BioRegional founders receive Skoll Award for social entrepreneurship

Story published 26.03.09

Watch live webcast of BioRegional founders receiving award for social entrepreneurship from prestigious eBay charitable foundation

The Skoll Foundation’s Social Entrepreneurship Award presentations will be broadcast from http://www.skollworldforum.com/ 17.30pm onwards on Thursday 26th March 2009
 
 The awards form part of the 3-day Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. BioRegional’s founders Sue Riddlestone and Pooran Desai will be presented the award by Skoll Foundation Chairman Jeff Skoll, Skoll Foundation President and CEO, Sally Osberg and special guest, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. R. K. Pachauri.

Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship
Each year nearly 800 delegates from more than 60 countries convene for this premier gathering of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Prominent figures from the social, academic, finance, corporate and policy sectors engage for three days and nights in a series of debates, discussions and work sessions focused on accelerating, innovating and scaling solutions to some of the world’s most pressing social issues. This year it is being held within the Saïd Business School Oxford University. The entire 3-day forum (ending on 27th March) is being broadcast live over the web http://www.skollworldforum.com/.

Why did they win an award?
Against a backdrop of economic doom and gloom, and with the Copenhagen summit highlighting the need to address climate change, social entrepreneurs Sue and Pooran have been recognised for their inspirational work to help tackle both of these challenges.

The awards, which recognise the most innovative and sustainable approaches to resolving the world’s most urgent social issues, are made by the charitable foundation established by eBay's first president, Jeff Skoll.

The Skoll Foundation recognised the benefits of BioRegional’s approach – based on developing real-life examples of sustainable communities, products and production systems. BioRegional’s solutions, which include incubating eight companies and joint ventures to demonstrate the benefits of bioregionalism in a market economy, have the potential to be seen as the basis for a larger scale green new deal. BioRegional was recently described by UN Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner as “reinventing our economy”.

The award includes a $765,000 grant to BioRegional which will allow significant expansion of its global ‘One Planet’ sustainability programme – working with government and business to put in place practical solutions that demonstrate how we can live within our fair share of the Earth’s resources.

BioRegional joins a prestigious global network of Skoll entrepreneurs, who are working around the world on issues including tolerance and human rights, health, economic and social equity, peace and security, institutional responsibility, and environmental sustainability.