Sharon Bowles MEP and Nobel Peace Prize winner discuss possibility of UK-based Social Stock Exchange

Sharon Bowles MEP, who chairs the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, has met with Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, to

Sharon Bowles MEP with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus

discuss Social Business.

Yunus, known to some as 'Banker to the Poor', won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering work to establish creditworthiness and financial self-sufficiency in his native Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Meeting in Strasbourg, Ms Bowles and Mr Yunus discussed the benefits of social businesses, which are run to provide solutions to specific social problems on a not-for-profit basis.

Ms Bowles explained:

"Like any ordinary business, a social business has shareholders but dividends are not paid and any increase in share price is returned to the company for reinvestment and more socially beneficial work. You could look at it as a returnable charitable donation.

"Some large ordinary companies are involved in partnerships for Social Business as part of their corporate social responsibility programs; these include Danone, BASF, and GE Healthcare. So far, there are not any UK companies participating and I would very much like to see that changed. In particular, this is an opportunity for the City to show it has some heart and learn that there are things worth doing other than pocketing cash.

"Professor Yunus is aiming to set up a stock exchange for Social Business and Europe is an obvious place for this to be - I said 'where better than London' and he agreed. Of course, that could only happen if UK involvement in the project took-off.

"There is an international conference on this in November, in Austria, and I am very much hoping that I can adjust my schedule to attend."

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