Funders, governments and companies that enable social innovation honoured in the Catalyst 2030 Awards.

The systems change that Catalyst 2030 promotes is represented by thousands of local initiatives; the work of community-based social innovators and local leaders around the world. Scaling and replicating their innovations are vital for transforming systems for all. But these require a collaborative and enabling ecosystem of supporters in the funding, public and private sectors.

To expand the social innovation ecosystem, the Catalyst 2030 Awards showcase funders, governments and corporations whose support for social innovation make them role models; lighting the path for other organisations that want to contribute to a social economy.

Keep an eye out for articles featuring Q and A’s with the 2022 winners in upcoming newsletters.

The 2023 Catalyst 2030 Awards nominations are now closed and the thorough selection process is underway. Winners will be announced on 8 November 2023. You can watch the inspiring 2022 Catalyst 2030 Awards Ceremony here.

SAP – A corporate role model

SAP, Germany, the market leader in enterprise application software and the winner in the Corporate Awards Category in 2022, was nominated because, “SAP has the most holistic CSR approach to support social entrepreneurship that exists.“

As the market leader in enterprise application software, SAP commits 10% of its procurement spend to social enterprises and diverse-owned enterprises – the biggest commitment of this kind to support social enterprises. SAP also supports the entire ecosystem by investing in conferences (SEWF), running programmes to support social enterprises (Acceleration Collective), funding research (ChangemakerXchange), investing in education development (Acumen), and platform support (MovingWorlds Good Market). In addition, the CSR team advocates for the adoption of social enterprise integration, helping support its own “social procurement” practice. Lastly, as SAP’s technology helps other companies run processes and procurement, it is taking a leadership role in expanding the ideas of social procurement to partners and competitors alike.

Social enterprises – catalysts for positive change

According to SAP’s Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Alexandra van der Ploeg, “Social enterprises are catalysts for positive change. They empower businesses to revolutionise the way that they source goods and services—providing unique opportunities to strengthen some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.’ SAP is driven, she stresses, to “(invest) in greater efforts to drive access to new markets for social enterprises and develop responsible supply chains.

SAP was selected as the overall winner of Catalyst 2030 Awards in the Corporates Category for 2022, because:

• It has embedded working with SEs into its business operating systems beyond CSR/sustainability activity.
• It understands the interconnectedness and interdependence of the SDGs and therefore works at addressing them in an integrated manner.
• It understands, and discloses publicly, its direct and indirect impacts.
• Its business resonates with the Catalyst 2030 values and can demonstrate how it does this.
• It is creating structural and systemic changes within its sector, its community and society as a whole.
• It understands and has management processes for reducing its negative social and/or environmental impacts and is moving towards or has achieved, ‘decent work,’ net-zero, circular.

Catalyst 2030 Awards | 2023 Details

The Catalyst 2030 Awards will be held on Wednesday, 8 November 2023, 4 – 5 pm CET. The event will be streamed live from the Spencer House, London.

Follow Catalyst 2030 on social media for the registration link which will be shared closer to the time.