Nobel laureate Yunus says the global crisis a chance to change business

Yunus, who with his Grameen Bank — which gives tiny loans to the very poor to help start businesses — won the 2006 Peace Prize, told media here on Saturday: “Any problem has a potential of being addressed with a social business.”

“Social business being a business where you don't make money,” he explained. “Zero profit for the investors.”

The ground-breaking “microcredit” banker from Bangladesh is backed by corporations like food giant Danone, global water group Veolia, sportswear company Adidas, software pioneer SAP and academics at Kyushu University in Japan.

The first Global Grameen Meeting of companies, foundations, think-tanks, scientific experts and other institutions was hosted by Europe's largest carmaker Volkswagen at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, northern Germany.

Grameen is a Bengali word for village, and “was chosen to indicate that big projects may start small,” a statement said.

The forum's ambitious goal is to eliminate poverty by 2030 in both the developing world and advanced economies.

Ideas that sprouted on the Indian sub-continent are being transplanted in Germany, Europe's biggest economy, and in France, where Danone will draw on its experience with Yunus in Bangladesh to launch a project for the poor in Paris.

“It's really a source of inspiration,” Danone representative Emmanuel Faber told a press conference in the company of Yunus and the other groups.

He underscored the “new processes, new ideas, new ways of working that social business has driven into the mainstream way of Danone doing business.”

The big group's have not decided to ditch profits altogether but are setting up subsidiaries to work on the social business model in addressing problems with the environment, health care, nutrition and unemployment.

“Each one is dedicated to solving a particular social problem,” Yunus said.

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