Built to Scale? How Sustainable Business Models Can Better Serve the Base of the Pyramid

One of the greatest challenges for sustainable business models is achieving a scale of operations that is adequate to meet the quantity and depth of needs in their markets. In this paper, we examine scaling of sustainable business models at the base of the pyramid (BOP). Using within- and cross-case analyses, we study the sustainable business models of three firms that provide affordable housing for people with very low incomes in Mexico. Our analyses reveal the importance of community engagement as well as constraints on the ability to stimulate market forces when serving the very poor. These findings suggest that the literature on sustainable business models should be modified to account for the essential roles of community engagement and government collaboration in lieu of reliance on market forces in enabling social enterprises to scale in order to better serve the very poor