Environment and Ecology

A new kind of capitalism has entered the 21^st century. On June 28, 2010, the first Social Business Day has been celebrated in Dhaka, Bangladesh, under the auspices of the Yunus Centre and the broader Grameen family. In his third book, “Building Social Business”, Muhammad Yunus – CEO of the Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize 2006 – provides for the various features of his new approach to business and development.

In a nutshell, a social business is a non-loss non-dividend company whose sole objective is to address a social problem. The book describes the rationale behind the concept of social business as well as its features and its legal and financial frameworks. Besides, one of its merits is to provide for either the theoretical aspects and the practical applications of the model, showing its potential and its limits at the same time.

Building Social Business turns out to be written in a simple prose which captures the attention and the imagination of the reader, who finds herself immersed in the stories of some the most advanced joint ventures, like Grameen Danone, Grameen Veolia, Grameen BASF, Grameen Adidas. And, of course, the Grameen Bank itself is run as a social business.