Mal's Blog: Mal visits CRN Australia to talk Social Enterprises and Resources (19.08.11)

 

 

Mal was invited to speak at The Sydney forum in July to share his experiences of working within the social enterprise sector in the UK. It was attended by twelve organisations who came to share their experiences and enter into panel discussions about resource recovery enterprises in New South Wales, reverse garbage and work programmes. 

 

From the Community Recycling Network (CRN) Australia newsletter: 

 

"Make it available and usable for someone else. This is the principle that has made recycling enterprises very suc-cessful in the UK says Mal Williams from CRN UK. Mal was the guest at a CRNA Forum held recently in Sydney and sponsored by the NSW Office of Environment & Heri-tage.

It’s not just about selling a product but have principles around reuse and creating jobs, however is it a simple way of making money. The key to success is getting materials clean at their source, that’s what makes them usable for someone else. It is a totally different mindset- BEING CAREFUL RATHER THAN BEING CARELESS.

 

Enterprises need to focus on the back end, think local and on a human scale. As a consequence investment by governments in funding social enterprises get a much better outcome as they not only reduce waste but create jobs at the same time. While enterprises are often started by volunteers, with a little innovation they can quickly change to create paid jobs. In Europe waste is legislation driven a trend which will become more relevant in Australia. It’s important that you get governments on side and get them to under-stand the enterprise strategy.

 

Great gains can be made by working together but it is very important that a culture of sharing is developed. You need people on the ground working full time to make sure community enterprises are written into the script.

 

• CRNs need to link with sustainability organisations as they have more information on environmental sustainability and sustainability organisations need to link with CRNs as they have a better understanding of the social enterprise model. There also needs to be a better relationalship be-tween the highest and lowest paid workers to better un-derstand individual input. Organisations need to be re-porting annually on their social and environmental out-comes.

• CRNs need to be selling the message that investment in community based strategies will gain much better out-comes for governments and the local community. Local Government play an important role but it is essential that a formal contract is put in place so everybody under-stands the relationship and the expected outcomes. We must sell ourselves as providing important professional services.

Click the links to download the CRN Australia newsletters - July and August.