own the other factors of production and their livelihoods are based on wealth Four types of “wealth” Ownership and control of: •Land (& natural resources) •Physical capital •Natural capital •Data How would you amend your diagram if you have 2 types of household? Land Labour Financial capital Physical capital Data 99% X XX X Land Labour Financial capital Physical capital Data 99% 1% Open source dataSocial finance Workspaces & Makerspaces Land & property as commons Social enterprises, coops & employeeowned firms Hub kitchens & satellite kitchens Centre for Local Food Community Shares Crowdfunding Loan stock Local knowledge. MySQL database & on-line system Local Food Links – a community cooperative From scaling to complexity Starting point not a particular project or technology but emerging ecology of projects each of which has its own generative capacity, and constantly creating new networks with other projects Robin Murray For the spread of a social innovation what is needed is to establish the relative autonomy of new practices from the prevailing ‘contextual forces’ and attract others into this emerging sub-system - extending its strength and deepening its complexity The 1,318 transnational corporations that form the core of the globalised economy - connections show partial ownership of one another, and the size of the circles corresponds to revenue. The companies 'own' through shares the majority of the 'real' economy Mondragon, Spain 84,000 employed in 256 co-operatives Supported by Mondragon Co-operative Corporation Local authority officers & members People in housing need Architects Builders Community housing groups Economic development organisations Rope & net companies Funders Land management organisations Schools, colleges, universities Housing associations Landowners Farmers Foresters Light engineering companies Town & parish councils Civil society & cultural organisations Social enterprises Assets held in the commons Volunteers Makers & tradespersons Physical platforms Digital platform Training platform Raise the Roof Operations: Inputs: Waste Recycling Consumers Natural Physical Social Human Financial Primary Production Processing Distribution Retail/Food service Marketing Operations: Inputs: Waste Recycling Consumers Natural Physical Social Human Financial Primary Production Processing Distribution Retail/Food service Marketing Operations: Inputs: Waste Recycling Consumers Natural Physical Social Human Financial Primary Production Processing Distribution Retail/Food service Marketing Operations: Inputs: Waste Recycling Consumers Natural Physical Social Human Financial Primary Production Processing Distribution Retail/Food service Marketing Operations: Inputs: Waste Recycling Consumers Natural Physical Social Human Financial Primary Production Processing Distribution Retail/Food service Marketing Operations: Inputs: Waste Recycling Consumers Natural Physical Social Human Financial Primary Production Processing Distribution Retail/Food service Marketing Operations: Inputs: Waste Recycling Consumers Natural Physical Social Human Financial Primary Production Processing Distribution Retail/Food service Marketing Local Food System Individual enterprise Linking with other enterprises in the local food system Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption 1. Collaboration around inputs 4. Collaboration around “closing loops” 3. Collaboration around demand & consumption 2. Collaboration around operations ? Possibilities for collaboration in a wider ecosystem ? ? ? ? ? ? ? What opportunities do you see for collaboration? In what areas: - inputs - operations - outputs - engaging with customers - other opportunities? Presentation • Each group has 10 minutes to present, plus 5 minutes of questions 1. Business canvas - Including core purpose, members & rights of members - Including any “circular” element, e.g. how to deal with waste 2. Theory of change 3. How does the enterprise sit within an ecosystem? - In what ways could it collaborate with other organisations? - How might it draw on “commons” resources, if appropriate? 1. Collaboration around inputs Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Collaboration to provide Financial Capital Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Wessex Community Assets a secondary structure helping communities raise local finance through share issues and loans £152,775 raised £105,000 raised Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Collaboration to provide Human Capital Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Manchester Land Army Offers a solution to a number of challenges faced by local organic growers including: • Labour issues and costs for local growers at busy periods e.g. harvest time. • Lack of skilled labour for illness and holiday cover. • More growers are needed to meet future demand. • Lack of a way into growing commercially for individuals. • Lack of opportunity for practical involvement in sustainable food systems. Growing Communities: Urban Apprentice Scheme Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Collaboration to provide Physical Capital Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Dorset Small Producers’ Network – Processing Barn at Five Penny Farm Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Collaboration to provide Natural Capital Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption New ways of accessing land + Collaboration Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption 2. Collaboration around operations 2. Collaboration around operations There are different strategies which can be employed: • Dissemination / sharing learning • Social franchising or licensing • Spin offs • Secondary structures • Joint ventures Dissemination Unicorn Grocery: “Grow A Grocery” Guide Social Franchising & Licensing: Growing Communities – Start Up Programme Spin offs: Mondragon, Spain 84,000 employed in 256 co-operatives Supported by Mondragon Co-operative Corporation Eroski Supermarkets Secondary Structure: Hostetin Apple Juicing Plant, Czech Republic Veronica Foundation Hostetin Apple Juicing Plant Raised funds Leased to White Carpathians Traditions Apple Juicing Social Enterprise Runs Apples Small farms Joint Venture: Grameen – Danone Yogurt Business Grameen-Danone Shoktidoi yogurt factory in Bangladesh Collaboration Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption 3. Collaboration around consumer engagement Farmers’ Markets - a collaborative marketing mechanism Taste Tideswell: Using branding to promote local producers Bringing consumers into the system • Consumers can provide more than just cash. • They can become part of the “social capital” of the organisation – as members or supporters. • They can provide loans and equity: • Real Food Store (community shares) • Unicorn & Glebelands (loan stock) • They can provide human resources: • Village shop volunteers • Non-executive directors Collaboration Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption 4. Collaboration around “closed loop” cycles Collaboration in local food systems Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption Operations Inputs: The 5 Capitals Waste Demand & Consumption 1. Collaboration around inputs 4. Collaboration around “closing loops” 3. Collaboration around demand & consumption 2. Collaboration around operations Simple systems • Predictable; • Mechanical; "Reductionism produced a "machine view" of the world, a view captured in the work of Sir Isaac Newton. Metaphorically the world was likened to a sealed clock, a closed system, perpetually running on fundamental laws like "to everything action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Hutchins, Systemic Thinking, 1995 Complex systems Source: Morris and Martin Complex behaviour • Complexity theory builds on Systems Theory • Complex systems are non-linear and their specific behaviour is unpredictable • Complex behaviour arises from interaction • Complexity theory focuses on relationships • The distinguishing feature of complex systems is that they can create new order Source: Eve Mittleton-Kelly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY Question: What difference do you perceive between the video of starlings in flight and the computer simulation? Patricia Shaw: Systems theory & complexity science “We make representations of the relatively stable patterns emerging in our ceaseless activity so that we can look at them together and agree on changes we can identify and plan for. This is why organisations, institutions and the civic realm are full of models, 2 by 2 matrices and mappings of various kinds. But representations can never capture real complexity because that complexity is a flow in time not a static image or model. The representations are always not just inadequate but useful approximations, they can really mislead and falsify - taking them literally easily leads to frustration.” ‘Complexity Thinking’ approach • Self organising: encouraging a system which will spontaneously emerge as the actions of autonomous participants come to be interlinked and codependend on each other. • Evolutionary: the system will be able to change its structure and processes as it adapts to maintain its viability within a changing, dynamic context. In other words, the system will be designed to learn from its experiences. From representations of systems to participation in dynamic processes • We are immersed in problems of organised complexity – these are situations where you have a moderate number of variables, but strong non-linear interactions amongst those variables. • This involves dealing simultaneously with a sizeable number of factors which are interrelated into an organic whole. Patricia Shaw We are used to thinking/seeing/experiencing in terms of a world of separate THINGS apart from ourselves that need to be managed. • Things are clearly defined, identifiable, separate, bounded, stable, graspable, measurable, countable entities. • They may be material things or intangible conceptual things such as organisations, jobs, managers, systems, leaders, resources, strategies, plans, goals, targets, budgets, meetings, cultures, visions…… • Such things can be connected, arranged, ordered, organised by design into structures. • Such ordering connections are universal, linear, rational, sequential, predictable, neutral. Complexity invites us to think/see/experience in terms of a world of PATTERNED FLOW in which we are inextricably immersed. • This dynamic flow is not uniform but patterned as events and activities emerging in webs of interdependent relating. • Patterning (irregular regularities) emerges spontaneously through self-organisation at many scales simultaneously. • Such self-patterning processes are local, reciprocal, non-linear, lateral, unpredictable, improvisational in which both individual and social identities are emerging simultaneously. Some questions • What are the limitations of strategies, business plans, “theories of change” and predictions of outcomes, in a world that is complex and unpredictable? • How do we keep organisations “alive” and generative, taking inspiration for example from the Latin American notion of continuous “formacion”? How also do we maintain our own levels of commitment, well-being and satisfaction in our work? • How can we resist the expectation that we should seek to scale up initiatives in the conventional way rather than through a process of networked growth in clusters of organisations?