Social Enterprise Evidence Forum

Manufacturing Carpet Loom

On 1 August, Katherine Gibson and Joanne McNeill attended the Social Enterprise Evidence Forum organised by the Centre for Social Impact at Swinburne University in Melbourne.

Over 80 people attended the day-long forum, and participants included senior policymakers from national, state and local government, philanthropists, and social enterprise practitioners and researchers

Katherine and Joanne presented a paper based on the Shifting Manufacturing Culture research project (which includes co-researchers Jenny Cameron and Stephen Healy and is funded by the Australian Research Council, DP160101674).

The paper highlighted the crucial role that social enterprises can play in providing an avenue into the workforce for those who are marginalised, while also helping to address environmental concerns.

The paper featured case studies of the mattress recycling social enterprise, Soft Landing, and the multinational firm, Interface, who are both fostering partnerships between different types of businesses (including social enterprises) in order to address social and environmental issues and build a circular and just economy.

This research features in a paper based on the 2018 Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography, and published in Economic Geography.