With the support of the SIE Fund, new research from Hong Kong Social Entrepreneurship Forum (HKSEF), Innofoco, SIX and Cimigo, explores how businesses, specifically SMEs, can reinvent themselves by working together with stakeholders to build a ‘new normal’ that works for everyone in post pandemic Hong Kong.
The study includes desk research, surveys, and interviews with over 100 business leaders and stakeholders, and 16 case studies from local, regional, and global perspectives. Identifying challenges and opportunities for SMEs in adopting CSV (‘creating shared value’) practices, the report also presents a first step CSV guide for business leaders, and recommendations to all stakeholders to build a thriving CSV ecosystem in Hong Kong.
The Business for Good movement is growing globally, highlighting how companies, big and small, can achieve competitive advantages by integrating social and environmental considerations into their strategies. In recent years, this movement has also gained momentum in Hong Kong, driven partly by the ESG disclosure requirements of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX).
Whilst environmental considerations have often dominated the ESG narrative to date, there is now a growing global emphasis towards finding ways to embrace and promote social factors into core business practice to simultaneously drive growth and create shared value.
In November 2020, together with HKSEF, Innofoco and EY, SIX launched the Business for Good: Understanding the Motivations for Business to Create Shared Value Report, exploring the ‘creating shared value’ movement in Hong Kong and making recommendations of how businesses can engage with different stakeholders.
Since then, the pandemic exacerbated social and economic challenges in Hong Kong, pushing businesses, especially SMEs, to adapt and innovate to stay relevant in this ‘new normal’. Embracing ‘doing well by doing good’ offers one pathway to recovery, fostering win-win relationships that benefit customers, employees, stakeholders in the value chain and the wider community.
For more information on the Business for Good 2.0: Building the New Normal with Stakeholders report, please get in touch at zaf@socialinnovationexchange.org.
