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Author: Prabhu Kandachar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351279866
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 549
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Book Description
Around the turn of the millennium it had become painfully evident that development aid, charity or "global business-as-usual" were not going to be the mechanisms to alleviate global poverty. Today, there is little dispute that poverty remains the most pressing global problem calling for innovative solutions. One recent strategy is the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) concept developed by Prahalad and Hart, which relies on entrepreneurial activity tapping into the previously ignored markets of the economically most disadvantaged. It is a process requiring innovations in several disciplines: technological, social and business.This book covers a number of areas. First, much of the current BoP discussion emphasises targeting products to the needs of the poor. But do we actually know what the real needs of the poor are? This book takes a bottom-up human-centred approach and examines examples that truly engage the poor in BoP product and service development. What types of needs assessment methodologies are indicated considering the cultural differences in BoP countries? Are the existing methodologies adequate? Do they need to be redefined and redeveloped? Second, the book considers how we can balance poverty alleviation and stimulate economic growth without stressing the ecosystem. Tragically, the poor are hardest hit by the adverse effects of environmental deterioration such as water shortages, climate change or the destruction of habitats. While the economic welfare of the poor is critical, the BoP approach must balance its inherent paradox of encouraging greater consumption while avoiding further pressures on environmental sustainability. The link between the BoP approach and sustainable development is a key feature of this book. Third, it looks at innovation and asks what kinds of"bottom-up" innovation (open source, technological, social and business) support BoP initiatives (and sustainable development)?Fourth, the book deals with the relationship between development assistance and BoP. Is a BoP strategy the antithesis to development aid or can these two co-exist or even complement each other?Finally, the book raises questions about the relationship between corporate responsibility and BoP. Is BoP a new form of corporate neo-colonialism or a new form of corporate responsibility? Although the BoP concept has unleashed an extensive and generally enthusiastic response from academics, businesses, NGOs and governments, the knowledge domain around this concept is still in the early stages of development. This book addresses that need with a focus on the needs of the end-users – the poor – as a starting point for BoP products and innovations. With contributions from both supporters and critics, it provides a treasure trove of global knowledge on how the concept has developed, what its successes and failures have been and what promise it holds as a long-term strategy for alleviating poverty and tackling global sustainability.
Author: Prabhu Kandachar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351279866
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 549
Get Book Here
Book Description
Around the turn of the millennium it had become painfully evident that development aid, charity or "global business-as-usual" were not going to be the mechanisms to alleviate global poverty. Today, there is little dispute that poverty remains the most pressing global problem calling for innovative solutions. One recent strategy is the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) concept developed by Prahalad and Hart, which relies on entrepreneurial activity tapping into the previously ignored markets of the economically most disadvantaged. It is a process requiring innovations in several disciplines: technological, social and business.This book covers a number of areas. First, much of the current BoP discussion emphasises targeting products to the needs of the poor. But do we actually know what the real needs of the poor are? This book takes a bottom-up human-centred approach and examines examples that truly engage the poor in BoP product and service development. What types of needs assessment methodologies are indicated considering the cultural differences in BoP countries? Are the existing methodologies adequate? Do they need to be redefined and redeveloped? Second, the book considers how we can balance poverty alleviation and stimulate economic growth without stressing the ecosystem. Tragically, the poor are hardest hit by the adverse effects of environmental deterioration such as water shortages, climate change or the destruction of habitats. While the economic welfare of the poor is critical, the BoP approach must balance its inherent paradox of encouraging greater consumption while avoiding further pressures on environmental sustainability. The link between the BoP approach and sustainable development is a key feature of this book. Third, it looks at innovation and asks what kinds of"bottom-up" innovation (open source, technological, social and business) support BoP initiatives (and sustainable development)?Fourth, the book deals with the relationship between development assistance and BoP. Is a BoP strategy the antithesis to development aid or can these two co-exist or even complement each other?Finally, the book raises questions about the relationship between corporate responsibility and BoP. Is BoP a new form of corporate neo-colonialism or a new form of corporate responsibility? Although the BoP concept has unleashed an extensive and generally enthusiastic response from academics, businesses, NGOs and governments, the knowledge domain around this concept is still in the early stages of development. This book addresses that need with a focus on the needs of the end-users – the poor – as a starting point for BoP products and innovations. With contributions from both supporters and critics, it provides a treasure trove of global knowledge on how the concept has developed, what its successes and failures have been and what promise it holds as a long-term strategy for alleviating poverty and tackling global sustainability.
Author: Wulf-Peter Schmidt
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031636244
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030944456X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. More than half the world's population lives in urban areas, with the U.S. percentage at 80 percent. Cities have captured more than 80 percent of the globe's economic activity and offered social mobility and economic prosperity to millions by clustering creative, innovative, and educated individuals and organizations. Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation. The spread and continued growth of urban areas presents a number of concerns for a sustainable future, particularly if cities cannot adequately address the rise of poverty, hunger, resource consumption, and biodiversity loss in their borders. Intended as a comparative illustration of the types of urban sustainability pathways and subsequent lessons learned existing in urban areas, this study examines specific examples that cut across geographies and scales and that feature a range of urban sustainability challenges and opportunities for collaborative learning across metropolitan regions. It focuses on nine cities across the United States and Canada (Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Grand Rapids, MI, Flint, MI, Cedar Rapids, IA, Chattanooga, TN, and Vancouver, Canada), chosen to represent a variety of metropolitan regions, with consideration given to city size, proximity to coastal and other waterways, susceptibility to hazards, primary industry, and several other factors.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030922263X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
The National Research Council's Science and Technology for Sustainability Program hosted two workshops in 2011 addressing the sustainability challenges associated with food security for all. The first workshop, Measuring Food Insecurity and Assessing the Sustainability of Global Food Systems, explored the availability and quality of commonly used indicators for food security and malnutrition; poverty; and natural resources and agricultural productivity. It was organized around the three broad dimensions of sustainable food security: (1) availability, (2) access, and (3) utilization. The workshop reviewed the existing data to encourage action and identify knowledge gaps. The second workshop, Exploring Sustainable Solutions for Increasing Global Food Supplies, focused specifically on assuring the availability of adequate food supplies. How can food production be increased to meet the needs of a population expected to reach over 9 billion by 2050? Workshop objectives included identifying the major challenges and opportunities associated with achieving sustainable food security and identifying needed policy, science, and governance interventions. Workshop participants discussed long term natural resource constraints, specifically water, land and forests, soils, biodiversity and fisheries. They also examined the role of knowledge, technology, modern production practices, and infrastructure in supporting expanded agricultural production and the significant risks to future productivity posed by climate change. This is a report of two workshops.
Author: R. Bruce Hull
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642831670
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Solving today’s environmental and sustainability challenges requires more than expertise and technology. Effective solutions will require that we engage with other people, wrestle with difficult questions, and learn how to adapt and make confident decisions despite uncertainty. We need new approaches to leadership that empower professionals at all levels to tackle wicked problems and work towards sustainability. Leadership for Sustainability gives readers perspective and skills for promoting creative and collaborative solutions. Blending systems thinking approaches with leadership techniques, it offers dozens of strategies and specific practices that build on the foundation of three main skills: connecting, collaborating, and adapting. Inspiring case studies show how the book’s strategies and principles can be applied to diverse situations: Coordinating the activities of widely dispersed individuals and groups who may not even know they are connected, illustrated by the work of urban planners, local businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders advancing ambitious climate action goals via a Community Energy Plan in Arlington County, Virginia Collaborating with diverse stakeholders to span boundaries despite their differences of opinion, expertise, and culture, as illustrated by the bold actions of a social entrepreneur who transformed the global food service industry with the “plant-forward” movement Adapting to continuous change and confounding uncertainty, as a small nonprofit organization mobilizes partners to tackle poverty, water scarcity, sanitation, and climate change in rural India Readers will come away with a holistic understanding of how to lead from where they are by applying leadership principles and practices to a wide range of wicked situations. While the challenges we face are daunting, the authors argue that these situations present opportunities for creating a more just, healthy, and prosperous world.
Author: Rainer Stark
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319485148
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
This edited volume presents the research results of the Collaborative Research Center 1026 “Sustainable manufacturing - shaping global value creation”. The book aims at providing a reference guide of sustainable manufacturing for researchers, describing methodologies for development of sustainable manufacturing solutions. The volume is structured in four chapters covering the following topics: sustainable manufacturing technology, sustainable product development, sustainable value creation networks and systematic change towards sustainable manufacturing. The target audience comprises both researchers and practitioners in the field of sustainable manufacturing, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309257611
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 172
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Book Description
A broad and growing literature describes the deep and multidisciplinary nature of the sustainability challenges faced by the United States and the world. Despite the profound technical challenges involved, sustainability is not, at its root, a technical problem, nor will merely technical solutions be sufficient. Instead, deep economic, political, and cultural adjustments will ultimately be required, along with a major, long-term commitment in each sphere to deploy the requisite technical solutions at scale. Nevertheless, technological advances and enablers have a clear role in supporting such change, and information technology (IT) is a natural bridge between technical and social solutions because it can offer improved communication and transparency for fostering the necessary economic, political, and cultural adjustments. Moreover, IT is at the heart of nearly every large-scale socioeconomic system-including systems for finance, manufacturing, and the generation and distribution of energy-and so sustainability-focused changes in those systems are inextricably linked with advances in IT. The focus of Computing Research for Sustainability is "greening through IT," the application of computing to promote sustainability broadly. The aim of this report is twofold: to shine a spotlight on areas where IT innovation and computer science (CS) research can help, and to urge the computing research community to bring its approaches and methodologies to bear on these pressing global challenges. Computing Research for Sustainability focuses on addressing medium- and long-term challenges in a way that would have significant, measurable impact. The findings and recommended principles of the Committee on Computing Research for Environmental and Societal Sustainability concern four areas: (1) the relevance of IT and CS to sustainability; (2) the value of the CS approach to problem solving, particularly as it pertains to sustainability challenges; (3) key CS research areas; and (4) strategy and pragmatic approaches for CS research on sustainability.
Author: Shwetank Avikal
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 100045441X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
A large and growing number of manufacturers are realizing the substantial financial and environmental benefits of sustainable business practices. To develop more sustainable societies, industries need to better understand how to respond to environmental, economic, and social challenges and transform industrial behavior. The objective of this book is to provide the required knowledge and accelerate the transition towards a sustainable industrial system. The book will help industries to enhance operational efficiency by reducing costs and waste. It will help them increase customer response, reach new customers, and gain competitive advantage. It offers innovation, scenario planning, and strategic analysis that goes beyond compliance, as well as case studies and remedies to the industry 4.0 challenges. Professionals, as well as students, can refer to this book to add to their knowledge on Industry 4.0 and develop new ideas and solutions to the existing and future problems.
Author: Gerard Magill
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152754950X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
This collection of essays is based on presentations given at the 4th conference in an annual endowed series held at Duquesne University, USA. It addresses emerging concerns and pivotal problems about our planet’s environment and ecology. The contributions gathered here highlight the inter-relation of topics and expertise regarding science and philosophy, ethics, religion, global issues, and generational perspectives. The book concludes with an ethical analysis of the multiple and over-lapping challenges that require urgent attention and long-term resolution. It will appeal to scholars and students in a variety of disciplines and fields that deal with the earth’s survival and flourishing.
Author: Mélanie Robertson
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 1853397237
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
4 Healthy, sustainable, and culturally appropriate living and working environments: Domestic pig production in Malika, Senegal5 Housing for the urban poor through informal providers, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 6 Socio-spatial tensions and interactions: An ethnography of the condominium housing of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; 7 Partnership modalities for the management of drinking water in poor urban neighbourhoods: The example of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; 8 Rethink, reuse: Improving collective action capacity regarding solid waste management and income generation in Koh Kred, Thailand.
