Current Research Projects

Energize the BoP! - Energy Business Models for Low-Income Markets

The study will identify promising options for establishing energy business models by looking at a wide range of existing documented cases and analyzing 30 of them in depth. The research focuses on the interface of the business with the customer from marketing and sales to the end-of-life phase. The results of the study will be captured in a practical tool. The ‚Inclusive Energy Business Model Generators’ will provide various design options for each of the business model elements. The tool can thus be used as a framework to develop new business models. >

Design with the Poor – not for the Poor: Idea Competitions with low-income consumers

Creating products and services for low-income consumers is a challenging task. Little information is available about this target group, their wants and needs, their habits and traditions - and about what really works in their particular context.  The research project views low-income consumers as capable solution developers - and thus asks what knowledge and expertise they can contribute to the development of suitable products and services for them. To explore this question, idea competitions were conducted in three Brazilian low-income communities. >

Mitigating Capacity: Local Goverment Capacity to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions 

To understand how states might respond to the imminent threat of climate change, this research projects does only look which policies need to be implemented, but also at the explores India's and China's capacity to implement those policies > 

Energy Consumption Policies in China

In China, many local government officials are reluctant to implement national environmental protection policies at the cost of sacrificing the rate of economic growth. Consequently, the research project analyses why some local governments are more successful than others in enforcing national climate change mitigation policies, given similar levels of economic development > 

Market entry strategies of Chinese firms in rural China

In order to explore how state-owned and private companies entered third-tier cities, small towns, and villages in China, the Emergia Institute has started a cooperation with Jianghua Zhou from the Chinese BoP Learning Lab at Tsinghua University. >