As palavras do título não são minhas mas representam uma opinião partilhada por mutias pessoas ligadas à área do empreendedorismo e que tive oportunidade de ler no editorial (já antigo 22/11/07...) do site Startups - Inspiring New Business que aproveito para dar a conhecer.

"Social enterprise is the future. It’s where the next generation of great UK businesses and entrepreneurs will come from.

Let me be even clearer: social enterprises will shape the way we buy, sell, do business; most probably influence how we socialise; how we travel and where socialise. Already the 55,000 UK social enterprises turnover £27bn and employ 500,000, but this is just the beginning.

Up until now, interest in social enterprise has been driven by increased consumer demand for ethical buying choices and transparency to see how products are sourced – but the reason social enterprises are now attracting serious business attention and will start to influence every sector is because, well, they’re now being run as serious businesses.

Social enterprises aren’t charities. They’re not asking people for donations. They’re not hippy head-in-the-clouds, tree-hugging, do-gooder, call it what you will, projects. They’re pure businesses, run by serious entrepreneurs, offering consumers and clients a different, better, fairer, more ethical way to consume but without any concession to quality."

[artigo completo]