The main characteristic is:
Social Aims: They have explicit social aims such as job creation, training or the provision of local services. They have ethical values including a commitment to local capacity building, and they are accountable to their members and the wider community for their social environmental and economic impact.
The government defines social enterprises as businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.
Some well known social enterprises include:
John Lewis,
Welsh Water,
Cafédirect,
The Eden Project,
Divine Chocolate http://www.divinechocolate.com/default.aspx,
The Big Issue,
the Co-operative Group,
Duchy Originals - http://www.duchyoriginals.com/,
the London Symphony Orchestra and
Jamie Oliver's Restaurant - 15 http://www.fifteen.net/Pages/default.aspx.
