Social Innovation Hubs Supporting Social Entrepreneurs: Strategically Adopting the SDGs towards Sustainability

Abstract: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a well-known and comprehensive framework for sustainable development. However due to the overlapping and interrelated nature of the goals, action towards one goal can positively or negatively contribute to another.Social innovation hubs including Impact Hub and Centre for Social Innovation use the SDGs to support social entrepreneurs to have a positive impact. Document analysis and interviews with 15 practitioners from these hubs informed the research on how the organizations perceive and contribute to sustainability, how they integrate the SDGs, and the challenges and benefits with using the SDGs. Based on that, this research has developed five recommendations for social innovation hubs to: 1) Define Sustainability; 2) Enhance Visioning; 3) Design co-creative programs; 4) Define Impact;and 5) Communicate Impact. While other elements of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) could be used to complement the SDGs, the Sustainability Principles (SPs) of the FSSD are recommended as a definition for sustainability.