How Citroën's electric vans are helping social enterprises drive positive change

“Wow! It looks great!” It’s an early autumn morning, and as members troop into their weekly Living in Fitness class at Florence Park Community Centre in Oxford there are many admiring glances directed at the swishy, shiny new van sitting outside the venue. “You deserve it for all the hard work you do,” adds another class member.

The vehicle in question, a new Citroën ë-Berlingo Van, has been smartly branded with the Living in Fitness logo, alongside Big Issue and our Driving Change For Good partners Citroën branding. It is being unloaded by Carl Davis in preparation for his regular Monday workout session. The Oxfordshire-based social enterprise that he founded in 2016 offers fitness classes – both in-person and online – designed specifically for the over-50s.

Davis has received the van as a free six-month loan to help him grow his business at a crucial time in its development. “I was a bit shellshocked actually when I first saw it!” he smiles. “The design I saw on email doesn’t do justice to how impressive the vehicle looks in real life. It’s like a new world – my first time experiencing an electric vehicle and having to recharge. And it’s been a great experience! It’s very comfortable and feels very smooth on the road. I feel blessed!”

This van marks the next phase in powering up Big Issue’s Driving Change For Good partnership with Citroën, which began in 2022. The partnership aims to reduce CO2 emissions, lower fuel costs and help social enterprises grow, all while reflecting Big Issue’s values: health, wellbeing, strength, community, creativity, confidence, empowerment and independence.

Our collaboration with Citroën started by replacing diesel vehicles in our frontline delivery fleet with electric ë-Dispatch and ë-Berlingo Vans. These vehicles have proven to be game-changers, not only in getting magazines into our vendors’ hands, but also in offering essential support in challenges they face, from housing to health.

Now, in alliance with Big Issue’s social investment arm Big Issue Invest (BII), which offers loans and investment from £20,000 to £4 million to UK social enterprises and charities, we are extending our Driving Change For Good mission and helping to grow other social enterprises that build stronger, sustainable, healthier, fairer communities.

Living in Fitness shares these values. Davis’s vision is to make fitness accessible, sustainable, affordable and above all inclusive for people aged over 50.

“I feel like I’m doing really good work,” he acknowledges. “My aim is to help members maintain their independence and quality of life through exercise. This means reducing frailty, helping them become stronger and fitter, and more connected, addressing loneliness and isolation. And I want to create employment opportunities for the over-50s in the fitness industry.” One of Davis’s members is already training to host her own Living in Fitness classes starting from this month.

“There are moments you really recognise that you are changing people’s lives,” acknowledges Davis. “You see people no longer in pain, with more energy and strength. You realise that you’re doing something meaningful.”

Davis’s passion for fitness and inclusivity is deeply personal. Raised in a low-income, “low expectation” area of High Wycombe, he had a troubled youth, became involved with gangs and found himself on the wrong side of the tracks. “I realised the mistakes I’d made and wanted to better my life. A lot went into that process,” he reflects. From this turning point, Davis ultimately studied business and marketing at Oxford Brookes University.

He acknowledges he has always had an entrepreneurial spirit, respect for commitment and hard graft instilled from his Caribbean grandparents and his father, a former soldier and himself a self-employed businessman. Alongside his firm belief in the power of fitness for both mind and body, he saw social enterprise as the ideal way to use his skills, passion and desire to make a difference. So he focused on making fitness accessible to older adults who might be excluded from traditional gyms, with their noisy music and complicated equipment.

“I’ve always had a level of confidence that Living in Fitness would work,” Davis says. “When the pandemic happened and I was able to take some of my members online, I realised that this could be something. When I got my first contract with Anchor Hanover [England’s largest provider of housing and social care for older people] so that any of their members can Zoom in to the classes, that was one of my ‘eureka’ moments, and those types of contracts will be key to building up the business and extending it to even more people.”

Davis’s classes are structured to be both inclusive and effective. For his online sessions, available as both live classes and pre-recorded on-demand, he keeps it simple, and participants use everyday items like tins of beans as weights.

At his in-person classes, each session consists of 10 exercise stations arranged in a circuit, focusing on strengthening different muscle groups, balance and mobility. “The idea is to make it fun, not patronising,” he explains. “Whether you’re pretty fit or just starting out, you’ll get something out of it. And there’s a strong social element – you do exercises in pairs, with time to talk and connect.”

The exercises change from week to week. “They’re minimal impact and not too complex, because you want everybody to be able to pick it up and not overthink it.

“Talking calmly, and meeting people where they are – we all have different aches and pains, so you have to be aware of that. People aren’t always going to be able to do the technique perfectly, but it’s about giving everyone space to make mistakes, and not being overbearing.

“Living in Fitness has never felt more like a business than it does now. The van and this Big Issue support and Growth Impact Fund investment are allowing me to transition from where I was” Carl Davis

“For the in-person classes, I bring dumbbells, slam balls, steps, and more. That’s why the van is so good — I can bring more equipment and take things further.”

And this is where Citroën, Big Issue and our investment arm Big Issue Invest come in.

Since its formation in 2005, Big Issue Invest (BII) has provided over £80m in impact loans to more than 550 social enterprises. It is through BII’s Growth Impact Fund – developed in partnership with UnLTD to target £25m of investment to under-represented social entrepreneurs – which provided £55,000 of investment funding for Davis to expand his business.

Living in Fitness is the eighth organisation to receive Growth Impact Fund investment. “We invest in organisations tackling inequality, but more crucially we are trying to move capital to entrepreneurs from communities that historically have been under-invested in,” explains Sarah Faber, investment director of the Fund at BII. “That includes people from LGBT+, racial minority communities, female entrepreneurs, lower income backgrounds and people in areas of high deprivation. We are open for applications from any of these communities.

“Davis and Living in Fitness is a great example of what we are trying to do, not least his experience of feeling excluded as a young black man living in High Wycombe in an impoverished background. When he set up the business he hadn’t had a lot of external support; BII brings decades of social investment experience, UnLTD provide entrepreneur support, and the investment repayment is flexible – so it will be repaid as a percentage of revenue meaning repayments scale up with the business.”

An initial £15,000 grant in 2022 supported Davis to prepare for his application for investment. His business plan hit the spot and in March this year received £55,000 from the Growth Impact Fund.

Davis says: “Getting this investment was validation that I am on the right path. The confidence boost with that validation is really important because often as a social entrepreneur – I think especially as a social entrepreneur – you’re not all about the profit, it’s also about social impact.

“You’re in a different sphere, not as commercial, so you feel a bit separated from mainstream funding and opportunities.”

The investment has also opened up workshops, talks, networking events, and support from other social entrepreneurs for Davis, which he is finding particularly valuable for things like increasing revenue as a social business and how to set up a board.

“The support has been second-to-none, it has been amazing. People who have had a social impact have been really caring and supportive mentors. It’s very much entrepreneur-led – not ‘this is the way you need to go’ – I don’t feel like I’m being led or compelled.

“The emotional support, the understanding, the opportunities available and the signposting have been really important. I feel very much like I’m part of something, I’m not alone.”

One of the key challenges for Davis as he looked to expand Living in Fitness was transport. He had been sharing the family car, using it to carry equipment for classes around Oxfordshire. But, with his young daughter now at school and a second child on the way, it needs to be prioritised for home life.

“Using the family car, I had to take out the child seat each time I needed to use it for work!” he laughs. So, thanks to Citroën’s free six-month loan of the new ë-Berlingo Van, he will be able to accelerate his growth plans. In the next year he aims to double numbers attending his face-to-face classes from around 70 to 150 at more locations, while also increasing online sessions and building new contracts with larger organisations like local authorities, health boards and social care providers.

“Access to another vehicle is a big thing in supporting me to expand,” he acknowledges. “It frees up my capacity, enables me to deliver classes to more people. And it opens up the opportunity for more types of equipment I can use. So having this dedicated Citroën ë-Berlingo Van is really important for the type of work I’m doing, because of the space and flexibility it provides.”

And the electric van not only provides Davis with the extra space he needs, but also aligns with the eco-friendly goals of both Citroën and Big Issue.

As he prepares for his next class in Wallingford, Davis reflects on how much has changed for his company. “Living in Fitness has never felt more like a business than it does now. The van and this Big Issue support and Growth Impact Fund investment are allowing me to transition from where I was,” he says.

“I think I’ll always be a sort of scrappy, figuring it out as you go-type of entrepreneur! But this enables me to actually get processes in place which mean I can offer a better service, which isn’t just reliant on me reacting. I actually have the space to think and put things in place.”

Look out for exciting news in the coming weeks about new Driving Change For Good Citroën partnership extensions in our Big Issue Invest family. And we will be catching up with Davis again to find out how his ë-Berlingo Van is helping his business grow.

Find out about Living in Fitness online and learn more about Citroën’s ë-Berlingo Van electric range here.