Next Generation Business Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid

Chapter 3. Taking the Green Leap to the Base of the Pyramid

by Stuart L. Hart¹, Johnson School of Management, Cornell University

Can the BoP teach the “ToP” (the “top of the pyramid”) anything? Author Stuart Hart says “yes.” In the old BoP model, Western entrepreneurs sought to sell goods and services to the BoP with little regard to environmental consequences. Today, Hart argues, the next generation of entrepreneurs are trying to develop distributed, small-scale, “small-footprint” products and services that are more appropriate to the BoP context—and may well point the way toward better models for the ToP, as well.

We have indeed come a long way since 1998 when, together with C.K. Prahalad, I first proposed that companies focus attention on ...