Case Studies
CiYuan: Building Cross-Sector Partnerships to Enhance Social Investment in China
In China, economic growth is perpetuating a multitude of challenges, including a lack of human rights protection for migrant workers, environmental degradation, and income disparity—and government is not fully able to address these issues. There is an opportunity for civil society to fill these gaps, but without business’ help in strengthening the country’s nascent nonprofit sector, that progress has dramatically less potential.
BSR founded CiYuan to address the biggest barriers to the development of China’s nonprofit sector: limited strategic partnerships and opportunities for dialogue between nonprofits and business; a foundation sector with limited experience in partnering with and supporting grassroots organizations; a restrictive environment for nonprofit registration and fundraising; and weak governance and transparency, which generates a lack of public trust in nonprofits.
BSR Conference 2010: ‘Innovate. Integrate. Inspire.’
The BSR Conference 2010—“Innovate. Integrate. Inspire.”—brought together more than 1,100 senior business executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders from the public sector and civil society to connect with their peers and define the business models essential for future success.
Driving Innovation Through Partnerships
Since BSR’s founding, we have been strongly committed to achieving our mission through powerful partnerships. BSR’s Partnership Development team is dedicated to catalyzing collaboration between business and social and environmental innovators in the public and nonprofit sectors to make progress on systemic sustainable development challenges.
Creating Business Opportunity by Tackling Sustainable Consumption
By nearly any measure, the way we consume natural resources is unsustainable: Research suggests that we are currently using 50 percent more natural resources than the Earth can sustain.
Actionable Research on Sustainability
Our Research team tracks emerging trends and solutions central to building sustainable business. We aim to help business leaders stay ahead of the curve and shape future-oriented decisions on a wide range of challenges, from energy management, to sustainable consumption, to human rights.
