Are businesses built to create a positive impact?

To educate the masses about impact creation within different business models, this webinar centred on three industry leaders that operate within the social enterprise business model. It shed light on the work being done to create a positive social impact within diverse segments of Pakistani society. The Express Media Group and Entrepreneurship and Youth Development Society have come together to help people expand their understanding regarding how to increase impact-driven solutions.

The Express Tribune webinar was live on the Facebook and YouTube channels of the media programme and was hosted by esteemed journalist Sidra Iqbal.

The panellists included Fahd Mahmood Khan, CEO and Founder of Humanetek, Sara Rasikh, Team Lead at Impact Dashboard and Dr. Rizwan Hussain Bukhari, CEO of FeedSol.

In setting the tone for the discussion, Iqbal discussed what she learned from the women's global forum in Paris that she recently attended. This included emphasizing that global stakeholders within impact maintain a focus on resisting climate change, increasing social equality, and working towards globally accessible healthcare. 

In discussing the on-ground work of social enterprises, the panellists identified that communities offer a positive response to socially meaningful services when the venture looks beyond the profit motive and truly centres on people’s needs. In discussing this, the CEO and founder of Humanetek stated, "The society we live in is very distrustful. People don't trust us when we say that we are working to create positive change for them. Even governmental organizations question why are we doing anything for the people. The relationship between people with charity is different as they don't expect that it will work with monetization."

On building trust with communities, Iqbal questioned Bukhari about how the social positionality of community members in the agricultural landscape shifts when enterprises such as FeedSol offer social services within their communities. Bukhari responded, "Data depicts that 85 percent of the lands are with small and medium-sized farmers and with commercial organizations. Still, landlords are not coming to the small land-holders that eventually impacts their productivity– this is a serious concern." He also shed some light on the productivity of livestock and his venture being the bridge between land farmers and livestock farmers by providing nutritious food to livestock to increase export ultimately. This is especially significant because Pakistan is the fourth largest livestock country, but we can still not meet our potential to export large herds.

Then, Iqbal moved toward the topic of sustainable impact and she questioned Ms. Rasikh about how social enterprises should deal with the accusation of greenwashing. She also questioned how they should operate when addressing the social needs of communities. To this, Rasikh responded stating, “It is important to be critical of social enterprises, especially when they are not working within a revolutionary capacity. At Impact Dashboard, we create narratives and frameworks around impact-driven projects… we work to respond to people’s material needs.” Rasikh outlined the importance of connecting with people and centring their needs as opposed to solely focusing on the profit motive at the expense of land and people. This way, enterprises will be able to create a sustainable impact as opposed to delivering mere tokenistic gestures.

This session was the third of the series of four webinars.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2022.