BETTER BUSINESS BETTER WORLD

ack into the network. By combining their core capabilities, the companies have
developed an offer with staggering potential. The UK’s 18,000-strong fleet of Nissan
LEAFs could contribute the equivalent of a 180 MW power plant if fully integrated,
according to Nissan. And if all UK vehicles were electric, they would in effect be a
virtual storage facility with 370 GW capacity – enough to power the UK, Germany
and France. 113 Nissan projects that this could save the UK £2.4 billion in electricity
costs by 2030 if fully adopted. 114 The environmental gains would be big too:
incentivising more people to switch to electric cars could help tackle urban pollution
and cut CO 2
emissions. And by acting as storage units for clean power, electric cars
could help grid managers overcome the problem of irregular renewable energy
generation. For more detail on this case, see report.businesscommission.org.
¡Échale! a tu Casa is a social enterprise based in Mexico that co-designs homes with
low income families and sets up housing committees. 115 It sees building communities
as a part of the housing solution. It also buys over 60 percent of building materials
locally and provides employment to local construction workers. 116 Under iÉchale!’s
assisted self-building programme, participants receive the materials and technical
training necessary to build a small house in a month, with supervision from a
certified architect. The resulting homes, made from ¡Échale!’s patented compressed
earth blocks, are designed for minimal energy and water use, making them ecofriendly
as well as cheap to run. Green features include solar water heaters, woodsaving
stoves and systems to harvest rainwater. ¡Échale! is exporting its technology
to Belize, Egypt, Haiti, Nicaragua and the UAE and developing a social franchise
model to allow others to replicate its success. Already, 30,000 houses have been built
and over 150,000 homes improved in Mexico alone using its model. 117
Pharmaceutical giant Merck is deploying US$500 million on an innovation in
its Merck for Mothers programme with an eye on long-term market growth. 118 In
Senegal, where contraceptive use is among the lowest in the world and a woman’s
chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth is still 1 in 61, Merck for Mothers has
teamed up with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, IntraHealth International
and the Senegal health ministry to reboot the country’s contraceptives distribution
system. 119 The resulting Informed Push Model (IPM) gets third-party logistics
providers – usually local businesses – to deliver contraceptives directly to health
facilities and uses tablets to collect data on consumption patterns. Rewards for the
private suppliers are linked to their performance forecasting and meeting demand,
incentivising them to keep clinics well stocked, and freeing up healthcare workers
to focus on essential medical tasks. 120 While the project offers no immediate
commercial gain for Merck, their investment in learning about the local market and
distribution systems that work in these circumstances positions the company to
expand its contraceptive products rapidly in this and similar markets as progress on
the Global Goals opens them up. For more detail, see report.businesscommission.org.
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