Aussie Shared Value organisation partners with FSG
4 June 2014 at 9:31 am
Shared value pioneer Mark Kramer’s Australian tour kicked off with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between social impact Not for Profit FSG and the Shared Value Project.
The partnership will see both groups work collaboratively as part of the Shared Value Initiative (SVI), an FSG-run international network intended to raise awareness and build a global community of practice.
Shared Value Project Chair, Peter Yates AM, and Mark Kramer, Co-Founder and MD of FSG, Kramer said the Shared Value Project’s success in Australia made it the right partner for SVI.
“Over the past two years SVI and FSG have enjoyed a strong and mutually supportive relationship with the Shared Value Project as we have strived to raise awareness for the potential of shared value as a business strategy,” he said.
Shared Value is a management term that seeks opportunity for business in solving social problems. These may be whole of society issues or those more local to a company’s operations and markets.
The Shared Value Project said the new partnership established the organisation as the peak practice body for the shared value discipline in Australasia.
The Not for Profit was established in 2011 by Melbourne social impact consultant, Rhod Ellis-Jones, to explore the concept, first published by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer in the January 2011 edition of the Harvard Business Review.
Chair Peter Yates said demand had rapidly increased for knowledge sharing and practice development in the area of shared value.
“Shared value represents the evolution of corporate social responsibility. It’s about achieving social impact and business returns, an important shift in thinking if we are to start solving the intractable social problems of our times,” he said.
After experiencing escalating demand, it was incorporated in February this year with experienced member organisation leader, Ms Helen Steel, appointed as Executive Director.
“The Shared Value Project was initiated to put ‘meat on the bones’ of the shared value concept and understand the concerns or perceived barriers to adoption in Australia.
That meant getting CSR, sustainability and innovation experts to consider practice models, and executives and board members of Australian corporations and not-for-profit organisations to debate its promise,” said Mr Ellis-Jones, Founder & Deputy Chair, Shared Value Project.
“There is no doubt this is a fast forming discipline and an ascendant idea at a time we need focus and consolidation in the business led social impact space.”
