March 2004, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
This report applies some basic business questions to Sustainable Livelihoods business projects. It shows how leading companies are answering them and innovating to overcome the barriers to doing business in this new territory. Questions include: What are the motivations? Do we understand the real needs of the markets? Do we have the right product/service to offer? How do we finance the investment? How do we ensure that there is demand for our product/service? How do we ensure that our customers can afford it? How do we reach our customers? How do we collect revenues? And how do we scale up or replicate?
The main case studies cover GrupoNueva, which learned how to distribute products more directly into poor markets, and held a contest to produce other pro-poor business ideas; Suez, who found new partners to help it deliver water to poor neighborhoods in Brazil; Procter & Gamble, which is committed to developing consumer products that meet the needs of the poorest; Vodafone, which developed a novel method of franchising telephone services among remote villages; and SC Johnson, which sources product ingredients from poor farmers in Kenya. The report also details how big oil and mineral companies such as Shell, BP, and Rio Tinto can bring business opportunities to low incomes countries and communities.
