Social Entrepreneur: Conscious Companies | Benefit Corporations | Impact Investing

Francesco Piazzesi grew up in the construction equipment industry. He noticed that the brick mason who spent his days building houses went home to a tin shack with a dirt floor. In many countries around the world, including Mexico, 2/3 of the houses built are built by the owners. The homeowners gather whatever materials they can afford and, step by step, over many years, they build their house. These houses are often not safe or sanitary and the vast majority have dirt floors. These houses also are not desirable, therefore, the homeowners do not build wealth to pass along to their family. From 1987 to 2006, Francesco tried to solve the problem through a charitable organization. However, he found that he was unable to scale his impact through philanthropy alone. So in 2006, Francesco formed Echale a tu casa, a social enterprise that provides housing to the masses, especially those at the bottom of the economic pyramid.   Echale has a machine that presses dirt into adobe building blocks, which reduce greenhouse