Meizen Kinpara: The Pioneer of Social Business

Abstract

Meizen Kinpara was a social entrepreneur who was active in the Meiji era (1868–1912). Kinpara was successful in profit business, operating the transportation, sawmill, and banking industries. On the other hand, as a social entrepreneur, he diligently tackled flood control, reforestation, and protection and rehabilitation of ex-prisoners. In particular, in order to protect the local community from the flood damage of the Tenryu River, Shizuoka Prefecture, he invested his private property obtained from commercial business into developing the flood control activities. The national government highly evaluated Kinpara's insight on reforestation and entrusted the management of the Imperial Forest, a forest owned by the imperial family. We can see Kinpara's innovativeness as a social entrepreneur in the fact that he established a sustainable social business model by succeeding in the lumber industry that utilized the thinned timbers extracted from planted forests and the transportation industry which transported processed timber.