Sustainability in Subsistence Marketplaces and Beyond: Addressing Challenges Through the Bottom-Up Approach

Madhu Viswanathan ()
Additional contact information
Madhu Viswanathan: Loyola Marymount University

Chapter Chapter 6 in Marketing to the Base of the Pyramid, 2025, pp 101-128 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Subsistence marketplaces are likely to be most affected by environmental issues. Our work is grounded in more than two and a half decades of work with low-literate, low-income consumers, entrepreneurs, and marketplaces—i.e., subsistence marketplaces. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of key insights that have emerged at the intersection of sustainability and subsistence. Unique to our approach is being bottom-up, beginning at the micro-level behavioral understanding of subsistence marketplaces as they intersect with the environment, consumption, and conservation. This is in contrast to the customary vantage point in sustainability of being top-down. We bridge research, education, and practice, dubbing our approach symbiotic academic-social enterprise, distinct from action research. The interplay between subsistence and sustainability using a bottom-up vantage point leads to important new insights. The chapter is organized around two major sections—understanding subsistence marketplaces and sustainability, and addressing challenges through product design and development, business models, education, academic-social enterprise, and sustainable development goals.

Keywords: Subsistence marketplaces; Bottom-up approach; Marketplace literacy; Sustainability literacy; Sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-96-7105-2_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789819671052

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-96-7105-2_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().