From tourism to coffee, young Thais blend profit with social good

Pai was sure it would be a hit with tour oper­at­ors in Bangkok, but he was wrong. “They wer­en’t even inter­ested to go and inspect the places,” he said.

That pushed the former engin­eer, now 34, to set up Loc­al Alike, a travel con­sultancy that pro­motes sus­tain­able tour­ism in 70 villages.

“I grew up in the same situ­ation where there wer­en’t many eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies, so it attracts me to work for the people,” said Pai, who lived with his grand­par­ents in a vil­lage in north­east Thai­l­and until he was eight while his par­ents trav­elled in search of labour­ing work.

A grow­ing num­ber of young Thai entre­pren­eurs like Pai are get­ting involved in activ­it­ies that have tra­di­tion­ally been the domain of the gov­ern­ment and devel­op­ment groups — from provid­ing water in remote com­munit­ies to help­ing cof­fee farm­ers earn a fair income.

This new gen­er­a­tion of busi­ness own­ers believes run­ning com­pan­ies that invest in tack­ling social and envir­on­ment­al causes is a bet­ter way to help than rely­ing on donors’ whims.

“There are so many prob­lems in Thai­l­and that need to be solved,” said Pai. “I see (this as) the new pat­tern of doing busi­ness — doing good while mak­ing money.”

Half of Loc­al Alike’s busi­ness units are now fin­an­cially sus­tain­able and it runs a devel­op­ment fund that sup­ports loc­al pro­jects, he said.

Thail­and’s trans­form­a­tion to an upper-middle-income coun­try in less than a gen­er­a­tion has lif­ted mil­lions out of poverty, but inequal­ity and depriva­tion persist.

Over 80 per­cent of Thail­and’s 7.1 mil­lion poor people live in rur­al areas, and an addi­tion­al 6.7 mil­lion are just above the poverty line, accord­ing to the World Bank.

The South­east Asi­an nation of 66 mil­lion also faces ser­i­ous chal­lenges of envir­on­ment­al degrad­a­tion and resource deple­tion caused by mass tour­ism, pol­lu­tion, gen­er­a­tion of waste and intens­ive farm­ing, experts say.

Aliza Napart­ivaum­nuay, 34, grew up in Kolk­ata, Rome and Seattle before mov­ing back to Bangkok. She spent nearly a dec­ade work­ing in the retail sup­ply chain before co-found­ing Social­giver more than two years ago.

The online busi­ness offers deals on leis­ure ser­vices, includ­ing hotel rooms, res­taur­ant tables and spa pack­ages. The pro­ceeds fund social and green pro­jects, such as refor­est­a­tion, chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion and hos­pit­al beds for poor patients.

The idea was not to set up a busi­ness that spoke only to people who already care about such issues.

“We wanted to cre­ate some­thing more inclus­ive and approach­able by offer­ing ser­vices users are accus­tomed to spend­ing on,” said Aliza.

Cabbages & Condoms

Many trace the birth of social enter­prise in Thai­l­and to the estab­lish­ment in 1974 of Cab­bages and Con­doms, a suc­cess­ful Bangkok res­taur­ant that funds sexu­al health edu­ca­tion and provision.

But the concept only star­ted gath­er­ing pace a few years ago, with incub­at­ors such as Change Fusion fos­ter­ing start-ups.

Now there are busi­nesses that enable blind chil­dren to learn using a spe­cial draw­ing board, or that train and employ people with dis­ab­il­it­ies. Oth­ers sup­port wid­ows and orphans affected by the con­flict in south­ern Thai­l­and, and use IT to help health pro­fes­sion­als and char­it­ies devel­op mobile apps.

There are between 5,000 and 10,000 organ­isa­tions in Thai­l­and that fit the social enter­prise mod­el, said Nut­taphong Jaruwan­na­phong, dir­ect­or of the Thai Social Enter­prise Office (TSEO).

Saks Rouypir­om, 39, opened Broc­coli Revolu­tion, a trendy res­taur­ant serving vegan, mostly organ­ic food to help fund his non-profit Sati. Its pro­jects include installing water fil­ters in north­ern vil­lages in part­ner­ship with US-based Plan­et Water Foundation.

“Sati means ‘mind­ful­ness’ so it’s about being mind­ful of prob­lems and solu­tions,” said Saks, who buys mush­rooms for his res­taur­ant from a street-child shel­ter and kale from farm­ers to whom he has provided the seeds.

“Being a busi­ness own­er, you can make a con­scious decision to sup­port these causes,” added Saks, who was born and raised in the United States.

No pity, please

Still, for all the excite­ment about their poten­tial, social enter­prises face mul­tiple chal­lenges in Thai­l­and, includ­ing a lack of reg­u­la­tion and lim­ited access to finance.

It was “very dif­fi­cult” to get investors on board to set up Loc­al Alike, when they were told they would not see all the profits, said Pai. He received sup­port from Change Fusion and entered busi­ness com­pet­i­tions to win funding.

In Thai­l­and, com­pan­ies seek­ing cer­ti­fic­a­tion as social enter­prises can­not pay more than 30 per­cent of their profits in the form of share­hold­er dividends, said TSEO’s Nuttaphong.

Ayu “Lee” Chuepa, the founder of Akha Ama Cof­fee, poses in front of the Akha Ama Liv­ing Fact­ory, a cafe, edu­ca­tion­al garden and work­shop space due to open later this year out­side Chi­ang Mai in north­ern Thai­l­and, Sept. 15, 2017. Thom­son Reu­ters Foundation/Thin Lei Win

When Ayu “Lee” Chuepa wanted to help cof­fee farm­ers in his com­munity earn a fair income, he had a hard time con­vin­cing vil­la­gers to work with him due to his youth and inexperience.

“My moth­er said that is to be expec­ted. So I asked, ‘If you wer­en’t my par­ents, would you have joined me?’. They said, ‘Of course not. Are you crazy?’ ” he recoun­ted, laughing.

Things have since improved. The Stock Exchange of Thai­l­and, for example, now has an online plat­form that pro­motes invest­ment in social enterprises.

But the pub­lic per­cep­tion that such busi­nesses offer lower-qual­ity products still needs to be tackled, experts say.

“Since the begin­ning, I did­n’t want to sell our products by mak­ing people feel pity. I want them to buy because they’re good,” said Lee, who belongs to the Akha eth­nic minority.

He is now build­ing his third branch of Akha Ama Cof­fee, with help from archi­tects at Jai Baan Stu­dio, anoth­er social enter­prise that uses loc­al resources and nature in its designs.

Lee hopes the divi­sion between social and tra­di­tion­al busi­nesses will fade with time. “I want every­one in the world to be a social entre­pren­eur, doing good,” he said.

Source: Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion, the char­it­able arm of Thom­son Reuters.

Fea­tured image: Aliza Napart­ivaum­nuay, co-founder of Social­giver, an online busi­ness offer­ing deals on hotels and oth­er leis­ure ser­vices that chan­nels profits into good causes, poses for a por­trait in Bangkok’s cent­ral busi­ness dis­trict, Thai­l­and, Oct. 4, 2017. Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion/Thin Lei Win