The Role of Sustainability-oriented Social Enterprises in Boosting Green Livelihoods and Business Opportunities in Rural Contexts

The case study The Role of Sustainability-oriented Social Enterprises in Boosting Green Livelihoods and Business Opportunities in Rural Contexts reviews the cases of capacity building and knowledge improvement of rural livelihood in rural communities related to sustainable and low-carbon solutions. The reviewed sub-cases show that implementation of local integrated systems of solutions addressing energy, water, shelter and other livelihood needs at community level require paying major attention to enabling social processes and organizational capacities rather than only focusing on a given technological innovation.

TARA-DA promotes public-private-people collaborations to grow local capacities and create the conditions for greater economic inclusion. This intervention is multi-scale, ranging from local to national and transnational level. The whole philosophy of DA is that the new community projects or businesses become completely independent from DA, for which the DA will eventually only assist in counted occasions. TARA-DA’s engagement with local communities and entrepreneurs aims at developing solutions adhered to the triple bottom line principles of “people-planet-profit”. TARA-DA’s initiatives have proven to achieve significant positive impacts from implementing socio-technological innovations among others. One example was a model of green building aimed at reducing the waste stream and fertile soil extraction, which supported local employment and generated a low-cost alternative to the building materials, highlighting the key role played by vision-led intermediary agents in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

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