Famous around the world for its gleaming skyscrapers, stunning harbour and commercial dynamism, Hong Kong is also home to a growing social enterprise movement that is developing innovative solutions to address inequalities, tackle social problems and support the disadvantaged.
The sector has benefited from growing support from the local government, charitable foundations and academia and it is about to welcome social entrepreneurs and their supporters from around the world as it hosts the Social Enterprise World Forum (25-27 Sep).
To find out more about the local scene, we interviewed Kelvin Cheung who is a social entrepreneur and the head of both the Good Lab, Hong Kong’s social innovation consultancy and co-working space, and UnLtd HK, which provides funding and support for social enterprises.
What is life like behind Hong Kong’s glamorous facade? What are some of the big social problems that people face?
As was the case when I moved to London in 2006, once you really settle down anywhere, you will find social problems right on your doorstep. In the case of Hong Kong these include an ageing population, pollution, waste, lack of recycling and a lack of awareness of the problems faced by others. Loneliness is another problem that keeps coming up. For a city where we live almost side by side, there is a lack of community, which makes social isolation rife.
I think every large city essentially has the same problems, and these are exacerbated because everything is monetised in the city. At least in the countryside, you can grow your own food and earn your own keep. In Hong Kong, everything costs money and social welfare is really limited, so there are a lot of challenges facing the disadvantaged here.
How many social enterprises are there in Hong Kong? What are the big sectors of activity? What are the biggest challenges that they face?
According to the most recent data from the Hong Kong Council of Social Service there are over 500 social enterprises and the sector has doubled in the past seven years. I think that social enterprises in Hong Kong are inspired by global trends on social awareness and that really trickles down to people trying to create positive change here.
Food waste is a major concern. Dignified employment for marginalised people always has many people starting up businesses. Currently, because of the global discussion around the sharing economy, there are many sharing models and platforms popping up to share space, resources and connect communities together.
The challenge is once a social enterprise reaches a level of success locally, how then does it scale outside of Hong Kong? As big as Hong Kong is, there are only 7 million people here, so you have to expand out of the city to really get that scale, and that means challenges like different laws, languages, etc.
What support has the government provided? What about the higher education sector. Hong Kong is a major regional financial centre – has there been much support for social enterprise from the business and philanthropic community?
The government a couple years ago pledged HKD$500m (£48m) to social innovation and poverty alleviation through the SIE Fund (Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund).
The effects of the programme are now being seen in the ecosystem. Most multinationals will have a CSR strategy with social enterprise as a pillar, and the philanthropic community as well, including well-known foundations such as the Hong Kong Jockey Club Foundation and Lee Hysan Foundation.
The issue isn’t people providing support and money – there is a large supply of that. I believe the challenge is having enough start-up and well established social enterprises that they can support to grow. Right now I think there are more people that want to help than people who want to get into the sector. This means it’s a good time to start a social enterprise.
What does it mean for Hong Kong to host the Social Enterprise World Forum? Why is it important for social enterprise to connect internationally? What legacy would you like the event to achieve?
Hong Kong is a major financial and media hub in southeast Asia and a place where ideas are generated and exchanged. So it’s great that we can also be recognised as a nexus of thought on social enterprise around the world. We’ve got some really established and successful social enterprises that are unique to this vibrant metropolis, and we’re really keen to share these examples with the rest of the world.
It’s important for us to connect as so many of us are usually just on the front lines with our stakeholders. Events like these are great to take a break, connect, find out about what other people are doing, and for me most importantly, adopt and adapt ideas that work for a Hong Kong context and vice versa.
I believe that many of the solutions to social challenges in the world have already been found, but we don’t know about them. Events like SEWF bring people to collaborate together to work on scalable solutions for the world, and that’s what we need more of: collaboration. This is because none of our individual organisations working on their own can scale up to the size of the issues that we face.
Kelvin Cheung is the COO of the Good Lab, Hong Kong’s social innovation consultancy and co-working space. He also heads up UnLtd Hong Kong, and sits on the boards of two charities in Hong Kong. Previous to this, Kelvin founded and run FoodCycle in the UK, which collected surplus food and cooked nutritious meals for those at risk of food poverty and social isolation. Kelvin is an Aspen Institute fellow, a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and also a spin instructor two days a week.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by the British Council, sponsor of the international social enterprise hub.
