The Indian economy has witnessed rapid growth during the last two decades as a consequence of liberalization and globalization. Such growth has created challenges for both environmental and social sustainability. Rapid industrialization and urbanization, on one hand, has resulted in depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation, while on the other, it has caused large scale migration, increase in urban poverty and stagnation of the rural economy.
Fortunately, such challenges have spurred several organizations into creating business models that explicitly address the needs of the poor, create products and services that are environmentally friendly and adopt sustainable practices. We invite you to a week long programme at IIM Bangalore where we will discuss the challenges of sustainability that India and many rapidly growing countries from emerging economies are grappling with and explore some of the business models, which in their innovative ways, are providing possible answers to deal with these challenges. Apart from in-class discussions led by real life case studies, we will interact with the founding teams of such innovative businesses and engage with them to understand their approaches and methods for resolving these challenges.