A Socio-Ecological Perspective on Poverty Alleviation and Environmental Protection at the BOP

Abstract

Base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) scholarship and practice have traditionally focused on poverty alleviation efforts, while concerns for environmental degradation within BOP business models have received far less attention. We bridge this gap by proposing a socio-ecological perspective to understand whether a product’s low environmental impact enhances BOP users’ product adoption, thereby reinforcing the poverty alleviation goals of BOP projects. Owing to the relevance of apt menstrual hygiene management to both socio-economic outcomes of BOP women and to environmental conservation, this study examines the case of sanitary napkins uptake. Results from a discrete-choice experiment involving 164 BOP women (n = 1148) in two Indian slums show that sanitary products’ biodegradability is the most important attribute affecting women’s preferences towards menstrual hygiene management solutions, which also significantly interacts with socio-economic and socio-cultural characteristics of women and their community. Our findings highlight the possibility for BOP business models to establish positive synergies between the apparently competing goals of environmental protection and poverty alleviation, renew the call for co-creation approaches in designing BOP solutions that are situated in a socio-ecological framework.