Strategy and Sustainability Awareness in the Danish Fourth Sector

The newly emerging Fourth Sector combines a strong social or environmental mission with business practices, and could potentially play a catalysing role in moving society towards sustainability. This thesis explores the extent that Danish social businesses and enterprises are using a strategic susta...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Carswell, Cassandra, Filshie, Stuart, Osinga, Yvette, Zophoniasdottir, Solveig
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Sektionen för ingenjörsvetenskap 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-1928
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Summary:The newly emerging Fourth Sector combines a strong social or environmental mission with business practices, and could potentially play a catalysing role in moving society towards sustainability. This thesis explores the extent that Danish social businesses and enterprises are using a strategic sustainable development approach and discusses how such an approach could potentially strengthen their core business. The analytical framework we used is the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, complemented with sector specific elements. To gather our data we conducted twelve semi-structured interviews with Danish social enterprises and businesses, as well as expert interviews. Main findings include that few had both social and environmental goals, that they strategise informally, and few measure their impact. Recommendations to strengthen their core business include incorporating sustainability in their definition of success, making their decision-making framework explicit, and measure and communicate impacts. === Fjärde sektorn kombinerar ett starkt engagemang inom det sociala eller miljöområdet med metoder från affärslivet. Dessa organisationer har potential att bidra till att samhället blir mer hållbart. Denna uppsats undersöker till vilken grad danska socialentreprenörer utnyttjar en strategisk ansats för hållbarhetsutveckling och diskuterar hur en sådan ansats skulle kunna stärka deras kärnverksamhet. Det analytiska ramverket som används är "Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development", som har kompletterats med sektorspecifika uppgifter. Studieresultat inkluderar att få av organisationerna satte mål inom både det sociala och miljöområdet samt att få mätte hur effekten av deras arbete. Rekommendationer för att stärka kärnverksamheten inkluderar att ta med hållbarhet inom framgångsdefinitionen, gör beslutsramverket explicit och mäta och kommunicera effekten av deras arbete. === <p>Stuart Filshie, +46 760-640 650</p>