How 15^th May made history

The main event of the Global Communities Meeting Tour hosted by danone.communities took place in Paris last Tuesday. Here is an account of this special day, packed with ideas and enthusiasm.

On Tuesday 15^th May, at la Mutualité in Paris, danone.communities hosted a very special event for social business. An event that resonated as an anniversary for danone.communities, which is celebrating 5 years of existence in 2012, in particular with a grand tour: the Global Communities Meeting Tour, which was launched on 8^th February and will end in November at the Global Social Business Summit in Vienna. An international tour, all year round, with numerous partners, to reach as many people as possible and promote social business. Tuesday’s function at la Mutualité was one of the major events of this tour: first, an entire day gathered over 200 social business experts to co-create in workshops. Then, a large-scale conference welcomed over 2000 attendees including, among others, Prof. Muhammad Yunus and Franck Riboud. Here is the story of that special day.

Getting to work

It is 7.30am at the Maison de la Mutualité, a beautiful art déco building situated in the heart in Paris, close to Notre-Dame Cathedral. The entire danone.communities team, assisted by a handful of volunteers, is already busy setting up the venue: in about 90 minutes, 200 social business experts will gather here to spend the whole day in workshops, with the intention of co-creating new solutions to scale up social businesses in every field, everywhere in the world. “Scale up”: a phrase that will often be heard throughout the day. Because “in social business, there is business”. And so many other things…

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Mélanie Nowik from Isomir: “We help build innovative new projects in local economies”

Isomir is one of the projects supported by danone.communities, Danone’s fund for social business. We met Mélanie Nowik, its project manager, who explains how this innovative project helps farmers to keep control over their businesses.

Isomir (“Industrialisation solidaire en milieu rural”, which means social industrialization in rural areas), is a social business that helps farmers to widen their range of activities in order to remain economically stable. Danone.communities was one of the first shareholders to join the Isomir project when it started in 2010. Two years later, Mélanie tells us about this initiative, which offers a new way of reconstructing and strengthening the social and economic network in rural areas.

Farm to table

It all started with Adie (a business initiative support association), which realized that small producers needed business stability solutions and thus began working with FNCUMA (the national federation of agricultural equipment users’ cooperatives) to find these solutions. “To be able to survive long-term in a distribution channel, you have to be big. However, it is currently difficult for new farmers to set up: there is not much land available so they often have to start on a very small scale. New strategies must be found to allow them to take control of their businesses”, explains Mélanie. The idea is simple: to allow these farmers to work on “farm to table” distribution channels and thus widen the scope of their businesses. Isomir was created to achieve this.

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Editorial by Franck Riboud, CEO of Danone

We are pleased to provide you with the editorial written by Franck Riboud, CEO of Danone, on the 2011 Annual Sustainability Report.

“People often ask me why Danone’s sustainable development action places such importance on social innovation projects. For example, why did we include this focus in the individual targets of the company’s 1,400 managers? Why have we set up investment funds like the Danone Ecosystem Fund and, more recently, the Livelihoods Fund? What economic benefit can a major corporation like Danone expect in return? And should we continue in this way despite the difficult and uncertain global context?

My answer to those who might be tempted to turn back is simple: in sustainable development more than any other area, we can only rise to the challenges if we are able to develop radically different approaches. This requires the ability to explore and try out new ways. It is therefore more vital than ever that Danone’s eyes and ears be wide open to the world, to meet current expectations and make the necessary changes to prepare the company for those of tomorrow. Our approach of being an open-minded company seeking to co-design new solutions with our stakeholders is firmly rooted in Danone’s culture and model and contributes to our overall long-term performance.

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Event minutes: What if I dared to make my own way?

Last Tuesday, danone.communities and the student association NOISE brought together 400 people in Parisian business school ESCP to reflect on making professional life count. An inspiring dialogue with Emmanuel Faber, Deputy General Manager of Danone, and entrepreneurs Marie Trellu-Kane, Miora Ranaivoarinosy and Olivier Cueille on meaningfulness… and the urge to change the world.

As the room slowly fills with people, music plays. “Stand by me”, “Redemption Song”, “Imagine”… peaceful and friendly songs that provide the soundtrack to a spectacular video made by young French highliners: these students travel the world to push their limits and confront their fears in breathtaking landscapes. Their project bears the name “I believe I can fly”. The best possible introduction for last Tuesday’s conference, organised jointly by danone.communities and the student association NOISE (New Monitoring Centre for Social and Environmental Innovation). The theme of the night: “Sens dessus dessous. Et si j’osais tracer ma propre route?”  “Sens” is “meaning” in French, and “sens dessus dessus” means “upside down”. What if I dared to make my own way? The event addressed a question that many young graduates face: how to make their way through a meaningful and fulfilling professional life. To many, finding their own place and utility will likely be related to social business and/or environmental concern. Which explains why almost all of the speakers, led by hosts Olivier Maurel (from danone.communities) and Makeba Chamry-Makhamat (founder of Mankai Factory), focused on these subjects.

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Naandi Community Water Services “Quenching thirst in rural areas”

By Laurence Saquer, reblogged from Danone.Communities:

On Monday, one of the biggest information website in India has published an article about Naandi Community Water Services.

Why is it important? It is important because Naandi Community Water Services is one of our projects that are the most impactful. We are happy that the NCWS team is such highlighted, congratulations to their work ! Moreover, this article enters deeply into the daily life of the project, that is always much more meaningful that anything.

Read the beginning of this article just below.

“What better elixir than pure water? Thanks to Naandi, a safe drinking water programme, 390 536 households in rural areas across four Indian states are benefited.

Naandi, headquartered in Hyderabad, is a not-for-profit organization which works with governing bodies in rural areas, including Karnataka, to provide clean drinking water to the poor. So what really is their modus operandi? It is essentially a community-run programme where the local governing body or gram panchayat owns a water purifying plant, which is set up and run by Naandi’s water division field officers. Funds collected from donors go towards equipping each unit, replete with purifiers. Thereafter, beneficiaries are given a monthly card, which they produce at the unit while collecting their share of water. The cards are duly punched to keep a tab on the quantity of water consumed. The value of each card is equal to the total sum of money paid for the beneficiary’s monthly water consumption.

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Poverty Reduction through Social Business?

On paper, Social Business is a great concept, and an exciting alternative to “business as usual”. But does it really work? This is one of the questions which will be debated on May 15th at danone.communities big gathering called “General Community Meeting”. In the meantime, their team had the priviledge to publish on their blog two chapters of Kerstin Humberg’s latest book on how social business can contribute to reduce poverty. We encourage you to discover the results of her research from the field.

Reblogged from danone.communities: 

Kerstin Humberg is a Business Consultant with a leading international management consultancy for several years. During her academic career in geography, Kerstin has conducted researches about the impact of social business in the fight against poverty. For three years, she traveled on the field, in Bangladesh, many times, to study Grameen joint ventures, including Grameen Danone Foods Ltd. The result of her work has been published in a book entitled « Poverty Reduction trhough Social Business ? ».

We are lucky because she allowed us to publish two chapters :

• Chapter 2 : « Mapping the field : social business and relevant contexts »
• And Chapter 7 (a GDFL case) : « Grameen Danone Foods Ltd. : Fortified Yoghurt for the Poor ».

Finally, for those who wish to go further, devour the bibliography of this academic research that lays the groundwork for a debate about the impact of social business. Happy reading!

« Communities in the South need to be invited to play an active role in the growing global sustainability movement » - Camilla Burg, WiserEarth

Camilla Burg, communications and outreach director for Wiser.org, the social network for sustainability, shares her thoughts on the need for greater connectivity and collaboration among those working on sustainability issues around the world, and how technology can help to drive social innovation.

Camilla Burg is the communications and outreach director of Wiser.org, the Social Network for Sustainability (also known under the name WiserEarth). This project, which originated in 2005 in the United States, aims to connect people, organizations and groups who are working in the many fields of sustainable development. The network is about to turn 5 years old and over the past 2 years has been made available in French, Bahsa Indonesian, Chinese, German, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish (and more languages are on their way). It now has 70 000 members – or « 70 000 community managers », as Camilla says. It thus seemed pertinent to have a discussion with her about how  technology, applied to sustainability, is creating a new frame for environmental and social justice issues.

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Global Communities Meeting Tour 2012

Reblogged from danone.communities:

Since 2008 danone.communities has been organizing an annual inspiring event in Paris: the General Community Meeting was dedicated to promote social business and share improvements initiated on danone.communities projects, and connect thousands of fans and experts.

For 2012, the ambition is to go further. We want to accelerate the social business dynamic, with partners, throughout the year, all over the world, to reach much more people. Our ambition is to create a process to stimulate international, interconnected and interactive events: we name it the Global Communities Meeting Tour 2012 !

One of the momentum will be the 15th May in Paris: a large conference with Professor Yunus gathering 2000 people… Save the date !