Products and Services that Address Deep Rooted Social Problems

Perhaps you’ve read the game-shifting books The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, by C.K. Prahalad or The Business Solution to Poverty by Paul Polak and Mal Warwick. They prove that the most economically disadvantaged people on the planet create a great market for social entrepreneurs – AND provide a terrific testing ground for innovation and cost control. This can be part of your strategy.

These products and services become even more powerful through a lens of deep sustainability, co-solving multiple problems and incorporating multiple benefits. Two examples:

Let There Be Light

d.light’s simple three-item product line simultaneously addresses poverty, education, air pollution/toxic fumes/health risks, energy savings, carbon footprint, and more—and makes a huge difference in lives of its customers. d.light’s deeply holistic analysis of the problems faced by people in poverty led to developing inexpensive, durable solar-powered LED lanterns (sold on time payments) to replace kerosene, open fires—or darkness.

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About the Author

Green/social change business profitability expert Shel Horowitz, “The Transformpreneur^sm,” shows you how profit by greening your business, turning hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. Shel’s 10th book, Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, highlights profitable and successful socially responsible strategies used by companies from Fortune 100 to solopreneurs.