What is social innovation?

Faced with social and environmental disorders, new solutions must be found.

Definition

‍
“Social innovation consists in developing new responses to new or poorly met social needs under current market and social policy conditions, involving the participation and cooperation of relevant actors, in particular users and users.”

according to the Superior Council for the Social and Solidarity Economy (CSESS).

‍
Finding new solutions at the service of the general interest

‍
For a long time, the concept of innovation remained in the domain of businesses. We know that, to win against competitors, a company must innovate. Research and innovation focus on the competitive field. The State and the associative world seemed to be absent. That is no longer the case.

‍
The French Impact provides an excellent definition of social innovation:

“Social innovation provides solutions to complex societal challenges that neither the state nor the market can respond alone. These problems can be located around various themes such as: employment, housing,
environmental protection, or social exclusion.”

‍

What role can businesses play?
‍

The role of businesses is not only to make a profit. They can be real drivers.

Corporate Social Responsibility

CSR is a concept that dates back to the 1960s. It is defined as being accountable and accepting the consequences. According to Carenews:

“Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept in which businesses integrate social, environmental and economic concerns into their activities and in their interactions with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis. In short, it is the contribution of businesses to social issues and sustainable development.”

It is often during crises that companies have become aware of their responsibility. In the 90s, we remember the disastrous effects on Nike of the discovery that the company was using child labor.
‍

The creation of a CSR department may be fairly recent. The Green Paper on Corporate Social Responsibility dates only from 2001. Whether we are talking about the CSR department, the Sustainable Development Department or the Corporate Engagement Department, it is often one of the last functions to have joined Comex.

From responsibility to commitment

Responsibility is a defensive concept: it is about measuring its impact in order to become aware of it and reduce it. The CSR function has long been a compliance function. The aim was to comply with social and environmental regulations: not to make children work, not to release pollutants into the environment, etc. The companies produced an “impact report on their negative externalities”.

It is interesting to observe the reversal of the trend in recent years.

On the contrary, corporate engagement is an offensive concept: businesses become sustainable, not because they are asked to do so, but because it is good for them.

According to the monthly magazine Strategies, “companies that integrate CSR policy into their positioning outperform. The 50 brands involved in the Stengel Index have posted earnings growth of nearly 400% in 10 years, while the classic S&P 500 stock market index has declined by 8% over the same period.” More recently, according to BrandZ 2019, “brands that worked on their social utility and their reason for being generated twice as much growth as others.”