Purpose Economy

🌍 The G20 Brasil 2024 Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro is approaching this November 2024, and we are excited to share that, together with Purpose LatAm, we’ve contributed to the recommendations for the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group. We've written a policy brief on how ownership – and #stewardownership in particular – can be a powerful tool for a just economic transition. Needless to say, we’re beyond excited about this opportunity! 😉 🌱 So, how does steward-ownership support a fair economic transformation? While rules, regulations, and certifications are important, they only address symptoms. To truly change corporate behavior, we need to address the root cause and driver: the ownership structure of companies. This is where the beauty of steward-ownership comes into play. It offers mission-driven companies an alternative that prioritizes long-term value creation and social benefit over short-term profit – whether the mission is crafting wooden tables, developing software, or cleaning the ocean. This makes steward-ownership an integral building block for corporations and financial institutions in a just transition. It ensures that, at a structural level, decision-making power over companies is not allocated via speculative purchases (“whoever puts more money on the table has more power”), but remains with people who assume responsibility and accountability for their actions and impact of the company in the world. At the same time, it ensures that the value created within the company does not contribute to wealth inequality, but serves the company’s purpose of solving problems for its customers, society and our planet. 👉 Find the full policy brief and our recommendations to the G20 Brasil 2024 Sustainable Finance Working Group in the comments below.  🙌 Special thanks to Monica Pasqualin and Marcel Fukayama, of Din4mo, for coordinating this initiative! #StewardOwnership #SustainableFinance #G20 #PurposeDriven #LongTermImpact #G20forImpact

So cool that Trends Kanaal Z magazine – as leading financial-economic weekly – has dedicated 4 pages to #StewardOwnership as an important trend. Peter Depauw was asked 7 questions about these paradigm shifts on how Steward-owned is managing to accelerate this alternative model of #ownership in Belgium. A trend is only a trend if it's in Trends? Something like that? In their section ‘Change the Game’, Trends magazine each week selects ‘entrepreneurial stories and analysis that look beyond short-term economic gains’. Well, you can copy the description of this section almost 1 to 1 to the description of steward-ownership as a concept. Benny Debruyne asked a little more in depth. About the role of profit, who those stewards might be, mission drift as a problem, its origins and contemporary pioneers, about Patagonia (of course). And about the Belgian perspective. Our role is to put the spotlight on steward-ownership, build a knowledge HUB, connect and nurture network and movement, support actors in their route to more Steward-Ownership. Simply put, removing all hurdles towards steward-ownership. So join our journey! Thanks for daring to be an incubator, S&L, The Shift vzw, BE.IMPACT, Sociale InnovatieFabriek, impact advocaten, We Are Impact Collective, Trividend, omvorm, Long Term Society, Mace, Aurion en Purpose Economy #Impact

𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬 🥳 for steward-ownership in Belgium! There will be a first 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝-𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝 for start-up social entrepreneurs in Leuven / Louvain. A big step to also simplify funding for steward-owned companies, among others. What's most special is that 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 will be steward-owned.   The aim is to help #startups grow fast so they can help make Leuven/ Louvain #climate-neutral, but in a social way. With the support of the European Social Fund (ESF), this special step can be taken.   Great! Leuven 2030 Trividend switchrs, Purpose Economy, Baltic Innovation Agency We Are Impact Collective Katrien Rycken Frederik Matthijs Jan Leyssens Filip Coenen Astrid Leyssens Annika Schneider Pieter-Jan Van de Velde & co #StewardOwnership #Impact #RoadTo2030 #MissionCities

💥 Join our non-profit team! 👉 The Purpose Foundation is currently looking for a co-lead for our research and educational work. In cooperation with the Hochschule Emden/Leer, we are participating in the “AnkerPROF” project and are jointly looking to fill this tandem position. ✨ Support our work and mission by creating more academic knowledge and information about steward-ownership, by developing the research network around and by levering the topic within the academic realm. 🤗 Your role at the Purpose Foundation involves shaping research and educational activities, with a focus on #stewardownership and alternative financing models. Key tasks include conducting in-depth research, designing and testing educational materials and training concepts at universities, develop a textbook and case studies, write scientific publications, and build networks with academics and research institutes. 👉 Check out our job post and apply until October 23rd, 2024. Find more information here: https://lnkd.in/e_-Ueb_j #PurposeEconomy #StewardOwnership #Research #Verantwortungseigentum #JuniorProfessur #Forschung

🎬 Klappe die erste: Die Warteschlange – der Film! 🤩 Vor drei Wochen haben hunderte Unternehmer:innen und Mitarbeitende eine #Warteschlange vor dem #Bundestag gebildet 👬👫👭, um Politik und Öffentlichkeit zu zeigen: Wir brauchen dringend eine #neueRechtsform – denn wir wollen unsere Unternehmen zukunftssicher und langfristig unabhängig aufstellen! Das Kernelement dabei: eine hundertprozentige und wasserdichte #Vermögensbindung. Nur so kann die Rechtsform funktionieren, den Mittelstand und die Soziale Marktwirtschaft stärken und Ausverkauf verhindern. ☀️ Ein herzliches Dankeschön erneut den vielen Teilnehmenden, der Wettergöttin und natürlich auch den zahlreichen Politiker:innen, die sich Zeit für Gespräche genommen haben. 🙏 

“The bread is the boss.” That’s how Joachim Weckmann describes the transformation of his traditional Berlin bakery, Märkisches Landbrot, into #stewardownership. In 2021, with the support of his co-managing directors, he completed the transition in order to organize his succession and set up the company independently in the long term. Our colleague @Jakob Willeke from Purpose Ventures was by their side throughout the process, and we’ve now captured the story, motivation, and key details in a 14-page case study – part of our non-profit efforts at the Purpose Foundation. ⚖️ The legal shift to steward-ownership was made possible through a single foundation model. The non-profit Märkisches Landbrot Foundation now owns 100% of Märkisches Landbrot GmbH, the company that produces delicious baked goods for the Berlin region. 🎯 The new steward-ownership structure keeps the company's mission front and center: producing healthy, biodynamic bread. Most of the profits (⅔) are reinvested into the business – as basis for its future development. The remaining third is used by the foundation to support charitable work. 🌟 This new setup also includes more democratic and participatory leadership. It spreads the responsibility and role that Joachim Weckmann once held across the team. The foundation board members are the new stewards. One of the five must always come from the workforce, and the team can veto three of the five board members. Curious how all this works? Learn how Joachim's retirement, the transfer of his ownership rights, and the company's impact on the common good all fit into this new structure in our case study 👉https://lnkd.in/dUCSkGHZ

Salut and goedendag from Belgium 🇧🇪 We are very excited to extend a big welcome to a new non-profit foundation for #stewardownership in Belgium. The new foundation is committed to building a Belgian knowledge-hub and open-content materials, supporting companies through their ownership transition, and channeling more investments towards steward-owned companies. What an exciting and somewhat daunting task – to make steward-ownership accessible in a country with three official languages. Last week, our international lead @Annika Schneider joined a meeting of 14 organizations committed to launching the new foundation – it was great learning from each other and seeing the network grow! Thank you for bringing us together and driving forward the topic Peter Depauw and Jens Van Lathem!

❓ What would it look like to truly secure purpose-orientation in business for the long term? 🎤 We had the chance to explore this exciting question at the Startups for Tomorrow Festival in Munich, where our colleague Maike Kauffmann joined a fascinating panel on "Simply Giving Away the Company? New Paths to Steward-Ownership" (Einfach so die Firma verschenken? Neue Wege zum Verantwortungseigentum). Together with Elisa Naranjo from zweihorn ENERGY and Alina Friedrichs from guud - benefits for a better future, we discussed how companies like Bosch and Patagonia are embracing the concept of #stewardownership to make sure purpose always comes first. ✨ The festival was a powerhouse of inspiration and we really enjoyed catching up with friends and inspiring innovators like Simon Köhl, Fabian Eckert, and Florian Pachaly from RECUP, Christian Kroll from Ecosia, and lawyer Dr. Christoph Bielak, who supports companies in implementing steward-ownership. 🚀 We left full of ideas and excitement about how steward-ownership can help shape the future of business. Huge thanks to everyone who made this event such a success! #Purpose #Verantwortungseigentum #StewardOwnership #SustainableBusiness #StartupsForTomorrow #ImpactEntrepreneurship

💥 Werde Teil unseres Teams! 👉 PURPOSE sucht derzeit eine*n Junior Admin & Finance Kolleg*in. ✨ Sei ein Teil unserer Mission und unterstütze uns bei der finanziellen und administrativen Steuerung von PURPOSE in all seiner Vielfalt. 👉 Neugierig? Schau dir unsere Stellenausschreibung an (https://lnkd.in/e9-FW6Z5) und bewirb dich ab sofort per E-Mail an vera@purpose.ag.

Es war in der Tat genau das: ein erinnerungswürdiger Tag 🤩 👬👫👭 Am 10. September vergangene Woche war so einiges los – erst die #Warteschlange mit hunderten Unternehmer:innen und Mitarbeitenden, dann das große #Symposion im Bundestag, bei dem das Bundesjustizministerium erstmals mündlich seine Eckpunkte für die #neueRechtsform vorgestellt hat. 📝 Die ganze Geschichte erzählen wir nun in einem ausführlichen Bericht – mit vielen, vielen spannenden Statements, Einblicken und Argumenten in Sachen neue Rechtsform (Link im Kommentar). 🔥 So viel sei verraten: Bei der Debatte im Europasaal ging es politisch hier und da durchaus hitzig zu, und wir sind dankbar für die vielen klaren Worte von allen Seiten. Das war im wahrsten Sinne "Demokratie at its best" – der ganze Tag hat uns und die Rechtsform ein großes Stück weitergebracht! 🙏 Ganz herzlichen Dank also erneut an alle Beteiligten – allen voran Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker, die es als Vorsitzende des Rechtsausschusses des Deutscher Bundestag ermöglicht hat, dass diese wertvolle Debatte in den Räumlichkeiten des Bundestag geführt werden konnte. 🙏 Ein großer Dank auch an das #BMJ und Bundesjustizminister Dr. Marco Buschmann für das Engagement und die Bereitschaft, die Rechtsform noch in dieser Legislatur umzusetzen. Wir freuen uns sehr, dass – wie BMJ-Staatssekretär Benjamin Strasser auf der Veranstaltung verriet – „dieses Vorhaben dem Bundesjustizministerium und auch dem Minister persönlich sehr am Herzen liegt — nicht nur auf der Fachebene“. 🙏 Aufs Herzlichstes danken möchten wir auch der Expertengruppe mit Prof. Dr. Anne Sanders, M.Jur., Prof. Christoph Teichmann, Prof. Simon Kempny, Dr. Noah Neitzel, Prof. Florian Möslein, Prof. Dr. Barbara Dauner-lieb, die – aus Forschungsinteresse und auf Bitten der drei Ampel-Berichterstatter:innen für die Rechtsform – einen fertigen (!) Gesetzentwurf für eine "Gesellschaft mit gebundenem Vermögen" erarbeitet und beim Symposion vorgestellt hat. Dieser Vorschlag berücksichtigt alle wichtigen Kernelemente – und ist von unermesslichem Wert für die ganze Initiative! 🙏 Ein großes Dankeschön auch an die drei – sie klangen schon an – Berichterstatter:innen der Ampel-Parteien: Esra Limbacher, Katharina Beck und Otto Fricke sowie ihren Kollegen der Unions-Fraktion, Dr. Günter Krings, die die Schirmherrschaft des Events übernahmen und die Debatte mit wertvollen Beiträgen und toller Gesprächsführung bereicherten. 🙏 Unser großer Dank gebührt auch Prof. Justus Haucap für die ordnungspolitische Einordnung und Klarheit darüber, dass die neue Rechtsform den #Wettbewerb stärken kann. 🙏 Und: ein riesiges Dankeschön auch an alle übrigen Beteiligten – die vielen Unternehmer:innen und Menschen, die bei der Warteschlange und teils später auch im Bundestag zugegen waren und den 10.9. zu dem gemacht haben, was er war: ein erinnerungswürdiger Tag – mit einem großen Schritt nach vorne in Richtung #neueRechtsform. DANKE! 👉 Den Bericht findet ihr in den Kommentaren.