ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly introduces the sustainability cases and their core characteristics. It contains a majority of cases on social entrepreneurship, but also a number of sustainability cases portraying entrepreneurs practicing innovative ways of doing business by integrating environmental and social questions into the core of the business model. The cases describe new patterns of value creation, new alliances and the challenges of dealing with existing paradigms. Greg Dees is providing a tour d'horizon on the foundations of Social Entrepreneurship and develops a base for a shared understanding of the nature of the social entrepreneur. The chapter provides the insights gained about the nature of social entrepreneurship and deepens some of the learnings by examining the development of inclusive markets. As one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century is the safe supply of potable water, it presents more cases of organizations that deal with the water crisis in innovative ways.
