In consonance with its name of Triodos or ‘three way’, Triodos Bank has built its business model on the three pillars of people, planet and profits. The belief of the bank is simple and its mission is lucid - it finances companies, institutions and projects that add cultural value and benefit people and environment with the support of depositors and investors who wish to encourage social responsibility and a sustainable society.
Women's World Banking's vision is to expand low-income women's economic participation by giving them greater access to financial information and markets. In doing so they are enabling women to not only keep their families fed but also engage in the community and develop a political voice that could bring about great change worldwide.
Honey Care Africa is an innovative, rapidly expanding Kenyan social enterprise established expressly to increase the income of rural farmers. To date, Honey Care has doubled the income of several thousand small scale farmers through its "Money for Honey" program, which trains them in commercial beekeeping and then buys their honey at a guaranteed price. Honey Care then packages and sells the highest quality African honey.
The overall objective of the company is to produce and market high quality honey that will successfully compete on the world market with honey products from elsewhere. To achieve this objective the company has opted to work with the rural community groups in an out-grower model whereby it has introduced modern beekeeping methods using the Langstroth hives. In this approach, the company closely monitors the production process to ensure quality of honey produced by the contracted out- growers.
Nearly 1.6 billion people living in the developing world need reading glasses, but less than 5% have access to affordable options. VisionSpring is broadening global access to reading glasses, creating and training local entrepreneurs, and improving overall quality of life for many.
VisionSpring develops markets for reading glasses at the base of the economic pyramid. They select, train, equip and fund local entrepreneurs to establish new businesses that sell reading glasses. They then provide high-quality affordable reading glasses for these distributors, bringing reading glasses and referral services directly to the customer at the village level.
So many people in India, El Salvador, and Guatemala have told VisionSpring how much their lives have changed because of VisionSpring's reading glasses. Who would imagine that a simple pair of reading glasses could have such an effect? VisionSpring did because it researched, studied, and tested its programs inside and out.
VisionSpring believes its responsibility is to provide a product and service that is truly superior. For too long, the global economy has failed to recognize the power and influence that people living on less than $1 a day can have. VisionSpring is working to change this perception through simple pairs of reading glasses and determined entrepreneurs.
GrameenPhone has a dual purpose: to receive an economic return on its investments and to contribute to the economic development of Bangladesh where telecommunications can play a vital role. This is why GrameenPhone, in collaboration with Grameen Bank, is aiming to place one phone in each village to contribute significantly to the economic uplift of those villages.
Grameen Phone’s basic strategy is coverage of both urban and rural areas. In contrast to the “island” strategy followed by some companies, which involves connecting isolated islands of urban coverage through transmission links, GrameenPhone builds continuous coverage, cell after cell. While the intensity of coverage may vary from area to area depending on market conditions, the basic strategy of cell-to-cell coverage is applied throughout GrameenPhone’s network.
Grameen Bank (GB) has reversed conventional banking practice by removing the need for collateral and creating a banking system based on mutual trust, accountability, participation and creativity. GB provides credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. At GB, credit is a cost effective weapon to fight poverty and it serves as a catalyst in the overall development of socio-economic conditions of the poor who have been kept outside the banking orbit on the grounds that they are poor and hence not bankable. Since the bank does not wish to take any borrower to the court of law in case of non-repayment, it does not require the borrowers to sign any legal instrument. Although each borrower must belong to a five-member group, the group is not required to give any guarantee for a loan to its member. Repayment responsibility solely rests on the individual borrower, while the group and the Grameen Bank center oversee that everyone behaves in a responsible way and none gets into a repayment problem. There is no form of joint liability, i.e. group members are not responsible to pay on behalf of a defaulting member.
Project Shakti is an alternative distribution system and a bottom-of-the-pyramid initiative created by Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), a subsidiary of Unilever. Shakti allows HLL access to the previously untapped market of rural villages in India, which do not fit the traditional distribution infrastructure. Shakti is oriented to both income generation and community development. By targeting low-income populations, particularly women, this project addresses deep social problems - like iodine deficiency or diarrhea disease - by training Shakti women to provide education about products that address these health issues, and also making the products available in remote areas of the country.
The Greyston Bakery, a for-profit business, incorporates the positive societal agenda into its core business practice via hiring individuals “chronically unemployed” due to lack of skills and education, as well as histories of homelessness, drug addiction and incarceration. Furthermore, the bakery sustains the work of its non-profit affiliate, Greyston Mandela. With an overriding mission to reduce human suffering, both organizations are focused on sustainability, community development and empowerment.
