2021 WINNERS
Constellations
Collaborating for Social Impact
Introduction
The Constellations Awards celebrate the remarkable ways in which social investors across Asia collaborate to address the complex challenges of our times.
Asia is big, diverse, and complex – and so are its challenges. Our members meet those challenges by collaborating to pioneer solutions at scale.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the cracks in economies and the social sector but the social investment sector has responded unflinchingly to the unfolding crisis in the short term, and is nurturing systemic solutions for the long run. Our members have established shared aims and harnessed the strengths of different stakeholders to meet the moment with imaginative action. The Constellations Awards 2021 celebrate the ingenuity and effectiveness of our members.
The projects we recognise in the Constellations Awards are inspiring, but more importantly, they are action-oriented. We seek to illuminate the ripples of positive impact they have triggered, share their game-changing point of view, and provide these projects new means of accessing capital.
5 collaborative solutions
In 2021, we are proud to recognise 5 outstanding collaborative solutions that are addressing complex problems of our times.
The Challenge
The 2030 Water Resources Group estimates that if India continues to consume water as per current rates, India will only have half the water it needs by 2030. Agriculture accounts for 80% of India’s freshwater use, almost twice the amount used by comparable countries to grow one unit of food. Hence, innovative and scalable solutions are needed to solve a spectrum of water-related problems.
Collaborative Solutions
Villgro Innovations Foundation partnered with Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUF) to identify and support social enterprises that can work with non-profit organisations to address India’s water challenges. Through an incubation program, high impact ideas with significant potential to address India’s rural water crisis are selected and provided with support. The partnership also facilitated engagements between social enterprises and NGOs to scale innovative solutions, operationalise pilots, and disseminate and promote successful models across the agriculture, water, and climate ecosystems to garner visibility, adoption, capital infusion, and scale-up.
Partners
Hindustan Unilever Foundation; CultYvate; CIPT; Villgro
Resources Pooled
- Collectively saved over 238, 534, 000 litres of water and 27,241Kwh of energy
- Created a total of 75 jobs
- Reached over 3565 end-beneficiaries
By AVPN
AVPN Constellations 2021 | Technologies for Collective Good in Agricultural Water Use
The Challenge
In 2018, China’s real estate and construction sector contributed to around 10% of the global fossil CO2 emission. Decisive action from the private sector is needed to achieve China’s 2030 peak carbon and 2060 carbon neutrality goals.
Collaborative Solutions
To integrate sustainable environmental processes into the traditional supply chain, 5 organisations worked together with consultants and NGOs to launch the GSCA project in 2016. The project encourages voluntary actions of Chinese real estate enterprises to improve environmental performance and reduce carbon emissions via green supply chain management. The GSCA project created and introduced different levels of environmental standards, according to which the suppliers are sorted into white, green and black lists. By June 2021, 13 categories of building materials including steel, cement, aluminium, wood etc. have been assigned rigorous voluntary environmental standards. Through implementing green procurement, where real estate developers are encouraged to only buy building materials from qualified suppliers from the white or green list, developers are exerting leverage on their upstream suppliers to enhance their environmental regulatory compliance performance. As of 2021, a total of 100 real estate companies, representing 20% of the sales revenues of the whole sector in China, have joined the project and engaged 3,874 upstream suppliers.
Partners
Organization of Initiation
Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology; China Urban Realty Association; China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce; Vanke Enterprise Co., Ltd.; Landsea Holding Group
Green Supply Chain Action Promotion Committee
Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology; China Urban Realty Association; China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce: Vanke Enterprise Co., Ltd.; Landsea Holding Group; Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center, Ministry of Ecology and Environment; Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs; Beijing New Building Materials Public Limited Company; China Association of Building Energy Efficiency; Industrial Cooperation Committee of China Real Estate Association
Partners of Technical Support
Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs; Vanke Enterprise Co., Ltd.; World Wildlife Fund; China Association of Building Energy Efficiency; China National Quality Supervision and Testing Center for Stone Products; Committee of Material and Facility of China Real Estate Association; Landsea Holding Group; China National Forest Product Industry Association
Resources Pooled
Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs; Vanke Enterprise Co., Ltd.; World Wildlife Fund; China Association of Building Energy Efficiency; China National Quality Supervision and Testing Center for Stone Products; Committee of Material and Facility of China Real Estate Association; Landsea Holding Group; China National Forest Product Industry Association
By AVPN
AVPN Constellations 2021 | The Green Supply Chain Action of the Real Estate Industry in China (GSCA)
The Challenge
Poor nutritional status of employees reduces productivity as it leads to compromised health and increased absenteeism. According to a recent study by Chatham House and Vivid Economics, businesses in developing economies like India stand to lose up to $850 billion a year if immediate nutrition interventions are not undertaken. As most adults have at least one meal a day at work, the workplace offers unique opportunities to address malnutrition.
Collaborative Solutions
IMPAct4Nutrition (I4N) is India’s first collective commitment-based platform in the public space for public-private engagement on nutrition. I4N has aligned its goals towards achieving India’s nutrition targets through encouraging Workplace Nutrition and Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) to work towards Government of India’s POSHAN Abhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission) goals. I4N works with corporations who take the ‘I4N pledge’, an ethical commitment to work towards better nutrition at the workplace and communities, to transform the workplace landscape and implement roadmaps for employee engagement programmes, nutrition literacy, and capacity development for employees, their children, and their communities.
Partners
UNICEF India; DSM; Sight and Life; Tata Trusts; CSR Box; Confederation of Indian Industries (CII); Nasscom Foundation; IPE Global; United Nations Global Compact; PATH; United Way; IIT Delhi Alumni Association (IITDAA); the World Bank Group; NITI Aayog; Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)
Resources Pooled
- I4N has 189 pledged partners in just over 2 years of operation
- As of May 2021, I4N has reached over 2.5 million employees, and an additional at least 10 million people in the companies’ customer-base, families and communities
- During the pandemic lockdown, I4N-pledged partners provided sanitation, safety kits, and nutritious dry ration kits to the most vulnerable, helping over 10 million citizens in 2020
By AVPN
AVPN Constellations Awards 2021: IMPAct4Nutrition
The Challenge
The grassroots housing problem in Hong Kong has become more serious in the past decade. In 2016, almost 210,000 citizens were living in subdivided units plagued by poor hygiene, ventilation, and lighting, which severely affected individuals’ physical and mental well-being. And they are trapped under poverty and lack social support.
Collaborative Solutions
The Community Housing Movement (CHM) is a social movement that provides affordable and decent housing to alleviate the poverty of the grassroots household in Hong Kong. They provide short-term relief for individuals or families in need of transitional housing or currently living in dismal and inadequate housing conditions. The transitional social housing provides better quality of physical living space and a supportive community environment for residents to build up their social capital and improve living quality.
Partners
The Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS); The Community Chest of Hong Kong; Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund); landlords; NGOs and social enterprises; and the government
Type Of Resources Pooled
As of September 2020:
- Total of 506 units benefiting 664 households (up to 1863 persons)
- Housing conditions are improved in terms of lightning, ventilation, space for showering, cooking, eating, and resting and child activities. Per capita living space in average increases from 62.0 sq.ft. to 115 sq.ft. due to more shared space
- 87.3% reported an improvement in residential conditions, and 77.2% reported an improvement in building conditions
- Median rent and related expenses have decreased by 25% from HK$5280 to HK$3975
- Economic pressure due to housing and household expenses in average value has dropped by 45.0% and 35.0% respectively
- 63.6% reported being happier and more optimistic, with 51.5% reported experiencing less psychological pressure
- Family relationships improved in terms of the average value of “I feel support from household members”, “family members will help if I have difficulty”, “I feel satisfied with the studying environment for children at home”, “the family relationship is good”
- 79.4% of households report that they learn more community resources
- After living in social housing, 90.9% of households report they know new friends. In average each household knows 8 new residents and 4 social workers; Households are also more likely to greet, chat, eat, and join social activities with other neighbours
- 56% think their self-confidence and self-esteem is improved; 57.0% think the problem-solving ability is improved
- Finally, around 90% of households think social housing is alternative affordable housing, a caring place, and a place with human support. And around 95% of households are satisfied with the Community Housing Movement
By AVPN
AVPN Constellations Awards 2021 | Community Housing Movement
The Challenge
India is ranked 131 out of 188 countries in UNDP’s 2016 Human development Index (HDI), with the living standards in India differing substantially among states and districts.
Collaborative Solutions
To improve various human development indicators in 112 of India’s most vulnerable districts, India’s government launched the “Transformation of Aspirational District Programme” under NITI Aayog (Government of India’s leading think tank) in 2018. Piramal Swasthya collaborated with NITI Aayog to transform health and nutrition indicators in 25 of these Aspirational Districts across 7 states. These 25 districts are home to about 41 million people, which Is 3.4% of India’s population.
Piramal Swasthya led the facilitation of health and nutrition interventions in these selected districts. It collaborated with various technical and knowledge partners to avoid duplicity of efforts and secure maximum impact in the regions. The interventions by Piramal Swasthya were spread across 4 themes: capacity building of health personnel, community engagement, strengthening of healthcare facilities, and effective scheme implementation.
Partners
AVPN Members
Piramal Swasthya Management and Research Institute
Other Collaborative Partners
Centre for Social and Behaviour Change, Ashoka University; Envisions Institute of Development; Population Research Centre, Madhya Pradesh; Sattva Consulting; CTARA, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai; UNICEF, India; Oxford Policy Management; Elsevier, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation
Type Of Resources Pooled
The programme aims to reach the most vulnerable section of society and impact 41 million people. From 2018 to 2021, some key achievements included an increase in pregnant women registering for antenatal care from 74% to 94%, an increase in women opting to deliver at health facilities from 66% to 82%, facilitating over 12,000 Village Sanitation and Nutrition Days (VHSNDs), mobilizing over 250 million community members and government officials to support POSHAN Abhiyaan in 15 districts among others.
By AVPN
AVPN Constellations Awards 2021: Transformation of Aspirational Districts Programme
OTHER ENTRIES
More commendable entries
Credit Suisse, together with fellow AVPN member Village Capital formed a partnership aimed at strengthening Social Enterprise (SE) development and removing obstacles to the flow of capital from funders into SEs. Tapping on the AVPN network of funders and resource providers, they both harnessed their partnerships to provide expertise required to address SEs’ competency gaps. In addressing the non-financial capital requirements, they identified a key set of needs that represented barriers towards investment readiness. The pilot program focused on four modules of support for SEs, and following testing and workshops, AVPN created an online wizard, SE Development Toolkit to help SEs with profiling themselves to their stage of development, helping them identify their needs and then matching them to a set of resources available.
Social Enterprise Development Toolkit
LED BY: CREDIT SUISSE & VILLAGE CAPITAL
Founded in 2013, Khmer Water Supply Holdings (KWSH) is a social enterprise on a mission to increase safe water access by delivering piped water to remote areas in Cambodia where four million people still do not have reliable sources of clean water in their homes. KWSH needed a new CRM/ERP system, but off-the-shelf solutions weren’t suitable and the company didn’t have the capital necessary to hire a vendor for a custom build. Committed to providing hands-on strategic support, Insitor Partners, a shareholder in KWSH since its establishment, recognized the challenge and introduced KWSH to Swisscontact’s RISE Platform, whose technical assistance (TA) financing solutions were well suited to help KWSH overcome their scaling challenges.
Scaling Social Business in Southeast Asia
LED BY: SWISSCONTACT CAMBODIA & INSITOR PARTNERS
Globally, the funds required to achieve the SDGs fall well short of the total global aid budget, with an estimated funding gap of USD2.5 trillion. Frontier Brokers is part of the Scaling Frontier Innovation program, an initiative of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s innovationXchange, which supports enterprises to scale their development impact in the Asia-Pacific. The Network is advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through innovation led by social entrepreneurship and investment for impact. Frontier Brokers is a network of 7 impact investment firms implementing projects to stimulate more appropriate types of capital reaching social enterprises. The firms range from NGOs to investment management firms and its members include firms like Athena Global Alliance, Brightlight Impact Advisory, Good Return, Investing for Good Impact Investment Exchange (IIX), Palladium and Secondmuse.
Frontier Brokers
LED BY: GOOD RETURN & IMPACT INVESTMENT EXCHANGE
CASVI, collaborating with 86 financial institutions, listed companies, academia and policy research institutions,initiated “Discovering Social Value 99 in China” in 2016 to address the challenge in not having a common language to promote sustainable finance across sectors and markets. The project has successfully established a quantitative assessment system to evaluate listed companies’ contribution to sustainable development in terms of their economic, social and environmental performance. Building on the assessment model and results, CASVI, together with pro bono experts, developed a series of products – social value credit rating, ranking, indices and assessment reports.
Discovering Social Value 99
LED BY: CHINA ALLIANCE OF SOCIAL VALUE INVESTMENT(CASVI) & CHINA GLOBAL PHILANTHROPY INSTITUTE
