Strategies to support regenerative businesses

👉🏽 This story is developed as part of the Doughnut Economics for Policymakers guide.

Many governments have developed integrated strategies to nurture regenerative enterprises through multiple complementary mechanisms such as legal frameworks, dedicated financing support, capacity building, tax incentives, and preferential procurement. By incentivising deep design of regenerative enterprises, these holistic strategies can create enabling environments for such enterprises to emerge and thrive.

Overview 

Rather than relying on isolated policies, many governments have developed integrated strategies that combine multiple support mechanisms to nurture enterprises that are more regenerative by design. Examples of how countries combine complementary approaches through a dedicated strategy to incentivise one or multiple enterprise deep design elements include:

• Social and ecological: Brazil certifies intermediary organisations that can incubate and accelerate enterprises aiming to deliver positive social and ecological impacts. It facilitates strategic partnerships among investors, impact enterprises and civil society organisations to help shape favourable government policies and supportive financial systems for social and ecological impact. Similarly, Sri Lanka’s cross-departmental strategy includes measures such as improving financial access through impact investment funds, risk-sharing with private investors, capacity building and promoting impact enterprises with initiatives such as national awards. 
• Democratic ownership and governance:  India and the Philippines combine clear legal frameworks, capacity building, tax incentives and preferential procurement to support cooperatives. Mexico City offers training and grants for cooperatives.
• Strong governance and networks serving minority groups: New Zealand and Australia combine preferential procurement, microfinancing, capacity building, expert support and support networks to strengthen Indigenous businesses. 
• Social enterprises with multiple deep design elements: Many countries have developed dedicated strategies for ‘social enterprises’. While definitions vary, most explicitly seek to support enterprises with democratic and/or transparent ownership and governance, clear social and/or ecological purposes, and profit reinvestment into their mission. Strategies include registration systems and clear criteria on which enterprises are supported by policy measures: for example, the EU developed clear definitions based on consultation with experts, Slovenia and Taiwan developed a social enterprise registry with clear criteria for self-assessment; South Korea has a certification system; and Thailand requires enterprises to reinvest at least 70% of their profits. These strategies, such as those adopted by France, Germany, Ireland, Slovenia, and Taiwan, often combine approaches to ensure supportive legal systems; easy access to finance; reduced taxation burden; accessible and affordable advisory, coordination support and training; and preferential public procurement. Other examples of approaches adopted as part of wider strategies include: Finland’s university curriculum on social enterprises and free online courses; the public promotion campaigns “Buy Social Scotland” and "Buy for Impact" in Malaysia; and Quebec’s efforts to facilitate and incentivise collaborations and resource sharing amongst enterprises.

Implementation

Strategies such as these are primarily developed at a national or supra-national level, but sub-national governments such as Quebec and Mexico City have also complemented national strategies or addressed gaps within them.

These strategies all recognise that nurturing regenerative enterprises requires both holistic and complementary approaches. They are often informed by research and stakeholder consultation: for example, Slovenia’s strategy was informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder consultation process; Scotland collaborated with local social enterprise membership networks; and Brazil established a multi-stakeholder committee and public consultation programme.  

Some governments such as Malaysia, Spain and Finland have created dedicated public bodies to strengthen cross-departmental and multi-stakeholder collaboration in implementing these strategies. 

Impacts

A dedicated integrated strategy is often more effective than isolated policies for mobilising cross-sectoral and societal support for regenerative enterprises. Complementary support mechanisms help tackle multiple challenges simultaneously and provide enterprises with opportunities to grow and scale their impact. For example, thanks to governments' holistic strategies, the number of impact businesses rose by over 200% within four years in Brazil; while, as of 2021, social enterprises employ more than 2.3 million people and account for around 10% of national GDP in France. 

Challenges 

• Defining eligibility criteria: Articulating sound but flexible and verifiable criteria to define which enterprises are supported by which strategies can be challenging. 
• Ensuring implementation: Effective implementation of these strategies requires clear operational steps, sufficient resources and robust coordination mechanisms.
• Enabling transdisciplinary collaboration: These strategies are most successful when diverse voices are heard and multiple governmental departments are involved. Yet in practice, there is often a lack of resources, political will, or institutional capacity for sustained cross-sectoral collaboration.
• Integrating into a broader economic vision: Without a clear alternative goal for the wider economy, these strategies often remain niche initiatives, supporting a small subset of enterprises that must operate within dominant financial and macroeconomic systems. Those systems prioritise profits and economic growth over long-term social and ecological wellbeing.

Reference and further reading

• Comprehensive OECD analysis of Legal frameworks for the social and solidarity economy (2022).
• A Guide to the writing of law for the Social and Solidarity Economy by David Hiez, (2021).
• An exploration of different European strategies in the EU Social Economy Gateway, conducted by the European Commission.
• The European Commission and OECD's Better Entrepreneurship Policy Tool.
• The British Council and Social Enterprise UK's report on The global state of social enterprises (2022).
• The OECD report Unlocking the potential of the social and solidarity economy for people, places and firms in Latin America and the Caribbean, with policy examples and case studies (2024).
• Full strategies for Finland, Scotland, Malaysia, and Quebec (in French) can be found at the respective links.

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