NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Unilever Says Sustainability Key to New Business Model

Consumer products giant Unilever has unveiled a "new business model" putting sustainability at the heart of its global operations. It pledged to halve the environmental impact of its products while doubling sales over the next 10 years. Chief executive Paul Polman said the new model was "the only way to do business long term". The company said it would produce an annual report on its progress towards achieving these goals. Uni...

Source

BBC News (link opens in a new window)

Categories

Education

Aajeevika Founders Win Schwab Award

New Delhi: Rajiv Khandelwal and Krishnavtar Sharma, founders of the Aajeevika Bureau, a non-profit that works with the migrant workers of south Rajasthan, have won the Social Entrepreneur Award, 2010. The annual award is given by Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in partnership with Jubilant Bhartia Foundation. The bureau is headquartered in Udaipur and has offices in Ahmedabad, Jaipur and seven blocks of south Rajast...

Source

Livemint.com (link opens in a new window)

Region

South Asia

Brazil bank oversight under fire

Brazil’s central bank is being urged to strengthen its oversight of the banking sector after it alleged that Banco Panamericano, a medium-sized bank by assets, had concealed losses of about R$1bn (US$580m), apparently resulting from high rates of customer default at the height of the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Shares in Panamericano fell by 30 per cent on Wednesday after the bank’s difficulties became public and its management was replaced. But they rallied by 8 p...

Source

Financial Times (link opens in a new window)

Region

Latin America

Collaborative Consumption is a Better Path for Developing Countries

The United States was founded on the idea of idea of individual liberty, individual ownership, and individual needs. Unfortunately, this is a costly way for a country to develop, especially if every citizen aspires to express his freedom and individuality by owning a car or a house or a hammer. Nearly 250 years into the evolution of our ethos of individuality, some Americans are starting to recognize that the primacy of in...

Source

Good Magazine (link opens in a new window)

Analysis: Drug industry doses up on emerging markets

(Reuters) - Big Pharma’s drive into emerging markets could make drugmakers look a lot more like consumer goods companies in future. That may be no bad thing. Emerging markets are the new battleground for pharmaceutical companies as sales stall in Western markets, but the focus on volume makes them a very different business proposition to premium-priced markets in the United States and Europe. Kris Jenner, who ru...

Source

Reuters (link opens in a new window)

Frog and UNICEF partner to tackle infant health

Industrial design firm Frog Design, perhaps best known for the creation of the case for the Apple IIc, is working in partnership with children’s charity UNICEF as the lead design partner on Project Mwana, a major mhealth initiative to improve maternal and infant health and welfare in Malawi and rural Zambia. The project will start off by making use of mobile technologies in innovative ways to significantly increase mothers’ visits to clinics for ant...

Source

Telecoms.com (link opens in a new window)

10,000 Women are Just the Start

Helen Reddy’s iconic "I am woman, hear me roar" is more likely to cause a cringe than goose bumps these days - more a comical anthem to bra-burning histrionics than the soundtrack to a serious movement aimed at greater equality. But when those same sentiments are voiced by a young Afghan woman named Fatima, who has created her own construction business amid war, corruption and a culture that barely tolerates women, one is more inclined towa...

Source

The Washington Post (link opens in a new window)

Gates Foundation scales back ’grand’ plan for global health

Seven years ago, the Gates Foundation launched an ambitious effort to enlist scientists in solving some of the developing world’s most vexing health problems. The brightest minds brainstormed priorities. More than 1,500 proposals poured in from researchers around the world - including several Nobel laureates. The 45 winning ideas were dizzying in their variety: From creating more nutritious bananas to developing vaccines that need no ...

Source

The Seattle Times (link opens in a new window)