In social entrepreneurship, people, startups, and entrepreneurs work together to solve social problems by creating and funding innovative solutions. The key objective is to use the company to create positive societal changes. Some of the most important concerns for social entrepreneurs may include environmental sustainability, gender equality, renewal of energy, economic progress, etc. (Gupta et al., 2020). The business model that social entrepreneurs choose determines whether they perform as a for-profit, non-profit or hybrid enterprise. In this essay, the author has selected waste management as a prominent social and environmental issue in the modern era. For this problem, the main approach to social entrepreneurship has been identified and analyzed. Waste management is a local and global problem that has severely affected society, the environment and the nation's economy. For instance, hazardous waste produced from manufacturing or chemical industries and food waste in the UK are rising. About 6.4 million tonnes of drink and food waste were produced in 2020-21 from UK homes (Patel et al., 2021). This has accelerated the emission of greenhouse gases and contributed to the climate change problems. Hence, this paper has aimed to find an effective entrepreneurial approach to solve it using academic concepts and empirical data.
Social Entrepreneurship-Related Academic Concepts And Literature
Different approaches and concepts of social entrepreneurship and value
The primary goal of social entrepreneurs, as opposed to more conventional types of business owners, is to improve society at large or a specific area in which they live (Wu et al., 2020). Their goal is driven by a personal connection to the issues they support which is reflected in their company. There are mainly four types of social entrepreneurship approaches:
Community Social Entrepreneurship:
Community social entrepreneurs are social entrepreneurs who focus on meeting the needs of a specific geographic area, often their own neighbourhood (Zhang et al., 2022). The particulars of their venture are less important to this kind of social entrepreneur. They are entrepreneurs whose main objective is to improve their immediate community. In order to influence the distribution of resources within their town, this kind of civic entrepreneur often cultivates strong ties within the community.
Non-Profit Social Entrepreneurship:
The most prevalent kind of social entrepreneur is the non-profit social entrepreneur. Their declared mission is to help people in general rather than just their own community. The rise of online social entrepreneurship has made it simpler than ever to establish organizations with far-reaching goals.
Transformational Social Entrepreneurship:
A transformative social innovator is a common transition for a young nonprofit social company. Their purpose may expand as local nonprofits flourish. In order to expand their impact beyond a single program, this type of entrepreneurs seek out opportunities to grow their operations. Goodwill, which began as a little non-profit social company, has grown into a massive organization with a plethora of policies and procedures (Godwin et al., 2022).
Global Social Entrepreneurship:
Geographical boundaries are not always an issue for social entrepreneurs. Problems with living circumstances, despair, poverty or environmental problems are examples of societal issues that individuals may attempt to address (Anh et al., 2022). A social entrepreneur may focus on a particular area while attempting to address a problem. Nevertheless, these ingrained problems are often not limited to a particular area. The answers found in one field could be the result of research in another.
Over the last several decades, waste production has increased dramatically and shows no signs of declining. Municipal solid waste (MSW) volumes globally exceed two billion metric tonnes annually and are projected to rise by almost 70% by the year 2050 (Maalouf and Mavropoulos, 2023). There was a 2.3% rise from 2020 to 2021 in the amount of waste from homes produced in the UK, reaching approximately 27.6 million metric tonnes. Households in England were the biggest contributors, making up 83.6% or 23.1 million tonnes (figure 1). In that year, almost 2.4 million tonnes of household trash were produced in Scotland. The need for responsible trash treatment and disposal services provided by authorities has grown in recent years in response to the exponential growth in garbage production.
Figure 1: Waste generation from the UK household
Some of the largest waste sources worldwide are mineral wastage from the ores mining, manufacturing waste, chemical waste, food waste, household waste, and so on (Martínez et al., 2022). For instance, the UK produces the largest amount of food waste in England after China and India. More than one-third of the world's food ends up in landfills. Annually, the UK discards around 9.5M metric tonnes of edible food. Regardless, 8.4M Britons live in food poverty. Unnecessary food disposal results in annual waste of billions of pounds. Food waste has been attributed to a variety of sources. But stores, supermarkets and restaurants purchasing too much inventory that fails to sell are the main causes (Zan et al., 2022). A lack of proper instruction on how to dispose of spoiled food is another reason. Additionally, people are unaware that food has an expiration date and therefore they let it rot instead of eating it.
Waste management is crucial to save the environment and reduce the cost of waste disposal. This has also helped to stop air, soil and water pollution to a great extent. Though some UK councils have provided weekly non-recyclable waste collection, many regions still lack this service. The diverse spectrum of stakeholders also requires to take collaborative methods to handle this situation. Educational programs and campaigns are needed to boost the knowledge about waste management and sustainability awareness. Therefore, the author has chosen this local and global environmental problem, which can be solved by a social entrepreneurship approach.
The Main Approach to Social Entrepreneurship for Waste Management
The key approach for waste management can be global social entrepreneurship (GSE). In an effort to address critical societal needs on both a regional and worldwide scale, these entrepreneurs can radically alter existing social institutions. It is often the destination for large corporations that recognize their social duty and prioritize making a good impact rather than maximizing profits. They can contribute to waste management through environmental and social innovation and interaction with regional communities whilst encouraging sustainability.
Justification
GSE is the best tool available in combating waste management because it eliminates geographical borders and challenges that include a variety of points concerning waste. Sundar et al. (2023) and Woodard support the view since waste problems such as chemical pollution or food wastage are interconnected with each other. A global and local approach helps knowledge-sharing technology transfer best practice adoption across nations. Furthermore, the UK's position in international trade and the world economy brings more attention to a wider approach to trash management. The UK's local authorities deal with the collection of household, commercial and industrial waste in their vicinity (Welch et al., 2021). The government advises the Waste Disposal Authorities and Waste Collection Authorities to make plans for municipal waste management with a focus on recycling in each of WDA-serviced areas. With a 5.4% increase from the previous year, In 2023, there were a total of global and local 1042 Waste Management Services companies in this country, a 5.4% rise from 2022 (Ramasubramanian et al., 2023).
Access to Innovative Solutions: Engaging in global social entrepreneurship offers the UK opportunities to access and adopt innovative waste management solutions developed and tested in different parts of the world (Ng and Yang, 2023).
International Collaboration: Facilitating partnerships and collaborations with global entities enables the sharing of best practices, technologies, and knowledge, fostering a collaborative environment for tackling waste management challenges (Palafox-Alcantar et al., 2020).
Diverse Perspectives: Embracing a global approach allows for the incorporation of diverse perspectives and experiences, enabling the UK to learn from successful waste management strategies implemented in various cultural and socio-economic contexts.
Market Expansion: UK waste management industries can widen the markets by participating in global social entrepreneurship initiatives, providing new opportunities for development within this area.
Policy Insights: For global involvement, the overview of policies and frameworks previously proven effective for waste management enables efficient development or shaping including comprehensive and successful waste management policies (Slorach et al., 2020).
Challenges
Resource Allocation: Implementing global solutions might demand significant financial and infrastructural resources, posing challenges in resource allocation and funding for widespread adoption.
Regulatory Variations: Applying global garbage management solutions in the UK has been problematic because of diverse regulatory frameworks and policies, which require compliance and alignment (Shittu et al., 2021).
Cultural Differences: Differences in culture and the recycling processes can act as barriers that make it difficult for comprehensive solutions to be continually integrated into the UK's waste management scenario.
Logistics and Transportation: Managing waste streams across international borders can present logistical challenges, impacting transportation efficiency and increasing operational complexities (Leong et al., 2021).
Empirical Research
Various empirical research with secondary data has given insights into the importance of global social entrepreneurship in waste management. As stated by Drury and Hollands (2023), a social organization headquartered in the United Kingdom, Entocycle, is working to reduce food waste while simultaneously improving the sustainability of our food supply chains. By changing the way people feed animals, Entocycle is helping to repair the environment. The way people produce food for animal feed is wasteful and bad for the environment. In contrast, the environmental impact of eating insects which are included in the diets of many animals is far lower. By feeding its insects local food scraps such as discarded produce, brewer's grains and coffee grounds, this enterprise is able to recycle these materials into feed for animals.
Additionally, there were outstanding results from a survey of UK householders' attitudes, knowledge and actions about food waste in 2023 (Habib et al., 2023). This country's food waste has been significantly reduced because of the collaborative efforts of social entrepreneurs. In June 2022, after reaching a record low at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the predicted amount of food waste was back to where it had been before the outbreak. In June 2023, the estimated amount of food waste for four essential products, milk, potatoes, chicken and bread, rose to 21.5% from 20.5% in November 2022.
Furthermore, there are different local social startups in this country that are working on waste management using advanced technologies. For instance, as opined by Rane (2023), Greyparrot digitizes packaging and garbage using artificial intelligence (AIAI) computer vision technologies. To aid in the shift to a circular society and maintain a clean environment, they want to tap into the $2.1 trillion trash industry's monetary worth. They record the trash sector using AIAI and computer vision technology, which allows them to provide data analytics and visibility across the garbage value chain in an industry that was previously offline and manual. The company has also tied up with the UK government. The government has established an environmental goal to reduce trash by half, namely the amount of residual garbage (excluding significant mineral garbage) kg per person by 2042. This objective is part of the Environment Act 2021 which aims to reduce waste production and promote recycling and reuse (Alkaraan et al., 2023). The 2019 level is anticipated to be about 574 kg per capita and thus, this will be recorded as a decrease from that. Achieving this goal will strengthen the government's resolve to implement its Net Zero Strategy. The goal is to save around 35 MtCO2e by 2050 by drastically reducing emissions from landfills and incinerators. The collaboration has also aimed to almost eliminate the transportation of biodegradable municipal garbage to landfills beginning in 2028.
In this way, improving and safeguarding the environment, increasing the green economy and supporting the world-class food, farming and fishing sectors are all the responsibilities of the global social entrepreneurs in the UK. According to the research data, it can be proved that the country has already taken active actions through GSE to address these environmental and social issues mentioned above. The global issue can be fulfilled through entrepreneurial innovation like government collaboration, adopting sustainable approaches and the use of technologies.
Discussion and Reflection
Research into global social entrepreneurship is crucial to fully understand the effect of addressing waste issues at a local and national level. The nation has proven that it has been successful in several waste projects historically, demonstrated through innovation, partnerships and technological advancement. These partnerships and technological advantages have been essential to reduce waste projects. By leveraging resources locally and using advanced technology, some projects have been able to turn waste into products that have significant value like animal feed and digital stream management. The universal success of investments such as these across the UK and potentially across the globe indicates how the entrepreneurial process can reduce waste universally.
The alignment of waste policies with environmental objectives can be achieved through the partnership of the UK government with the social entrepreneurs. It has been appreciated. The emphasis of the partnership on reducing waste contributions to landfills, lowering emissions and keeping recycling programs going is aligned with a comprehensive sustainability plan found within the Environment Act 2021. This has shown how GSE can shape policy frameworks and trigger systemic reform. However, the GSE approach comes with challenges. Although local achievements demonstrate the efficiency of cutting-edge concepts, there is still a need to scale up such initiatives on an international level. As Zvarych (2021) argued, replication of successful models in various global contexts is also hindered by differences in the regulatory framework, cultural attitudes towards waste and availability of resources. Also, the viability and scalability of technology-based solutions should be constantly assessed to ensure their sustainment in the long run.
Additionally, some waste indicators have decreased. But Pegg et al. (2022) stated that challenges in measuring and effectively controlling the overall level of waste generation and accumulation persist. These social entrepreneurial initiatives have demonstrated potential in alleviating some types of waste. However, waste management strategies that span multiple forms and habits are necessary for complete solutions.
When considering and reflecting on the effectiveness of this entrepreneurship worldwide, the method highlights promising advances in combating waste management issues. Nonetheless, its efficacy depends on continued dedication. Widespread dissemination of effective templates and constant institutionalization to various socioeconomic and environmental landscapes. While worldwide SESE is promising, effective waste management solutions on a global scale need to leverage multiple approaches. Such methods are able to combine technological innovation with policy integration and community engagement policies as well as behavioural change efforts for long-term impact.
Conclusion
The exploration of GSE as an approach to dealing with waste management reveals a complex playing field of successes and challenges. The collaboration between social entrepreneurs and the government could signify that waste management is going to be combined with environmental objectives. Nonetheless, scalability issues and regulatory differences and the full waste evaluation pose a challenge. Empirical studies demonstrate that GSE is effective in tackling certain waste streams. On the other hand, this study highlights that there is a necessity for more holistic approaches to waste management strategies. So, even though GSE offers potential, a comprehensive model that integrates several approaches will still be important in understanding the complexities of waste dispersion around the globe.
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