By Kris Herbst
David Green has figured out how to make expensive medical products affordable to the world's poorest people. He helped found Aurolab, a nonprofit manufacturing company in India, to produce surgically implanted artificial lenses for cataract patients for US$4 - $6 apiece, a dramatic reduction in the average US$100 - $150 price for lenses, in order to make them affordable to poor people in developing countries.
Because Aurolab is the world's second largest manufacturer of these lenses and is financially sustainable – earning revenues 30 percent above expenses – it serves as a model for a new way of doing business that Green calls "compassionate capitalism." This issue of Changemakers Journal and the Sept '02 issue present two powerful examples of how businesses create powerful social benefits by engaging with the world's poorest people.
The Aurolab and Cemex cases described here show how business can cultivate underserved markets previously considered impenetrable or unprofitable – thus entering the social arena to make a positive difference in the lives of low-income citizens.
