items sorted by publication date
The Cycle of Light 
By Nilanjana Nag, Mumbai Mirror, July 6, 2008
Suprio Das, an electrical engineer based in Kolkata, has created a battery that is charged by the pedalling of a cycle rickshaw. He calls it 'Firefly'.
>> More Details | created on: 07/29/2008
Innovative Bicycle is Designed to Meet Needs of Urban Poor
By Derek Newberry, The City Fix, June 12, 2008
The product is called the Aquaduct, a tricycle designed by a team of five at IDEO that stores water in a twenty gallon tank in the back of the bike’s wide, blue frame. As the user travels back home, the energy they expend pedaling is used to filter the water into a removable two gallon tank that rests in front of the handlebars.
>> More Details | created on: 06/17/2008
Powering Villages from Rice Husks
By Brevy Cannon, May 19, 2008 (University of Virginia)
Two rice husk generators are providing power to about 10,000 rural Indians, but the business plan calls for a rapid expansion that will put the miniature power plants in hundreds more villages within a few years. The project won the Social Innovation Competition at the University of Texas.
>> More Details | created on: 06/12/2008
Taking BoP Strategies to Scale: Connecting Rural Communities
By Al Hammond, NextBillion.net, May 7, 2008
A rural connectivity pilot project in Son Tay Commune, Quang Ngai Province of Vietnam. Suggests that providing rural coverage with a wireless network would be dramatically less costly to the telco. Plus the telco can sell Internet access to cybercafés, schools, government offices, and small businesses, over the same network. From the perspective of the users, it also looks like a good deal, because local calls would be free.
>> More Details | created on: 05/12/2008
Sustainable Rubber Sourcing: Michelin
By WBCSD , February 8, 2008
At the end of 2001, Michelin was confronted with a combination of crucial issues surrounding its hevea tree plantation in the state of Bahia, on the northeastern coast of Brazil: poor productivity due to structural factors, the decreasing price of natural rubber, playing a key local role as an employer in a low economically developed region, and holding unique ecological wealth in the presence of endangered primary Atlantic forest. In grappling with how it could cope with these issues in a positive manner, Michelin decided to stay and implement a new business model and organizational structure.
>> More Details | created on: 02/14/2008
Procter & Gamble: Safe Water Through a Powder
By WBCSD , January 18, 2008
Procter & Gamble's Children's Safe Drinking Water program - the signature program for P&G's Live, Learn and Thrive™ corporate cause - helps address this critical issue by the use of simple, household-level water treatment technology: PUR™ Purifier of Water.
>> More Details | created on: 02/14/2008
Local Supplier Development Program: Ledesma
By WBCSD , August 24, 2007
Ledesma's Local Supplier Development Program aims to strengthen job-creation in and the economic development of the province of Jujuy, in Argentina, and particularly in the area where its employees live. In doing so, the company designed a program in which the growth of local suppliers could also provide benefits for the company.
>> More Details | created on: 02/14/2008
What Works: Scojo India Foundation
By Nico Clemminck & Sachin Kadakia, NextBillion.net, June 1, 2007
In this case study, the authors examine Scojo Foundation and identify the key drivers that make their social enterprise program successful in India.
>> More Details | created on: 07/31/2007
Mi Farmacita Nacional: Enabling Good Health Among Mexico's BOP
By Enrique Coronado & Christina Krettecos, Yvonne Lu, NextBillion.net, June 1, 2007
Mi Farmacita Nacional is a fully for-profit, Mexican owned pharmacy franchise with a social imperative. The company’s mission statement is "to bring medicines and special services to the regions of most necessity in the Mexican Republic and to provide health, well-being, communication and accessible prices to the majority of homes."
>> More Details | created on: 08/15/2007
HBS Cases: How Magazine Luiza Courts the Poor
By Julia Hanna, HBS, April 18, 2007
Brazilian retailer Magazine Luiza has developed an innovative strategy for selling to the poor, combining technology with great service that please both customers and employees. The question of how the company can grow without sacrificing the special qualities that have made it successful.
>> More Details | created on: 04/24/2007
Building Markets Where Few Exist 
WBCSD, March 9, 2007
Once a week, Hilario Amador makes the short journey to the city center of Zacatecas, Mexico, to deposit 120 pesos with Patrimonio Hoy, a self-help building scheme run by CEMEX, one of the world’s largest cement companies.
This disciplined habit has allowed the 38-year-old abattoir worker to receive regular supplies of building materials, with which he has tiled his floors, repaired the roof, and added two rooms to his modest, single-story home.
In the mid-1990s CEMEX, a WBCSD Cement Sustainability Initiative leader, was suffering along with most other Mexican companies from a devastating currency devaluation that eliminated more than 1 million Mexican jobs and cut the buying power of the Mexican peso roughly in half.
>> More Details | created on: 04/24/2007
Electricité de France: Providing Services to Rural Populations
WBCSD , February 23, 2007
EDF, a competitive multi-energy, multi-service provider, has a keen interest in global electrification, both as a major player in the global power industry, as well as a public company with a history of dedication to public service and rural electrification.
EDF committed itself “to help provide energy to developing countries' populations”. Improving rural and peri-urban (areas outside formal urban boundaries but which are in the process of urbanization) zone development, reducing the negative impact on the environment, and using and promoting renewable energy technologies, are some of the objectives of the Group's sustainable development commitment.
>> More Details | created on: 04/24/2007
Vodafone: economic empowerment through mobile
Vodafone, February 20, 2007
Following a successful pilot program in Kenya, Vodafone is rolling out a service that allows customers to access cash via their mobile phones. Called M-PESA, the service allows customers to borrow, transfer and make payments using a mobile phone, transforming financial services by making transactions cheaper, faster and more secure.
Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin said his company sees significant growth potential in emerging markets like Kenya partly because research shows that mobile technology can revolutionize social and economic growth in these countries
>> More Details | created on: 02/23/2007
Quantifying Heineken's economic impact in Sierra Leone
WBCSD, February 2, 2007
A new economic impact assessment (EIA) model was developed and tested in Sierra Leone to quantify both direct and indirect impacts of a foreign company on the local economy.
The Dutch National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development (NCDO) and Heineken International commissioned Triple Value Strategy Consulting and InReturn to develop an economic impact assessment model and test the model on the Heineken operating company, Sierra Leone Brewery.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2007
Using raw materials sustainably: Natura
WBCSD, January 8, 2007
The Brazil nut is appropriate for infant nutrition as a milk and is a source of selenium, an important anti-oxidant. It is used as a medicine to treat hepatitis; it also treats dry skin and hair, and can be eaten as an appetizer. Brazil-based Natura depends on the sustainable harvesting of the Brazil nut for its products.
The Brazil nut also has an important socio-economic function. As sustenance for many families, the nut is used as an appetizer, and Brazil nut meal, a byproduct rich in selenium, can be used in cereals and other foods. The locally processed oil is sold to cosmetics companies.
In 2000, Brazil-based Natura started its program to sustainably use raw materials from Brazilian biodiversity. For example, Natura uses the Brazil nut in products for dry skin and hair (the Ekos line).
>> More Details | created on: 01/12/2007
Doing Well by Doing Good
By Aneel Karnani, Ross School of Business Working Paper Series, January, 2007
According to the ‘doing well by doing good’ proposition, firms have a corporate social responsibility to achieve some larger social goals, and can do so without a financial sacrifice. This paper empirically tests this proposition by examining in depth the case of ‘Fair & Lovely,’ a skin whitening cream, marketed by Unilever in many countries in Asia and Africa, and, in particular, India. Fair & Lovely is indeed doing well; it is a profitable and fast growing brand. It is, however, not doing good, and we demonstrate its negative implications for public welfare. We conclude with thoughts on how to reconcile this divergence between private profits and public welfare.
>> More Details | created on: 03/02/2007
What works: Grameen Telecom's Village Phones
By NEVIN COHEN, World Resource Institute, December 7, 2006
The high revenues generated by Grameen Telecom’s shared-access business model suggest how powerful such approaches can be. With local entrepreneurs providing one phone per village, the whole community is the customer. The phones generate revenues averaging $90 per month in rural Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries. Social and economic benefits to the entrepreneurs, and to the village, from phone access have
proved to be high as well.
>> More Details | created on: 12/07/2006
Fighting hidden hunger: DSM
WBCSD, December 4, 2006
According to the United Nations World Food Programme, one-third of the world’s population -- approximately 2 billion people -- suffers from hidden hunger (micronutrient malnutrition).
One of the most effective and sustainable ways to combat malnutrition is to fortify staple foods with vitamins and minerals. DSM's Nutrition Improvement Programme is intended to contribute to the elimination of malnutrition in the developing world. Improving the nutritional status in these developing and emerging countries and economies offers future business opportunities for DSM.
>> More Details | created on: 02/02/2007
Procter & Gamble: Treating water at its point of use
WBCSD, October 17, 2006
Did you know that Procter & Gamble, in collaboration with non-governmental organizations and governments, is working in developing countries to provide safe drinking water to people directly in their homes?
>> More Details | created on: 10/20/2006
Integrating Sustainability into Business Practice: Novo Nordisk
By Mette Morsing & Dennis Oswald, WBCSD, October 6, 2006
Novo Nordisk is an organization that attempts to consider sustainability as an integrated part of its strategy and in all of its business decisions. To meet this goal, the company has adopted a management philosophy that they call the “Novo Nordisk Way of Management” to ensure all actions taken by employees meet corporate objectives. Within this management tool are three pillars that are used as control mechanisms to integrate sustainability into Novo Nordisk’s business practices: facilitators, a sustainability report, and the balanced scorecard.
>> More Details | created on: 11/02/2006
Educating Amaretch: Private Schools for the Poor and the New Frontier for Investors
IFC.org, October 5, 2006
The accepted wisdom says that the poor need billions of dollars more in donor aid for public education. But this ignores the reality that poor parents are abandoning public schools to send their children to ”budget” private schools that charge very low fees, affordable to parents on minimum wages.
>> More Details | created on: 10/05/2006
Microfinance for shelter
International Institute for Environment and Development, June, 2006
The world of housing finance has changed very significantly over the last ten years. In particular, small-scale lending for land purchase, infrastructure investment and housing improvements has increased significantly. Ten years ago, the state programmes in Thailand had barely started, while the housing subsidy programme in South Africa was being conceived of as a capital grant. Microfinance agencies had a “toe in the water” approach to shelter lending, and the urban poor funds that now are a firm feature of SDI programmes had been launched in only one country. NGO shelter lending continued, and had been taking place for many years, but programmes remained relatively disconnected from other financial systems and institutions. Hence they remained smallscale revolving loan funds assisting relatively small numbers of families. The landscape is now very different.
>> More Details | created on: 01/19/2007
The Case of Vodafone
By UK Department of International Development , May 2, 2006
Vodafone has successfully bid for grant funding from the Financial Deepening Challenge Fund (FDCF) to develop a Mobile Micro-finance “platform” in Kenya and Tanzania. This initiative has already resulted in important new developments within Vodafone that are likely to have significant commercial and social impact. However, it was not developed without overcoming a number of significant challenges.
This Case Study examines the process through which Vodafone recognised and took advantage of the opportunity presented by the FDCF, and captures important lessons that have relevance to the process of engaging the private sector in development activities.
>> More Details | created on: 05/02/2006
Electrifying South Africa: Eskom
WBCSD, April 27, 2006
A key sustainable development issue is access to essential services for improved quality of life, including improved health services, clean water, adequate food and modern energy. Electricity plays a key role in delivering all these services. It underpins the economic and social development of many countries, and provides the support infrastructure for such development to occur. Therefore, for any nation or region to move forward and become competitive in the global market, providing reliable and affordable electricity is crucial.
>> More Details | created on: 07/13/2006
Unilever in Brazil:Marketing Strategies for Low Income Consumers
By P. Chandon & P. Pacheco Guimaraes, INSEAD, January 1, 2006
Unilever is a solid leader in the Brazilian detergent powder market with an 81% market share. Laercio Cardoso must decide: (1) whether Unilever should divert money from its premium brands to target the lower- margin segment of low-income consumers; (2) whether Unilever can reposition or extend one of its existing brands to avoid launching a new brand; and (3) what price, product, promotion, and distribution strategy would allow Unilever to deliver value to low-income consumers without cannibalising its own premium brands too heavily. This case deals with the question of whether marketing and branding create value for really poor consumers.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
Bringing healthcare services to rural communities: Royal Philips Electronics
WBCSD, December 13, 2005
The poorer sections of rural Indian households spend close to 12% of their income on healthcare, making the availability and affordability of quality healthcare a major national issue. Nearly 60% of this population takes loans at interest rates of 60-120% per year to pay for either prolonged treatment or for hospitalization.
In India, Royal Philips Electronics aims to provide quality healthcare at an affordable price to the people who need it. In order to reach this goal, the company has custom-built a tele-clinical van complete with diagnostic equipment and dedicated doctors and para-medical staff.
>> More Details | created on: 07/13/2006
Thamel.com: Diaspora-enabled Development (Nepal)
By John Paul, World Resources Institute, December, 2005
Thamel.com is a Nepal-based marketing and development company that has tapped the resources of the diaspora to create new opportunities for Nepalese workers, generate cultural value, and help move local businesses in a new direction. The company’s unique combination of e-commerce, remittance, and business development services demonstrate how combining the power of IT and diasporas can create opportunities at the base of the pyramid.
>> More Details | created on: 03/15/2006
Fighting disease clean-handed: Unilever
WBCSD, November 16, 2005
Diarrhea causes over three million deaths a year worldwide, mostly among children. At a rate of one child every ten seconds, mortality from diarrheal diseases represents one-third of all deaths of children under the age of five in developing countries. Yet a World Bank study estimates that hand washing with soap and water can reduce diarrheal diseases by up to 48%, preventing over one and a half million children from dying each year.
>> More Details | created on: 07/13/2006
Safety Nets for the Poor: A Missing International Dimension?
By Sanjay G. Reddy, October 19, 2005
Poor persons in poor countries are greatly exposed to the risk of adverse shocks, many of international origin, which can create long-lasting damage to individual well-being. There is a strong moral and practical case for taking measures which reduce the extent to which such shocks arise, and diminish their adverse effects.
>> More Details | created on: 01/20/2006
Focusing on the Triple Bottom Line: Natura
WBCSD, October 12, 2005
Brazil has a rich natural heritage, one-third of the world's remaining tropical forests, as is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. Natura’s Ekos Challenge aims to create a model to allow the sustainable use of natural resources, generating good business opportunity and social development for traditional communities and for Natura and its partners.
>> More Details | created on: 07/13/2006
First Mile Solutions Daknet Takes Rural Communities Online
By Carol Chyau & Jean-Francois Raymond, World Resources Institute, October 1, 2005
First Mile Solutions (FMS) counters the problem of increasing technological access to rural areas by providing telecommunications equipment that can cheaply connect rural and remote populations to the Internet through an innovative technology: DakNet. DakNet leverages short- range wireless technology in tandem with traditional telecommunication and physical transportation infrastructures.
>> More Details | created on: 02/23/2006
Shell - Searching for sustainable solutions to indoor air pollution
WBCSD, August 15, 2005
Because Indoor air pollution (IAP) is the most serious energy and poverty-related health problem, the Shell Foundation has committed US$ 10 million to tackle IAP through its Household Energy and Health Programme, branded as “Breathing Space”. Breathing Space’s approach is to identify, test and then ideally diffuse “market-based” schemes for getting killer smoke out of very large numbers of very poor people’s kitchens. Under this program supply- and demand-side interventions based on business and market principles are being piloted in eight developing countries.
>> More Details | created on: 07/13/2006
Narayana Murthy and Compassionate Capitalism
By Bill George, Shailendra J. Singh & Andrew N. McLean, Harvard Business School, July 22, 2005
Narayana Murthy's roles at Infosys Technologies--as a co-founder, longtime CEO, and nonexecutive chairman and chief mentor--has been marked by explosive growth, demanding management challenges, and widely lauded company leadership. His personal leadership philosophy has been articulated through and driven by his philosophy of "compassionate capitalism." Profiles Murthy's philosophy and leadership principles. Traces the development of Murthy as a child, scholar, businessman, and political and social activist. Traces the links between Murthy's principles and the business practices that repeatedly brought Infosys Technologies recognition as one of India's most admired and best managed companies. Raises questions in his mind about the place of philanthropic principles in the management of a business enterprise.
>> More Details | created on: 04/03/2006
The Mogalakwena HP i-community: Hewlett-Packard
WBCSD, July 5, 2005
Despite the enormous worldwide impact of the Internet, more than 90% of the world’s population has never used the technology and the “digital divide” between the developed and developing nations is growing. Hewlett-Packard's Mogalakwena i-community in South Africa seeks to bridge that divide.
Through public-private partnerships, the HP Mogalakwena i-community aims to turn the region into a thriving, self-sustaining economy where access to technology permanently improves the livelihoods of the population by raising literacy rates, creating income, providing access to government services, education and health care, and opening new markets.
>> More Details | created on: 07/13/2006
The Mogalakwena HP i-community: Hewlett-Packard
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, July 5, 2005
Despite the enormous worldwide impact of the Internet, more than 90% of the world’s population has never used the technology and the “digital divide” between the developed and developing nations is growing. Hewlett-Packard's Mogalakwena i-community in South Africa seeks to bridge that divide.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
Electrifying rural Moroccan households: Electricité de France (EDF), Tenesol, Total
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, June 2, 2005
Through a unique program developed by Morocco’s National Electricity Office (ONE), EDF, Total and Tenesol (previously Total Energie) are helping remote Moroccan villages access electricity through solar power installations.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
Social Entrepreneurship: Creating New Business Models to Serve the Poor
By Christian Seelos & Johanna Mair, Harvard Business School, May 15, 2005
The term "social entrepreneurship" refers to the rapidly growing number of organizations that have created models for efficiently catering to basic human needs that existing markets and institutions have failed to satisfy. Social entrepreneurship combines the resourcefulness of traditional entrepreneurship with a mission to change society. Because it contributes directly to internationally recognized sustainable development goals, social entrepreneurship may also encourage established corporations to take on greater social responsibility.
>> More Details | created on: 04/03/2006
The Kuppam HP i-community: Hewlett-Packard
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, May 2, 2005
Hewlett-Packard's Kuppam i-community aims to provide people with access to greater social and economic opportunities by closing the gap between technology-empowered and technology-excluded communities.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
NetMark: A Case Study In Sustainable Malaria Prevention Through Partnership with Business
By AED, Academy for Educational Development, April 1, 2005
This case study examines NetMark, a unique cross-sector partnership created to fight malaria in sub-Saharan Africa where the disease kills more than two million people each year.
>> More Details | created on: 07/31/2007
Access to Electricity program eases poverty: ABB
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, March 1, 2005
ABB’s Access to Electricity program is designed to promote sustainable economic, environmental and social development in poor communities and is yielding its first concrete results in a remote village in southern Tanzania.
>> More Details | created on: 11/23/2005
Share MicroFin Limited: India's Largest Microfinance Organization
By R. Meenakshisundaram & R. Fernando, ICFAI Centre for Management Research, March 1, 2005
Within just over a decade, SHARE Microfin Limited (SML) grew from a small society into India’s largest microfinance organisation. During the initial years, the organisation had to face many challenges with regard to customer acceptance, fund mobilisation, government regulation and operational issues. However the organisation had adapted the Grameen model to the local conditions and had even transformed its constitution from that of a society to a public limited company so as to attract funds from private sector banks. The organisation sustained its growth momentum over the years, through innovative fund mobilisation efforts using partnership models with private sector banks and structured deals like securitisation.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
Empowering supply chains: Anglo American’s Mondi Recycling
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, February 25, 2005
Mondi Recycling, the biggest paper recycler in South Africa, feels it has the ability to create employment and sustain livelihoods in its operational areas.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
PC Industry's Next Billion Customers: Exploring the Growth Avenues
By T. Phani Madhav & D. Gayatri, ICFAI Business School Case Development Centre, February 1, 2005
The global PC industry was looking for new avenues for growth as its traditional markets matured. Penetration levels in the US PC market as well as other European nations were as high as 60%. The industry behemoths like Dell, Microsoft, IBM and Hewlett Packard believed that developing countries like Brazil, India, China and Russia were the next 'one billion market'. While the companies were tapping the unmet needs and were adapting themselves to the market requirements, several challenges stood in their way to success. The poverty levels, the rigid laws and the language diversity were among others the problems for these multinationals. The case highlights the PC industry's growth strategies in the traditional markets and its entry into emerging markets. The case drives discussion towards the opportunities and challenges in the next 'one billion market' and how the companies were tackling them.
>> More Details | created on: 04/18/2006
Natura
By Brazil BCSD, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, 2005
Natura’s Ekos Challenge aims to create a model to allow the sustainable use of natural resources, generating good business opportunity and social development for traditional communities and for Natura and its partners.
>> View Article | created on: 11/22/2005
Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) and Project STING A
By Patricia H. Werhane