Social Enterprise: using ethical fashion to change lives and save the planet

Many will have watched the Extinction Rebellion unfolding on the streets of Westminster with probably a mixture of bemusement, support and irritation. In the last week, I have experienced all three of these emotions - as someone working in Westminster I have to trudge wearily from place to place, held up by people of all ages wearing rainbow clothes, picnicking and knitting on the road without the benefit of the electric powered buses.

The message at Victoria station was brief and uncompromising: "No buses due to demonstrations, alternatives are walk, cycle or take a tube."

The Extinction Rebellion spokesperson said we cannot operate business as usual any more, we have to do things differently. As a social entrepreneur, we are used to doing things differently, although blockades and camps are not among them. We create business models where the strategy, management and profit are all driven through a social purpose. We are not about gaining a return on capital but producing a social impact. For example, the LEYF social business model allows us to grow nurseries across London (we currently have 37) while our fee structure allows us to subsidise up to 40 per cent of those 4,600 children attending the nurseries as well as train 60 apprentices using the LEYF social pedagogy. Our social impact therefore is designed to drive high quality education for children and students.