Social Business Brokers

Social Business Brokers CIC is a Leeds-based social enterprise, set up in 2010 by Gill Coupland and Rob Greenland. We work with people to design collaborative solutions to complex social problems - with a focus on creating a more circular economy. We have a strong track record of designing sustainable social businesses that have created big social impacts in our city. In 2013 we set up Empty Homes Doctor, to provide tailored support to owners of long term empty homes, to help them to bring them back into use. Since 2013, working closely with Leeds City Council and other partners, we have brought back into use over 900 long-term empty properties. In 2018 we set up Zero Waste Leeds - a project which aims to build a movement to help people in Leeds to waste less in their daily lives. We are local partners on the award-winning #LeedsByExample on-the-go recycling campaign, and we have delivered behaviour change campaigns on issues such as glass recycling and waste reduction during COVID-19. In 2020 we developed Leeds School Uniform Exchange https://leedsuniformexchange.org.uk/ - to make it as easy as possible for people to share good quality second-hand school uniform in Leeds. A year later, there are close to 100 exchanges established in Leeds, run by local people and organisations, covering over 80% of schools. Alongside running Zero Waste Leeds and Empty Homes Doctor, we provide consultancy services, primarily around the following themes: How to design a service to bring problematic long-term empty homes back into use - aimed at Local Authorities tasked with reducing numbers of empty homes How to build a zero waste movement in your city. Learning from the success of Zero Waste Leeds, we offer support to establish similarly collaborative approaches to waste reduction in other cities.