Glossary

In economics with the term economic sector, there is an indication of each possible way of pooling different economic activities according to common features. An important classification is the one that distinguishes the primary sector (agriculture), the secondary (industry) and the tertiary (services); there is also a fourth sector that is that of the so- called advanced tertiary, that of high technology.

The social accounting and audit framework involves three steps for a SSEO. The first step is about an organisation clarifying its mission, objectives and related activities, and the values and principles that under-pin all its actions, as well as identifying its key stakeholders. The second step involves recognising the quantitative and qualitative indicators that enable the enterprise to report effectively on its performance and impact against its stated mission, objectives and values through data collection and consulting appropriately with its key stakeholders. The third step is about bringing all the collected information together into social accounts that are then verified by an independent panel that, once satisfied, issues a social audit statement.

Social capital is an important resource and can be used in setting up and developing SSEOs. Social Capital is all of these concrete elements and it evolves through relationships between people and organisations:

• Trust: having relations of trust with people and organisations so that you feel confident and comfortable working with them;
• Reciprocity and mutuality: having the sort of relations with people and organisations which mean that you do something for them without expecting immediate payback; that you help each other out; that you are prepared to work together on schemes of common advantage;
• Social networks: being in touch with a wide range of people and organisations so that you get to know them; to learn to trust them and work together; to give and get information;
• Shared norms of behaviour: realising that you share ideas with others of how things should be done; that you can build a common vision; that you broadly agree on what is acceptable and what is not;
• Sense of commitment and belonging: realising that sharing a commitment to an area or to a group can uncover a shared understanding of issues and lead to a common sense of purpose.

In the French/Latin speaking areas, social refers to the type of ownership by individual persons and not by shareholders, functioning on the principle of “one person, one vote”. In the English speaking areas social economy is also known as the “third sector: “social” relates to the purpose or the sector of activity, such as day-care, health, care of the elderly, etc. As such, the third sector is positioned between the private for-profit (businesses) and public (state-led public investments and redistribution processes) sectors. In both definition, cooperatives, mutuals, association and non-profits as well as charities and foundations are included. While Social economy is based on shared principles of cooperation, workers' democratic engagement and environmental sustainability, it is usually part of the Market economy and does not challenge it in a transformative way.

Setting up SSEOs is different from establishing traditional enterprises. With SSEO enterprises and with organisations operating in the Local Social Economy, it is a social process in itself which may take time. Social enterprises often start by identifying a need or needs within a locality. The needs of a population can be explored using some form of ‘Needs and Resource Analysis’. A social enterprise should write a Social Enterprise Plan which should cover a long number of aspects. It includes topics like conventional business plans but also special ones like social management, social marketing, and social auditing.

A social enterprise/entrepreneurship is related to “the creation of a social value that is produced in collaboration with people and organisations from the civil society who are engaged in social innovations that usually imply an economic activity". They are for-profit or non-profit organisations acting on a market and providers of welfare services, seeking social impact of their actions and activities, applying commercial strategies that include social value.

May be understood as a broad area Where in various forms of capital are structured in ways that consider and value both financial performance and social value creation. Social finance or social investment should have the following characteristics:

• Is at least nominally repayable;
• Pursues an accountable social, cultural or environmental purpose;
• Is autonomous of the state;
• Has the mission of the investee as the principle beneficiary of any investment;
• Is transparent about assessing, measuring and reporting the social impact it seeks to create;
• Is structured to create financial value or organisational or community capacity over time, e.g. by helping the investee invest in growth, acquire an asset, strengthen management, generate income and/or make savings, and by providing wider non- financial support;
• Is inclusive.

There are more definitions regarding social impact or social value, as:

• By social impact, we mean any of the great variety of changes in physiological states and cognitions and beliefs, values and behaviour human or animal, as a result of the real, implied, or imagined presence or actions of other individuals. (Latané, 1981);
• By social impact we mean the consequences to human populations of any public or private actions that alter the ways in which people live, work, play, relate to one another, organize to meet their needs and generally act as a member of society. To the norms, values, and beliefs that guide and rationalize their cognition of themselves and society. (Burdge & Vanclay, 1996);
• Social value is created when resources, inputs, processes or combined to generate improvements in the lives of individuals or society as a whole (Emerson et al., 2000.

Alcalay and Bell (2000) use a variety of definitions of social marketing to describe their commonalities and arrive at a consensus definition. First, social marketing is a label that is generally applied to programs that are deemed by authority figures to be beneficial to individuals and society in general. Second, there is no financial profit from implementing a social marketing campaign. Third, the ultimate goal is behaviour change, not just education and awareness. Fourth, those using social marketing attempt to incorporate the unique knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of the stakeholders into their campaigns. Fifth, they attempt to not only influence the relevant individuals, but also social structures that may be preventing individuals from achieving the focal goals. And finally, there is a reliance on commercial marketing concepts, such as consumer-driven strategy to offering product, price, positioning, promotion, and placement.

While especially in francophone countries the term “Economie Sociale et Solidaire” is equated to the social economy (and sometimes to social business), mainly in its institutional recognition, RIPESS uses Social Solidarity Economy to join the two approaches as a political, social and institutional movement including different economic approaches from organisations seeking social value and repairing Market economy damages, to initiatives seeking a more radical socio-economic change. It includes non-profit organisations, for-benefit enterprises and informal economic initiatives, by their explicit economic, social and environmental objectives as well as various forms of collaborative, associative and solidarity relations.

SSE Organisations act according to the following criteria:

1. Economic activity
2. Social/societal objective (including social, cultural, ecological objectives) 
3. Citizens’ initiative and participative structure
4. For social profit (not for private gain)

Solidarity economy gathers transformative citizen-led initiatives understanding economy as a space of social relationships based on solidarity, human and Earth rights, self-determination, mutuality and cooperation. Solidarity initiatives are seeking to democratise economy and participate strengthening social, economic, and environmental justice. SE is not a sector of the economy, but a transversal approach that includes initiatives in all sectors, sharing a broad set of values contrasting with the dominant Market economy, such as cooperation vs competition, mutual support and solidarity vs individualism, horizontal organisation and democratic decision making. vs hierarchy and centralized structures It is an attempt towards solidarity-based practices of production, exchange and consumption that generate livelihoods while implementing democratic principles and fundamental rights for common well-being.

Supply and distribution chains consist of all the steps taken to source, produce, transform, distribute and manage residues of goods or services. In SSE, they tend towards a circular economy, reducing energy and waste consumption as much as possible. They can also include the financing, research and development, transport and logistics, promotion and communication activities needed throughout the production and supply process. According to SSE values and principles, the solidarity reorganization of these chains relies on trust relationships and reciprocal guarantees between the different actors involved (producers, artisans, service furnishers, consumers, etc.) and it increases shared benefits as social inclusion, wealth redistribution, equality, transparency, democratic involvement, healthy environment and many other positive impacts for all the communities involved. The open and cooperative nature of the supply and distribution chains encourages the creation and support of new initiatives and enterprises when the natural growth limits of one or more actors in the chain are reached.

Inter-cooperation – cooperation between SSE initiatives – is an instrument aimed at strengthening existing companies and organisations, creating other new ones and conceiving new projects. It can be done in different ways: carrying out joint business activities, creating second-tier cooperatives and cooperative groups, through socio-political, sectorial and territorial non-profit organisations, etc. In turn, the public authorities must promote responsible public procurement so that companies working with them as providers and suppliers are outstanding in terms of their social and environmental responsibility.

SSE networks are sets of economic, social and political interlinked initiatives that include many different actors or groups of actors (called nodes) who play different roles, bringing different resources and needs. The organizational or legal form of the entities is not considered as important as the perspective and the values pursued, adopting "approaches from local to global that support freedom, reciprocity, solidarity and egalitarian exchange" (cit. RIPESS EU). These networks are built at different scale: they can be local (e.g. XES Catalunya or RES Marche), national (e.g. REAS) or international (e.g. RIPESS), as well as sectoral (e.g. food or energy) and inter-sectoral (e.g. URGENCI – CSA network) and their flexible structure allows them to develop different practices and enterprises (e.g. worker- and consumer-owned cooperatives, associations, rural farmers' unions, fair trade networks, local/social currencies, bartering market, etc.)

There are three dimensions of sustainability: economic, social, and environmental in SSE and in CSR and triple bottom line. In SSE, the objective of economic sustainability cannot be separated from those of social and environmental sustainability. The objective of the SSE is to promote people and the economy is an instrument to improve the quality of their lives. It is not the people who are tools for an economy that has as its priority the profit of a few. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) includes initiatives of companies that - while pursuing profit-making - decide to explicitly present a series of internal and external instances, providing economic, social and environmental benefits for all stakeholders; triple bottom line (TBL) is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental (or ecological) and financial. Many organizations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader perspective to create greater business value. 3P: in SSE we are flipping the priorities of the TPL from profit-planet-people to people-planet-benefit.