Newsroom

By Michael Skapinker

In Unilever's London headquarters, Gavin Neath, the consumer goods group's head of sustainability, takes a plastic contraption out of its cardboard box and places it on a table. It looks like a small and semi-transparent version of the vending machines that dispense drinks to office workers.

The device is called a Pureit - and it is a drinks dispensing machine of sorts. Developed by Hindustan Unilever, the company's Indian subsidiary, the Pureit provides drinking water from any source, however polluted, purifying it with a series of meshes, parasite and pesticide traps and a germ-killing battery kit, without the need for boiling and without the use of mains electricity.

The Pureit is an illustration of how multinationals are trying to get to grips with the notion of sustainability. In the US and western Europe, the priorities are reducing the amount of packaging, cutting fuel consumption and providing for consumers who want to be sure that their purchases have been produced in an ethical or environmentally friendly fashion.

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Students representing the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and the School of Natural Resources and Environment won Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s first Better Living Business Plan Challenge. Wal-Mart developed the competition to provide business students from around the world an opportunity to invent sustainable products or business solutions. On Friday, April 18, student teams from eight colleges and universities presented their business plans to a panel of executives from Wal-Mart and other leading companies and non-governmental organizations.

"All of the students did a fantastic job developing their ideas and presenting them to a distinguished panel of judges," said Kim Saylors-Laster, vice president of energy for Wal-Mart. "The judges selected the University of Michigan submission because it addresses the growing need for renewable fuel sources and the social mission of economic development, in a way that is both profitable and sustainable. We hope this concept and the other great ideas presented will help build the businesses of tomorrow while protecting our natural and energy resources."

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By Jean-Louis Warnholz

The idea that global companies can do good and do well at the “bottom of the pyramid”—that is, among the poor populations of developing countries—has generated excitement among corporations, governments, and NGOs in recent years. But most of the resulting initiatives by multinationals have missed the very poor, the 2 billion people in places like Haiti and Bangladesh who live on less than two dollars a day and have been virtually ignored by the corporate world and cut off from the global marketplace. The multinationals seem not to have noticed the examples of Telenor and Digicel, innovative mobile phone companies that have found opportunities to earn profits and simultaneously improve local economic landscapes by serving the very poor.

Telenor was drawn to Bangladesh and Pakistan, and Digicel to Haiti, by low-wage workforces and the potential for creating local consumer markets, despite endemic poverty. Both companies refused to accept the low-purchasing-power status quo and have been systematically building up local consumer markets. They are now boosting economic growth by generating jobs, tax revenue, and investment.

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By Jay Walljasper

Poverty is often regarded as a matter of political policy and economic aid. But for ­Thomas George, who grew up on a farm in India where his family struggled to make ends meet, it's a simple question of agriculture. The vast majority of the world's poor live on the land, so how do we make farming more profitable for them?

"A farmer can produce a lot of wonderful tomatoes but that's no good if there isn't a demand for those tomatoes at the time they are ready for harvest," explains George. "The capacity to know what to produce, when to produce it and how to sell is limited."

New technology and microcredit are often held up as solutions. But George, a former University of Hawaii agronomist who worked many years on introducing new technology to rural communities in Asia, believes high tech isn't enough. And he contends that microloans-giving poor people small loans to start businesses-offer opportunity only for those who already have an idea of how to get ahead and the capacity to make it happen. He hopes to reach the rest with Vipani (Sanskrit for "marketplace"), an organization that seeks to create "fair play for small farmers."

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Omidyar Network and Unitus are pleased to announce plans to dramatically expand the worldwide availability of financial services to the poor. Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm established by Pierre and Pam Omidyar, will invest $9 million in Unitus. This will represent Omidyar Network's largest grant in microfinance to date. Unitus, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating access to microfinance, will use this support to increase its network of microfinance partners and expand into several new regions over the next three years. This expansion will enable Unitus microfinance institution (MFI) partners to grow rapidly, strengthen their businesses, and reach millions of individuals currently excluded from the formal economic system with life-changing financial services.

"When Omidyar Network participated in the Unitus Leadership Summit last year in the Philippines, Pierre and I were impressed by the energy and enthusiasm with which Unitus and its partners are extending the reach of microfinance and transforming the lives of the poor," said Matt Bannick, Managing Partner, Omidyar Network. "When we look at the incredible results that Unitus and its partners have achieved over the past six years, we are thrilled to continue to support, scale, and champion these innovative organizations as they seek to maximize social impact."

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The success of OLPC can no longer be judged against ­Negroponte's early predictions and plans, nor by the technical merits of the laptop itself. Peru is what matters now. When I was in Lima, OLPC's former chief technology officer, Mary Lou ­Jepsen (she has formed Pixel Qi, a startup dedicated to making even lower-cost displays for OLPC's computers and others), visited the education ministry to offer help and show staffers how to repair the machines. But she acknowledged that OLPC's future doesn't revolve around the hardware she helped bring about. "Laptops are easy; education is hard to transform," she said. "I don't even speak Spanish. How can I even start to transform primary education in Peru?"

In truth, she can't. But Peru now has a chance to help Rosario, Cecilia, Nilton, and 486,497 other kids--and, maybe, someday, the little girl on the traffic island in Lima.

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Interview from Fresh Air from WHYY on April 23, 2008

Paul Polak, founder of the nonprofit International Development Enterprises, has spent 25 years working to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and other countries in the developing world.

His perhaps-surprising conclusion: Government subsidies for the rural poor often make things worse.

Instead, Polak teaches families and farmers - many of whom live on a dollar a day and own perhaps an acre of land - how to increase crop yields with simple technologies, such as cheap, foot-operated water pumps and inexpensive drip hoses for irrigation.

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A San Francisco man who is credited with changing the lives of thousands of farmers in Africa with his irrigation pumps has won the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability.

Martin Fisher is co-founder and chief executive of the San Francisco-based non-profit KickStart, which has developed and marketed low-cost, human-powered pumps that allow farmers to boost the productivity of their land -- and increase their earnings.

Rather than simply giving the pumps away, KickStart has worked with wholesalers and retailers to market the pumps, with the idea of someday creating a self-sustaining market for them.

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By Jena McGregor

How GE Healthcare engineers combined technology and creativity to develop the MAC 400, a portable ECG machine suitable for the Indian market

GE Healthcare engineer Davy Hwang's marching orders were straightforward. Take a 15-lb. electrocardiograph machine that cost $5.4 million and took three and a half years to develop. Squeeze the same technology into a portable device that weighs less than three pounds and can be held with one hand. Oh, and develop it in 18 months for just 60% of its wholesale cost. "He thought I was crazy," says Hwang's boss, Omar Ishrak, CEO of GE Healthcare's clinical systems unit, based in Wauwatosa, Wis.Crazy or not, Hwang pulled it off. Like many teams facing tight development budgets, his engineers combined their technical know-how with creative tweaks of off-the-shelf parts. The result: The new MAC 400, GE's first portable ECG designed in India for the fast-growing local market.

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By Jim Wyss

In South Florida a few months ago to attend an award ceremony for the Ashoka social entrepreneurship foundation, William Foote, a former Miamian, talked about Root Capital -- the nonprofit he founded in 2000 to finance environmentally sustainable businesses in the developing world.

Based in Cambridge, Mass., Root Capital targets grass-roots ventures, such as organic coffee and cocoa cooperatives, that are too large to benefit from micro-loans but too small to approach traditional banks. Root reaches out to this ''missing middle'' by providing loans of between $25,000 and $1 million, along with training and capacity building.

To date, the organization has issued more than 360 loans worth $78 million to 175 businesses in 26 nations. In the process, 39-year-old Foote (whose father, Tad, was president of the University of Miami for two decades through 2001) has racked up a number of accolades. Fast Company gave Root Capital its Social Capitalist Award in both 2007 and 2008, and The World Economic Forum recently named Foote a 2008 Young Global Leader.

Here are excerpts from a discussion with Foote about using the tools of Wall Street to make the world a greener place.

Q: What is Root Capital's mission?

A: To fight rural poverty and conserve natural resources by providing affordable credit and financial education to green businesses that dramatically improve household incomes for the rural poor.

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