Merito all'inventiva

Per una volta il servizio pubblico fornito dalla RAI ha sortito un effetto molto positivo, ho scoperto una realtà imprenditoriale di tutto rispetto. TOO Italy è la bottega artigiana 2.0, unisce la capacità manuale, la personalizzazione e l'innovazione dei materiali in un solo prodotto, la borsa.

Un accessorio amato dalle donne, apprezzato dagli uomini, un pezzo che esprime l'essenza della personalità di ognuno di noi. C'è chi preferisce la tote bag, dove ci puoi riporre tutto il mondo comodamente, chi lo zainetto, per avere la comodità del movimento, chi la borsetta piccola, essenziale, pratica e trendy.

Bhè, TOO Italy propone una vastissima gamma di tipologie di borse per soddisfare tutti i gusti, anche quelli più esigenti e coscienti. Sì, perchè le borse utilizzano materiali inusuali e eco-compatibili, PVC, Gore-tex, Sued, il mondo della moda si sta accorgendo solo ora della potenzialità di questi materiali.

Innovazione e artigianalità completamente Made in Italy!

Collezione P/E 2016 TOO Italy

Infatti, tutti i processi, dalla ricerca dei materiali, al design, alla realizzazione sono interamente ad opera di tre ragazzi ingegnosi e visionari che si sono imbarcati in questa avventura tutta all'insegna della moda e dell'estetica nel 2011.

Alessia, Giovanna e Ciro, dopo un inizio con i fiocchi ad AltaRoma e presso la Camera di Commercio di Dallas, hanno deciso di spostarsi ad Orvieto. Qui sono stati accolti con entusiasmo sia dai turisti sia dai "locali", che non hanno saputo resistere al richiamo dell'innovazione delle borse. 

Giovanna Gentili, Ciro Schiaroli, Alessia Stendardo,
il team di TOO Italy

Insieme racchiudono l'eccellenza italiana, Alessia e Giovanna provengono dal mondo del design, mentre Ciro mette a disposizione l'esperienza internazionale nel campo commerciale, codificando così una formula vincente che sta portando TOO Italy sul palcoscenico internazionale della moda.

Dopo solo 5 anni dall'apertura del primo lab romano, TOO Italy conta oltre 70 punti vendita conquistando quasi tutte le regioni italiane. Questa accoglienza trasversale e benevola del mercato, dà la spinta essenziale per il prossimo passo, espandersi verso i mercati stranieri, operazione certo complessa ma per la quale questi giovani artisti hanno tutte le carte in regola.

La loro filosofia abbraccia la trasformazione del materiale che viene scorporato della sua natura e a cui viene conferito un altro scopo più idealistico e di maggiore impatto estetico. Infatti, i loro punti di forza sono anche le caratteristiche che li fanno spiccare, differenziandoli da altri brand e designer. 

Collezione P/E 2014 TOO Italy

Prima di tutto i materiali, innovativi, impensabili e, potremmo dire, quasi fuori luogo in un armadio, ma che invece lo arricchiscono con la loro semplicità e look industriale. Certo, il PVC pone sfide e problematiche che il team ha dovuto padroneggiare e risolvere, ma di sicuro il risultato lascia a bocca aperta, per la sua grazia e per la sua innovazione. Le rifiniture sono degne delle borse di pelle, il design semplice, chic, e adatte a tutti gli stili di vita. 

TOO Italy Lab, Orvieto

Altro punto di forza è l'artigianalità, l'essere una bottega inventiva e flessibile, che riesce a rispondere alle variazioni di mercato, purtroppo in questo periodo un po' invalidanti per far fiorire un'attività. Grazie a delle politiche commerciali adattabili, TOO Italy riesce a garantire flessibilità e qualità alla produzione. Tutti i  materiali sono 100% italiani, dal PVC ai tessuti che impreziosiscono i modelli. Una produzione partita all'insegna del riciclo, con una politica di comprare scampoli e materiali di fine produzione, per dare l'agilità necessaria ad una start up di questo genere.

La forza sta anche nei prezzi competitivi, infatti le borse, piccoli gioielli di architettura e design, sono più che accessibili, anche in tempi per noi amanti della moda non proprio floridi. 

Inventiva e coraggio sono la chiave di TOO Italy, che per questo si rivolge a persone che amano non prendersi troppo sul serio, che preferiscono l'originalità alla marchiatura delle griffe, che prendono la vita con coraggio e allegria.

TOO Italy è una bellissimo esempio dell'italico ingegno, partito come un progetto universitario, nutrito dalle numerose richieste di colleghi e amici, è arrivato ad essere una perla nel panorama artigianale italiano, dimostrando quanta voglia e preparazione ci sono nei nostri giovani.

Qui potete trovare il loro sito, TOO Italy, che sicuramente vi catturerà sia grazie alla bellezza delle borse sia grazie all'estetica delicata delle foto, capace di rapirvi e farvi innamorare dei loro prodotti. 

Se avete modo di farvi una passeggiata ad Orvieto, vi consiglio di dare personalmente un'occhiata al loro atelier/laboratorio; se invece siete impazienti di avere un pezzo di futuro nel vostro armadio, nel sito potete trovare una parte dedicata all'e-shopping.

Cosa aspettate?!?

Too beautiful, TOO Italy

Al prossimo incontro,

Eleonora

Ones to watch: Starbucks

We love its style and its fancy coffee, today we talk and analyze Starbucks, a god of matinee commuters and hipsters, of profits and CSR. Would Steiner have agreed with its corporate aims? Would he have liked their coffee?!?

Founded in 1971, Starbucks started its climbing of Olympus in 1987 thanks to Howard Schultz, it is now a coffe empire with more than 23.000 shops around the world.
After the expansion period, the goal for 2000s was to architect a new approach to ethics, one path was to ensure long-term supply of high quality coffee for customers, the other was to positively impact lives of coffee farmers and their communities. Schultz constructed a holistic model that could include more objectives in order to address effectively efforts and resources.

In 2004, Starbucks launched Coffee and Farmer Equity, C.A.F.E., it is one of first attempt od the coffee industry of comprehensive sustainability standards. Since the first year proclaimed the program a success, Starbucks purchased 43 million pounds of green coffee which is 14.5% of total green coffee purchases. For this and because of strong social responsibility, Schultz decided to make the program open source encouraging others in the industry to join this initiative.
C.A.F.E. Practices has a positive impact on millions of workers, and improved the long-term environmental and social conditions on thousands of participating farms around the world.

As the good example of social business, Starbucks understands the importance of communities well-being. Granting secured loans to farmers helps manage risks and strengthen businesses. For sure, this involvement and care of economic status of farmers produces double-faced benefits, as the stability of coffee communities impacts farmers and their ability both to be productive and to raise sustainable crops. From $150,000 of value of loans in 2000, the program loaned up to $12 million in 2014 to farmers, therefore increasing the benefits for both parties.
Moreover, in order to enrich the pool dedicated to CSR investment, in 2014, by funding through sales of Ethos Water brand, Starbucks is able to support critical infrastructure improvements and agricultural diversification projects in many developing countries, like Tanzania and the project to make accessible clean water, sanitation facilities, and renewable energy.

Great importance in the ethics program is given to environment. Addressing climate change is the key to be competitive while ethical, it makes the world better. Minimizing environmental footprint and creating sustainable franchising is the main approach to green retail. This means building more energy efficient stores and facilities, conserving energy and water, investing in renewable energy,and exploring new solutions for recycling.

However, the jewel of CSR of Starbucks is the focus on people, on its employees. First of all, they are partners, and since names are important, it is fundamental to notice that partners is different form coffee operator of bartender. The success of Starbucks is double-linked to the performance of its partners. In order to attract people that share Starbucks vision, the wage is fair, benefits provided and many activities to enrich human capabilities. Thanks to Starbucks College Achievement Plan in 2014, an innovative education benefit to help Starbucks partners complete their degrees online through Arizona State University. This initiative gives a boost to provided benefits. In order to help society, Starbucks has multi-year strategy to hire 10,000 veterans and military spouses by 2018. Moreover, Starbucks Community Stores programme supports local non-profit organisations in their efforts to provide training and education that can eradicate the cycle of poverty for young people. With more than nine stores opened, Starbucks raised over $900,000 toward local non-profit organisations focused on providing opportunities to young people in those communities. The Community Stores model creates a reliable stream of resources for the non-profit organisation, raises awareness of their work, and creates a space for community dialogue and engagement, which is the founding part of social responsibility. Starbucks has the power to get together people and stakeholder in volunteer service helping communities around the world.

For what we understand, Starbucks is the perfect example of social responsibility and social threefolding. For sure, Steiner would have liked the way business is run by Schultz. The ethics that underlines Starbucks reflects what a social business should be and should care of. Employees are treated humanly, considered the essential part of the success of this coffee empire. Suppliers are fostered to improve living conditions and helped to be better and more competitive suppliers. Environment is respected and a valuable asset to the essence of the business; clean water, a stable climate means better coffee crops, meaning better and more coffee, meaning more profits. Communities are helped and sustained thanks to special cooperation with local non-profit organizations.

I am quite sure that Steiner would have been proud of Starbucks, but maybe not a costumer :)

'Til our next meeting,
Eleonora

Ones to watch - Johnson & Johnson

This is the case where the good guy turns out to be the worst guy.

After many scandals, I think that after this one J&J will have the hardest time in its long career.

But first, we are going to know J&J for the good company it seemed to everybody.

Johnson & Johnson is an American multinational organization established in 1886 and comprehends numerous brands related to medical aid, personal care products and medical devices. Johnson & Johnson has 250 subsidiary companies in over 57 countries, and its products are sold in 175 countries. Johnson & Johnson gives jobs to almost 118000 employees around the world.

Its credo was crafted by Robert Wood Johnson II in 1943, and it incorporates principles of Corporate Social Responsibility, even before the first theories about aim of firms have been formulated, Johnson & Johnson believes that credo is the base for a successful company strategy. It was modernized thanks to meetings in which executives challenged the values of 1943 credo and formed new values. At the same time, meetings were a tools for spreading these new values over the company. 

Principal objective that Johnson & Johnson pursues is community and stakeholder well-being. 

Credo states that Johnson & Johnson is responsible to its clients, “doctors, nurses, patients, suppliers, customers, employees, communities and stockholders“(Johnson & Johnson Credo). These are really noble believes which give merit to the company and to the executive board.

Furthermore, Johnson & Johnson references to sustainability in holistic term, including social, environmental and economic sustainability of operations. For this, Johnson & Johnson was ranked at number one of Corporate Social Responsibility Index, gaining a score of 82.67 out of hundred. Study (Johnson & Johnson Again Ranked Tops for CSR, 2010), conducted by Boston College Center and Reputation Institute and based on a survey conducted in January and February 2010 on 77190 American consumers, analyzed public perception of American companies and their social impact, Corporate Citizenship ( Logsdon, Wood, 2002), ethics, transparency and workplace practices. This primacy of Johnson & Johnson gives prestige to socially addressed programs and it highlights the careful eye that Johnson & Johnson reserve to society, or it was just a distraction from the dirty secrets it retained.

Environment, first of all, has been, since 1993, a principal goal for Johnson & Johnson, the organization, in fact, tries to reduce toxic emissions, reduce pollution and it tries to reach healthy planet goals. Johnson and Johnson is proud to have met the pre-established goals and sometimes even exceeding them. Moreover, Johnson and Johnson every five years set up new goals to meet in environmental protection. Environmental protection is for Johnson and Johnson a reason of good reputation among its consumers and a cause of primacy over worldwide competitors.

In the Credo, there is explicitly referenced by Johnson and Johnson its commitment to its employees. J&Johnson pursues to respect employees and to award their merits, it ensures protection at work with human and decent working conditions. Organization is constructed around employees and their responsibility towards their families, also thanks to fair and adequate compensation and to possibilities of personal and working growth. The attention toward employees as men is the aspect that Steiner describes. In his lectures, Steiner makes clear the need to stop consider workforce as mere instruments and as valueless commodities. The providing of instruments and possibilities, that allow men to evolve and develop themselves, is what Steiner predicates and what Johnson & Johnson does. 

Johnson and Johnson takes responsibility also towards stockholders and the creation of value, that make possible the investment in research and fostering innovation with benefits of consumers and society. Here, Johnson & Johnson puts in place a good example of coexistence of Economics realm and Culture sphere. Thanks to economic process that creates capital, the cultural aspects of the organization, that could be research, ideation and development of an idea, are fostered and spurred. As Steiner dictates, and as Johnson & Johnson does, the two spheres coexist but they do not overwhelm one the other, maintaining independency of the spheres.

Furthermore, Johnson and Johnson is responsible toward communities where it works and where employees live. Johnson and Johnson feels responsible for supporting good citizen actions from both sides of organization and communities. So forth, Johnson and Johnson implements policies and conducts aimed at fostering ethical decisions and behaviors among its employees and neighbors.

Their good actions are valuable, but we don't forget the numerous and outrageous scandals that J&J cyclically faces.

In 1986, it came the need to withdraw Tylenol, when some deaths were assessed to be caused by this drug. The drug in 80s ruled the U.S. analgesic market with 35% of market share and it counted almost 15% of Johnson and Johnson’s profit. Although Johnson & Johnson knew they were not responsible for the tampering of the product, they assumed responsibility by ensuring public safety first and recalled all of their capsules from the market.The ready crisis management stemmed scared consumers and over 1 billion of dollar of value loss. Johnson and Johnson solved the problem by recall every package of Tylenol and promised to release new Tylenol only after having improved product protection. Johnson and Johnson, in this way, was able to contain and reestablish trust of consumers. Thank to a correct crisi management and CSR, within five months from Tylenol crisis, Johnson and Johnson recovered 70% of drug market share. Moreover, it has been showed by studies that many consumers, reassured by quick and efficient actions taken by Johnson and Johnson, switched from other painkiller drugs to Tylenol. This fostered again trust and faith in the strong sense of social responsibility of the organization; in this way, losses incurred because of withdrawal and re-packaging were recovered by future revenues. This demonstration of efficient and fast-response crisis management supported by CSR, implemented at Johnson and Johnson since then, made it one of the largest and financially strongest organization.

From 1999 through 2005, J&J and its subsidiary  promoted Risperdal for unapproved uses, including controlling aggression and anxiety in elderly dementia patients and treating behavioral disturbances in children and in individuals with disabilities, according to the complaint. The off-label marketing cost U.S. government insurance programs hundreds of millions of dollars in uncovered claims (Ingram, Reuters, 2013). The company paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to Omnicare Inc, the nation's largest pharmacy specializing in dispensing drugs to nursing home patients, under various guises including "educational funding." Johnson & Johnson's conduct "recklessly put at risk" the health of children, dementia patients and others. Johnson & Johnson settled to pay $2.2 billion, without an admission of any liability or wrongdoing, and the company expressly denies the government's civil allegations.

The news of few days ago pushed J&J under the terrible light of consciously providing the market with cancerous products. A Missouri jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $72 million to the family of a woman whose death by ovarian cancer was linked to her daily use of J&J products. According to the case, Johnson & Johnson knew about the cancer link but failed to warn consumers. Due to the inefficiency and old-ageing law about personal products and their ingredients, dated 1938, J&J could exploit these missing spots in order to market many products with dangerous elements, like formaldeide in baby showers. 

The question is what made J&J the bad guy, when did they decide that profit is more important that safety and health of consumers, where J&J is going to end up.

And most important, will consumers still have faith and trust in J&J and their products?

"During life you make the biggest mistakes not because you prospect wrong solutions (these are generally utopias) but rather because questions are set incorrectly, not prospecting them based on true observation and knowledge of life. "

Rudolf Steiner, 1921

Until our next meeting,

Eleonora

Ones to watch - Weleda

Not many of you know Weleda.

It has been developing anthroposophic medicines and natural cosmetic products since 1921. Weleda is a multinational organization that produces natural personal care and pharmaceutical products. In 1922, Rudolf Steiner and physician Ida Wegman founded Weleda, based on human Threefolding, with the intention to establish a softer and wiser approach to medicine, this effort created anthroposophic medicine. Weleda is one of the most known provider of anthoposophic drugs and natural cosmetics, it counts almost 2000 employees worldwide. 

Weleda's mission is to maintain human beings healthy, by providing products that satisfy human needs at three levels, psychological, physical and social level. Its efforts are dedicated to satisfaction of those consumers that choose to heal in a responsible and natural way . Weleda's values are founded on respect, love and responsibility toward nature and man, and, for this, it can be considered one of the first socially responsible organizations. 

RAW MATERIALS AND PARTNERS

Indeed, Weleda's sustainability is shown by its operations and decisions about raw materials, that are plants grown using biodynamic methods, described by Steiner (1924), and that come from fair trade partners. Company undertakes programs of education of suppliers, farmers, physicians, pharmacists and consumers. Weleda certifies that its products are not tested on animals, and that are used strict and modern quality controls. Weleda uses 80% of raw material coming from biological farming and fair trade organizations. 

Weleda collaborates with 20 direct subsidiaries and it has partnerships in 53 countries. It developed numerous partnerships to allow the provision the ingredients from small and large farms, cooperatives and cultivation projects, all while committing to sustainable, fair trade practices.

Fair trade is an organized social movement by which companies empower small producers and promote sustainability. According to fair trade practices, a fair price is paid for crops, training and education is granted to small farmers, assisting them in converting more farms into Biodynamic or organic ones. The farmers get a living wage, the world gets more sustainable harvesting practices.

The so-built partnerships enable to promote the social and environmental impact of fair trade practices and to spread the practice of organic and Biodynamic principles. Biodynamic methods rejects chemical pesticides, fertilizers and GM ingredients, while embracing everything that influences healthy growth. In this way, there is an harmonic growth and harvest with seasons, surrounding plants, insects, birds and even planets. This ecological system does not merely belong to Weleda but is recognized worldwide and for adhering to its strict guidelines endorsed by Demeter Certification.

This commitment, in the short run, can be an expensive choice, however, thanks to medium term contracts that ensure price stability, quality materials and protection from market speculation, biological products can be the good choice in economic terms. 

THE ENVIRONMENT

In order to respect the environment, Weleda uses green energy, in fact, it has sponsored the building of a warming system functioning with the scraps of woods near its factory in Switzerland. Consequently, CO2 are expected to decrease of about 120 tons.

Thanks to eco-friendly mobility, employees from the Weleda sites in Germany, Switzerland and France took part in a health-promoting initiative to help the environment. Twenty-seven teams totaling 104 employees swapped cars for bikes for their journeys to work. The participants all got pedaling with a great deal of fun and commitment and covered a total distance of 16,456 Km. By way of comparison, a car would have emitted 2.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Careful in using drinkable water, Weleda keeps an eye on waste management, as, for example, the implementation of wastewater treatment plant is used to clean waste water from the kitchen and sanitary facilities of the buildings.

Ninety-eight per cent of waste was recycled, sixty-three per cent of all recoverable materials are reused or composted. Thirty-four per cent of recoverable materials are incinerated. 

EMPLOYEES

Weleda’s conception of humanity and understanding of nature determined the identity as an authentic, value-oriented company. In view of the founding principle of Weleda and the growing competition, identifying with this culture and experiencing a meaningful community within the organisation is a key differentiator. The employees are recognized as the most important ambassadors of the Weleda brand.

Weleda has care of its employees. For example, Weleda France opens a kindergarten for employees’ children. In this way, Weleda fosters equilibrium between daily life and work that can be hard to find and maintain. Weleda tries to improve stakeholder communication through informative events, sustainability reports, website and Weleda Journal distributed world widely. Stakeholder engagement pursues to spread the concept of sustainability and responsibility among consumers, suppliers and partners. It received many awards by critics, consumers and agencies for ethics certification. Weleda, in the end, is meant to represent how a sustainable, threefold and responsible organization can run operations and strategies, and can provide quality products and increase its researches and investment in development of new product lines.

Weleda cares of training and educating its employees with an internationally oriented curriculum on “Weleda’s identity and basic values”. Based on the principle of “perception, transformation and healing”, participants have the opportunity to intensively examine anthroposophic aspects as well as getting to know Weleda’s values, history and products, mindfulness, saluto-genesis, resilience and biographical counselling are also addressed. Since the launch of the curriculum in 2008, more than 200 employees and managers have taken part. 

The increasing regulations in Germany started in 1993 had stopped the demand for anthroposophic drugs, because of an increasing in prices and shock from consumers’side. However, Weleda responded well and efficiently to governmental shocks by cutting its offered medicines and by improving processes. Moreover, Weleda launched a money market fund in 1998 through a German ethical investment bank. This increased Weleda capital to 10 million euro in 2005, just by having grouped ethical and responsible investors. At this point, Weleda could be profitable again also on the medicine side and it expanded its medical market and processing capacity, that has been essential for increasing product lines to offer to consumers.

Source: Annual and Sustainability Report 2014, Weleda

The 2014 financial year was marked by further solid growth, the expansion of marketing activities and increased innovation. Coupled with a healthy discipline on costs, both the result for the year and cash flow were once again extremely positive at Group level in 2014. There was a further significant reduction in net debt, enabling Weleda to continue to enhance its independence. The solid basis created over recent years means that the company can look to a confident future.

Source: Annual and Sustainability Report 2014, Weleda

I present you a social business, careful to environment, health, future, climate, nature, men and women.

Did you hear about Weleda? I think now you are going to love it!

Until our next meeting,

Eleonora

Ones to watch - Social Businesses

We are going to start a journey, investigating the culture and the aspects of all the firms and organizations which take care not only of profits but mostly of people.

It is important to have an in-deep knowledge of firms, in order to address our interests, from purchasing interests to job-seeking interests.

Nowadays, Social Businesses are defined as those companies that have a Facebook page or Twitter account. However, this is a restricted definition, because social business should be considered as an organizational culture based on collaboration and community sense.

According to IBM (Social Business, 2012), there are three main characteristics that define a business social:

- engagement, which is a deep connection between firms and people, directly involved in operations,     in order to integrate their efforts in a productive way; 

- transparency of information, this increases cohesion within the firm;  

- nimbleness,  the ability to anticipate external opportunities and to response to threats.

We need to look behind simple definitions, social business has a deeper economic and social meaning. According to Professor Yunus (2008), social business is a non-loss and non-dividend firm whose aim is to address and to be responsive to social issues, as poverty and malnutrition. The particularity of Yunus’ social business is its mission and aim, which is not growing value shared between shareholders, but the improvement of social status.
Prof. Yunus describes principles that define a social business and that social business should follow. First of all, social business’ aim is to defeat poverty or, at least, propone solutions to this social problem; as said before, profit maximization is not an objective of the firm, so forth, investors have no claim for dividends, profits, generated after investors’ payments, is exclusively used for improvement and enlargement of the business; a social business is both socially and environmental responsible; workers are entitled to receive market level wages and to have human and decent working conditions; and, last advice, it needs to run the business with joy and passione.

There is, in business, an example of anti-social organization and strategy. Nestlè Corporation, for years, hired nurses in Africa that would have been promoting its infant formula. However, the powdered milk needs clean water, that is not easily available in Africa, this unethical marketing strategy brought many children to illness. This story can be analyzed under two forms of business thinking; according to Friedman (1970), profit maximizing objective pursued by Nestlè Corp. was right and perfectly economically justified; according to Prof. Yunus (2008), this practice is counterproductive in social terms, in fact, children come in second place after profits.
Other story for Grameen Danone (Yunus, 2009), which is a social business, and whose objective is defeating malnutrition in Bangladesh. Its business plan is around the commercialization of nutrient enriched foods at an affordable price, in order to allow also the poorest children and families to get an healthy nutrition. Grameen Danone, being a non-dividend social business, measures its own success not on the basis of stock value or generated profit, but on the basis of how many children are out of malnutrition within a year, so its success is the approaching of business’ mission.

Prof. Yunus believes so much in this approach that he is the creator and supporter of micro-credit and he founded, in 1976, the first micro-credit institution, Grameen Bank, in Bangladesh. Micro-credit has as objective the provision of economic and financial tools to persons otherwise excluded by traditional bank system.
Yunus’ founding belief of micro-credit bank is that the poor has skills and abilities that, unfortunately, cannot be expressed because of lack of trust in this category on the behalf of traditional profit-seeking banks. Credit must be considered a human right and not a privilege, the binding connection between lender and borrowers is trust in not creditworthy persons and in their businesses that constitute principal source of sustainment of poor families.
Micro-credit philosophy believes in capacity of the poor and the disadvantaged, for this, micro-credit institutions have flourished in many underprivileged parts of the world, as Africa, Mexico and India.
Grameen Bank has something like  8 million borrowers, and 97% of these are women that started a business thanks to micro finance, thanks to micro-credit over 18% of beggars that received a loan stopped to beg and became small entrepreneurs.

Through the lens of Social Threefolding principles of Steiner, social business and micro-credit can foster economic stability among society, can bring cultural initiatives and improvements to almost everyone.
Grameen Bank encourages education of children and kids, and more than 42000 students can afford
medical and engineering schools thanks to micro-finance (Yunus, 2009). Micro-finance philosophy overspread also in the richest countries, as America and Europe, to help poor people that in rich countries feel more pressure and have less opportunity of social redemption.
According to Perlas (2009), there is a new trend about micro-finance, which is strategic micro-finance. This trend has been developed first in Philippine, and it represents a creative response to the social issues, as poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy. Strategic micro-credit is used to finance both economic and cultural projects; however, be careful in not making Economics and Culture spheres overlap, and in maintaining always independent the spheres and their principles.

As we have seen, social business can be an efficient sum of social responsibility and social Threefolding, as expressed by Steiner, and can be implemented in order to reach social and environmental goals and to give a new humanity to men.
What we have to do is helping this change and make it possible for everyone.

Until our next meeting,

Eleonora