Leading our work with businesses and enterprises looking to put Doughnut Economics into practice - meet Erinch Sahan.
We’re excited to introduce Erinch Sahan and welcome him to the Doughnut Economics Action Lab Team as our Business & Enterprise Lead!
Erinch has joined DEAL to lead our work on business and enterprise. For over 10 years, he has focused on the transformation of the business world to make it regenerative and distributive by design – exploring governance and ownership models that embed social and ecological priorities.
Erinch's background spans business, government, social enterprise and NGOs. Most recently, he was the chief executive of the World Fair Trade Organization, a global network and verifier of social enterprises and cooperatives that practice Fair Trade.
Previously, he spent 7 years at Oxfam leading campaign and advocacy initiatives, and founding Oxfam’s Future of Business Initiative. He has also worked at Procter & Gamble as a market strategy manager, established a furniture business and worked for Australia's aid programme.
Erinch speaks and writes regularly on cooperatives, social enterprises and other enterprise alternatives to profit primacy. He has lectured extensively on sustainable business and holds degrees in finance and law, and an honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University. Erinch is a board member of the Social Enterprise World Forum and teaches sustainable value chains at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
"To be regenerative and distributive by design? For the business world, that is the question. I'm excited to go on a journey of exploration with the full Doughnut Economics community."
Please help us give Erinch a very warm welcome! And why not get to know the other members of the DEAL Team, too?
What next for the Doughnut and business?
If business is to help bring humanity into the Doughnut then it’s clear that business operations and their impacts will need to become regenerative and distributive by design. At DEAL we believe that the full potential to achieve this transformation will only be unlocked by addressing the deep design of business itself - its Purpose, Networks, Governance, Ownership and Finance (see DEAL’s Doughnut Design for Business tool & accompanying paper). Through focusing on these five traits of enterprise design - the DNA of business - we will be exploring the many possible ways to enable and lock-in a lasting commitment to the business practices and investments that can create regenerative and distributive outcomes, and so help meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. It is a markedly different focus to the many valuable sustainability and reporting initiatives that already exist around the world, and we believe it will be an important complement to that ongoing work.
We will be working closely with businesses and enterprises and many members of the DEAL community in the process. As we evolve DEAL's business policy framework, we will continually be seeking to balance our commitment to openness in sharing and adapting the tools we create with our commitment to the integrity of the core concepts and principles at the heart of our work. We look forward to working and learning with you along the way.
