· · · Institutional Repository

This project is performed for Tre Vang Company, a small scale bamboo factory in Vietnam, with the great love for the nature by producing bamboo products and creating employment with production of fair trade for the Western market. The market of bamboo products in Western market is gradually growing due to the increasing awareness of sustainability. The bamboo toys are especially very rare and new for the Western market. The objective of this project is to design a bamboo toy that can be produced by craftsmen at Tre Vang in Vietnam for preschool children in the Netherlands, creating both sustainable production and play. To achieve the objective, four phases have been carried out in this project: analysis, synthesis, prototyping, and evaluation. The final design is an improved Marbulus marble toy made from solid bamboo, Tam Vong, in a set of play mat (with packaging and manual) presented by a usage scenario. Marbulus is construction game which can be played in group. Children learn to build the bridge, put the tracks in the right slot with different slopes. They create their own marble runs with this construction set which can stimulate their creativity and reasoning. Besides, assembling the tracks in configurations suited for children’s developing understanding and also a way to learn and practice their hand-eye coordination. Solid bamboo crafted design makes the play set attractive and durable for years of educational and fun play. Moreover, it is not an industrial product but hand made product. Hand made product can create more appreciation and connection between the consumer and the product and also creates a closer relation between the user and producer as well.

This thesis shows the iterative design process of developing a business model (BM) for Ndassie. This start up company offers decentralized, renewable energy solutions to people that lack access to the electricity grid. The main market will be rural areas in developing countries, which is part of the ‘Base of Pyramid’ market. This target group consists of 3-4 billion people and is therefore the biggest market in the world with a yearly growth rate of 8%. However, this market has its own characteristics. It is hard to reach the population due to bad infrastructure and inhabitants are not able to purchase expensive products due to a lack of savings. Almost 1,6 billion people lack access to electricity. They get lighting from their kerosene lamps, which are hazardous, unhealthy and costly. Solar energy and led lighting is a good and sustainable alternative. The sun is for free and in countries like Cameroon, there are good sun conditions. However, most solar product require high initial investments. A micro credit can help users in affording these products. Another way to make solar energy accessible to the population are community systems. A community system is a recharging center in a rural community where the population can recharge their battery for a fee. Energy is generated via a solar panel. An entrepreneur can run this business and he will take care for the recharging service. This leads to lower initial costs of the light for the end user, so solar energy becomes affordable for the poorest of the poor. When designing the lamp so that the battery is separate from the light, you can even choose to let the end user only buy the light and rent the battery. If possible, the end user can buy both light and battery. Therefore the community concept improves accessibility and affordability to a great extend. In this report we did research on the BoP market and its specific characteristics. Making products and services accessible, affordable, acceptable and creating awareness are four key factors in doing business in these countries. We investigated important aspects for Ndassie in the context of Cameroon. Since this graduation project is about making a BM, we provide some theory about business models in general and in the context of BoP countries. This is illustrated by some existing BM of companies which sell lighting products to the poor. Lessons were derived and integrated in the development of the BM for Ndassie. In the second phase of this report we distinguish two BM for Ndassie: B2B and B2C. The B2B business model deals with the core business of Ndassie: selling complete businesses to local entrepreneurs. This enables entrepreneurs to start their own ‘recharging service’ in a rural community. Ndassie wants to work with a micro franchise concept. This means that the entrepreneur gets a complete ‘business in a box’ (BaB) with all promotional and administrative material included. The entrepreneur is called the franchisee and Ndassie the franchisor. The franchisee can just focus on his core business, which is renting batteries for a fee. Ndassie will develop new product concepts, takes care for promotional materials and sets the short and long term strategy. Besides, Ndassie provides the franchisees with trainings on sales, technology and bookkeeping. Working with this franchise concept will reduce business failures, lowers the barrier to start a business and can build a strong and coherent brand. We investigated the needs and wants of the end user in the B2C model. This bottom up approach is really important, because it puts the end-user in the center of the design process. He is the one who really uses the light product. That’s why the Value Proposition of Ndassie is as much as possible adapted to the needs of the end-user. One of the findings is that besides the great need of light, the population also uses energy for their radios and mobile phones. By differentiating in concepts and mentioning their (dis)advantages, we advise Ndassie in the design of their final product. For both BM we did a broad research on all choices the company still have to do. This contains choices on technical aspects, like the type of battery and the best supplier for solar panels, but also on training materials and pricing strategies. The goal is to make an offer which is similar to the kerosene lamp. If Ndassie can offer a sustainable, high quality led light for the same price as a kerosene lamp (about USD 12), the end-user is able to afford it. The charging service should be similar in use, but it should be cheaper to recharge your battery than to refill your kerosene lamp, while providing a higher quality of light (safer, cleaner and higher brightness). By calculations on costs and revenues we proof that Ndassie can offer the end-user a financial advantage of 10-30% by replacing the kerosene light by their product. If Ndassie also provides energy for radios, which are now running on expensive dry cell batteries, the advantage can be around 50%. In the final phase we elaborate the franchise concept and describe how Ndassie should reach the end user by offering a procedure. Besides, all information of the business model generation phase is aggregated into the B2B and B2C business models. To test whether we made the right choices, we validated the model by asking two groups who did their Integral Design Project on a similar assignment in the BoP lighting context. Because they both visited a BoP country (Cameroon and Kenia), they were able to offer some valuable advices. Most of these are integrated in the final model, but some were given as recommendations to Ndassie. Ndassie is a start-up company and therefore faces many risks. For that, we made a risk analysis where risks on company and on product level are discussed. We also provide advices how to reduce these risks. At the end of the report we develop a road map for the next years and end up with some final recommendations.

Today there are more than 4 billion people in the world who still wash their clothes manually, using a time consuming and backbreaking process. Majority of these are from the low income but emerging markets like India. A wide range of washing machines of different machine manufacturers already exist in this market; But there are many accessibility barriers to washing machines that need to be addressed, like lack of space, irregular access to water and electricity, unaffordable price of entry etc. The proposed project endeavoured to design and develop a menu of new concept for low cost washing machine which will address the low income market opportunity in India, whilst considering the synergy with the laundry detergents and overcoming the current barriers in accessibility. The project attempts to investigate, conceptualize and develop a menu of suitable solution to present it in the form of a product to the Indian market using Industrial, Product and Mechanical Design processes.

This project is executed for the Procter & Gamble Company. P&G sees huge potentials in the developing market of India. The detergent market is one of these big potentials; the Indian detergent consumption per capita is very low compared to other countries. Most washing nowadays is done by hand due to cultural and infrastructural reasons. Hand washing is a time consuming and backbreaking activity, done mostly by women. In prior research Procter & Gamble identified this washing behavior of low-income consumers as an opportunity; offering unique benefits to this consumer segment will allow P&G to make more profit and to gain a better share in the detergent market, which is currently being dominated by other brands. Offering access to automatic washing is such a unique benefit, if P&G could make the Indians switch to automatic washing, this would unlock a new market. Goal of the project The project has one underlying research question: ‘How to accelerated access to automatic washing for low-income consumers in India? This question is addressed by a literature research, a consumer research, and a synthesis of the data, leading to inspiring ideas that provide a starting point for further development. The scope of the project is restricted to the urban low income consumer of Mumbai. Analysis In the analysis, the Procter & Gamble, and its market environment is described. It describes P&G’s sustainability goals and how detergent manufactures can make more profit on detergents. The Indian low-income consumer is analyzed, and what (cultural) factors should be taken into account when developing a product or service, for this specific target group. Furthermore it describes different washing practices around the world, and specifically for India. Hand washing is most common in India and the penetration of washing machines is very low. A comparison of hand washing, machine washing, and laundry services is made. Qualitative consumer research The main focus of the project is a context research; an explorative qualitative consumer research of the target consumer. During a one month field research in Mumbai insights are gathered about the context; the barriers against adaptation of automatic washing, the consumers’ needs and aspirations; in general and concerning the laundry process. The data was analyzed by means of context mapping, resulting in five themes with insights; infrastructural barriers, environmental factors, cultural aspects; current ways of washing, and purchase considerations. Personas are developed, based on the consumers interviewed during the research. The personas keep the user central, and help communicating the ideas and concepts. Together, the context-maps and the personas give an inspirational and complete overview of the context of the low-income consumer of Mumbai. From the context-maps main insights are extracted. Ideas & Concepts The main insights are translated into opportunities; clustering these opportunities led to six distinct directions. Four out of six directions point to a service oriented solution. To demonstrate the directions and inspire P&G, an idea is developed for each direction, resulting in the following six ideas: The Magic Bucket, Tide Chit Fund, Share the Laundry Car, One Machine Laundromat, In-home Laundromat & Community, Washing & Water Solution. The six ideas are evaluated using the personas, and a ranking on different points segmented in People, Profit and Planet. The Community Washing & Water Solution is chosen as the solution with the most potential. Next to the Community Washing & Water Solution, the Tide Chit Fund is chosen to elaborate on, because it complements the parallel project conducted by Shri Patil, a colleague-student, researching personal low-cost washing machine design that performs best in the researched context. The two ideas are elaborated; describing the different stakeholders involved and how Procter & Gamble can ensure profit; Tide Chit Fund The Tide Chit Fund is a business model that enables personal ownership for low-income consumer; using a paying scheme with multiple women buying the washing machines together. It allows women to buy a washing machine within their budget, and receiving help in the adaptation process of automatic washing; allowing them to fully benefit from the capacity of the purchased machine. Community Washing & Water solution A Laundry Product Service System, which operates on pay per use basis, offering access to good fully automatic washing machines. The community washing & water solution also provide consumers with clean drinking water; using the P&G PUR product, and therefore delivering benefits to all members of the community. To conclude recommendations are made to further develop the concepts.

The original goal of this project is to design a win-win solution: boosting Chinese growers’ businesses, by matching their needs with Dutch know-how, then naturally establishing potential market in China for Dutch horticulture technology companies, for instance, Codema. After early research and 2-month field research, the researcher discovered that driven by the increasing consumer demands, the horticulture chain in China is growing at a tremendous speed. And at the very beginning of the chain, Chinese growers could be classified into 3 groups: beginner, senior and expert based on their production equipments: plastic tunnels, sunlight greenhouses, and gutter-connected greenhouse. The application of gutter-connected greenhouse concentrated on breeder in both vegetable and flower industry. Different growers have different needs in terms of technology. Top tier growers focus on the quality, quantity and controlling the cost by means of chain integration. They need unique seeds, alternative to high labor cost, efficient logistics, and trustworthy marketing means like organic labeling. Senior growers at middle level started to scale up their production and become aware of the importance of quality. They need affordable heating solution and means to improve sales. Novice peasants intend to minimize cost as much as possible. They ask for cheaper solution during the initial investment and more upgrade options based on sunlight greenhouse. Based on these various needs from different growers, 3 different approaches, introduction customization and modularization, have been suggested. For these 3 different approaches, the basic knowledge of running horticultural business is fundamental. It’s the perfect language to communicate with senior and expert growers during introduction and customization. It could also support the Beginner growers to level up To get a thorough understanding of what this knowledge is, the researcher visited several successful Chinese and Dutch growers, and integrated their inputs and formulated a generic method of planning a horticulture business: start with the initial capital, plant type, and production location; aim at economic profit; deduce the plant price, quality and yield; and then discover the ideal production parameters (light, water, nutrition, etc); and finally decide the plan of investing various resources (labor, land, energy, equipment, etc) based on their contributions to the total profit. And this method was later embodied into a greenhouse investment tool to: a, educate the novice peasant grower about how to start a horticulture business; b, optimize senior grower’s investment plan; c, fully configure through the whole chain for expert grower. It also benefits Dutch partners in 2 ways. In the short term, the business value of Dutch technology becomes more visible and understandable to potential Chinese client. In the long run, it increases the knowledge inside Dutch horticulture sector about various needs of Chinese growers for future development. A prototype was built and tested by Chinese senior grower with quite positive feedback. Multiple stakeholders from the Netherlands and China are reacting positively and willing to push this project forward to the next stage.

Approximately one million households in rural Cambodia still use kerosene lamps. The use of a kerosene lamp has a lot of disadvantages: It provides very poor light quality, is difficult in use and poses a fire and health risk. A substitute for kerosene light can be found in the provision of lighting through solar powered lanterns. A solar lantern can overcome the problems of kerosene lamps and provide a sustainable lighting solution in rural Cambodia. The up-front investment of a solar lantern is the most important barrier for the poorest rural households in Cambodia to adopt the technology. Providing a ‘rent-to-own’ service for the solar lantern to the customer can overcome this barrier. Rural villagers can rent a solar lantern from a local entrepreneur for a period of 12 months for the small daily fee of $0.06 USD (total $21.70). After one year the ownership of the lantern transfers from the entrepreneur to the customer. It is estimated that the entrepreneur can make a profit of $253 on an investment of $750. The project produced the following results: List of requirements for the solar lantern; a product-service system design; product distribution plan for the company; a marketing plan to market the scheme; business model for the entrepreneur and the company; expansion plan to expand business from one region to the next; and suggestions for new product development that is necessary for the product-service system.

Traditional approaches to sustainable consumption and production emphasized addressing issues related to the natural environment and sustainability through optimising existing products, processes and businesses. Even though it is suggested that young and new firms have advantages in innovation, there are few studies that address exploiting sustainable product ideas through new organizations. Therefore, this project seeks to firstly explore and characterize the innovation process of sustainability-driven small and young firms in the Netherlands. Secondly, this project seeks to understand how sustainability-driven small firms can be better supported in their innovation process. This project reports on the results of an explorative study that involves the use of generative techniques during individual semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and intermediary organizations. The results suggest that the novelty and radicalness of an innovation and the development phase of a firm are important factors that influence how firms organize for innovation, manage their network and in-source knowledge necessary for innovation. Findings from the research also suggest that small firm owners can be best supported in these innovation processes, by leading them to have insights about their firm’s development themselves. Relevant areas to consider were found to be the skills and capabilities needed and available for innovation, structuring the product innovation process, researching users and markets and considering sustainability in all of these aspects.

In this master thesis, a television is designed which re-uses second hand LCD screens from discarded monitors, forming a high quality, low cost, low power LCD television. It is specifically designed for rural Cambodia, where people normally use a car battery as a power supply. Conventional color televisions draw a lot of power; with this television it is possible to watch for twice the hours on the same battery. During the project, the market, target group and technology was investigated to come to a design. A functional prototype was built which was used in user evaluations on location.

The ‘Ndassie SDS’ is a centralized, solar powered energy station, aimed at rural communities in Cameroon, where there is very limited or no access to the electric grid. It offers a safer, healthier, more affordable, and high quality alternative to the Kerosene lamps that are still commonly being used in these regions. The system consists of the DockingStation itself - which is to be placed in a central located shop within the off-grid community - and battery powered LED lamps. Lamp owners can recharge their batteries with the SDS, against a small fee, which results in low initial investment costs, as well as providing easily accessible customer service and maintenance. During this project, a functional prototype of the SDS was created based on previously gathered contextual information. Thereafter, this prototype was tested in Cameroon where it was installed in local shops, to observe targeted users operating with the concept. An analysis of user-product interactions, and assessment of the station’s requirements in terms of flexibility, usability and producability was made, finally resulting in a redesign, in which the identified points of improvement were implemented.

The Suoi Giang community is a mountainous area situated about 250 kilometers from Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam. In Suoi Giang, about 2700 people live divided over 8 villages. 98% of the population belongs to the H'mong minority. Within Suoi Giang, about 50% of the people live of an income of 20 US Dollar a month or less. Besides this, the level of education is low. Agriculture is the only form of income generated by the people. SPIN Asia, together with a tea distributor in Suoi Giang is introducing a set of zero-waste products that combined aim to improve the economic position of the H'mong people. This project is aimed to explore the opportunities of the development of a product-service system (PSS) of these products, in order to make this introduction even more effective. Throughout the report, the development of this PSS is visualized, as well as the business development that surrounds this PSS. Consequently, an implementation strategy is developed in order to guide the introduction of this PSS in a way that is most effective in terms of sustainable development for both the end-users and the other stakeholders involved.

The thesis explores the potential of recycling textiles to be used as a solution for disaster relief in winter areas. The followed process is a systematic method where the required areas are researched, to finally achieve three potential solutions. The firs solution is a scarf with a hood sewed into it. It can be wrapped around the neck, and it covers mouth and nose if necessary, to have a bigger protection against cold. It is not tight on the head or neck making it comfortable to use also while sleeping. It is sold in western markets with the formula “buy one, give one”, so when western buyers buy one they are donating another one to a victim in need. Tiletex is a modular floor solution done with insulating textiles that can be anchored directly to the ground and provide a sur- face to sleep, sit or lay in transitional shelters. It can be installed by the victims with standard components. Refabrics is a business model to create recycled cotton clothes spun and weaved by hand by Pakistani victims. This concept strays from the original assignment, winterized products, but it will provide an income source to the victims and they will become economically independent.

The design of a service that enables and stimulates local BOP businesses to interact on the global market. Why Businesses in informal settlements run almost 24 hours a day producing just enough to earn a living. Time is money. Goods and raw materials, manufactured by these businesses, are exported worldwide. Local Businesses seem fully integrated in the international trade system. When taking a closer look however, we find these local businesses to be disconnect to the world. Businesses cannot get out of socioeconomic isolation and highly depend on others to access market relevant information. They cannot benefit form the global market. In the mean while mobile phones, Internet and social media bridge distances and connect people all over the world. Upcoming economies and increased specialisation force the global market to expand. What In a world that is becoming smaller and a market that is continuously globalising, there is a perfect fit for a service that makes use of these new communication technologies to connect the unconnected local businesses to a prosperous global market. The service, WeTrade, is built on three components. First a mobile address identifies businesses. Second, a market information platform offers live and online market information and is accessible via mobile phone and Internet. Third a reliable, local office allows businesses to transfer money and enables worldwide transportation. How WeTrade is irresistible and triggers business owners to join trading. It is simple. Demand literally comes to the local businesses waiting to be priced. The platform is informative and allows businesses to explore the global market. Businesses strengthen in number while being member of a cooperation that shares information and responsibility. The service guides businesses trough the process and stimulates and supports them to find their way out of isolation and to be autonomic. Building and maintaining a reliable, international network will reward businesses.

This project was carried out in cooperation with TNO for ICCO and Fair Climate Fund (FCF). ICCO and FCF approached TNO to help them develop a low cost automated monitoring system to simplify and standardise the labour intensive monitoring process followed by one of their partner NGO in India. Currently the cost for periodic monitoring of small scale CDM biogas amounts to nearly 21% of the total transaction cost of the project. The insights from the research suggested that the high cost incurred in carrying out monitoring activity can be reduced by increasing end users involvement. Automation can be used to facilitate end user involvement in the data gathering and data submission phases of the monitoring process. Using technology (automation) to facilitate certain behaviour usually faces challenges against acceptance. The Fogg Behaviour Model (FBM) for persuasive design was adapted and adopted to develop a framework for the design process. The result of the design process based on the adopted framework is a strategy called ‘ICT4UP’. It is a set of 4 decision making tools, to be used by ICCO, FCF, TNO and local project proponents. The strategic decision making tool helps ICCO and FCF to select the most potential partner to implement biogas project and to support the social network based daily monitoring process plan. Further, it helps ICCO, FCF, TNO and the selected local partner to choose the most appropriate monitoring system for the context. It then guides them to design a customised technology intervention that might be needed to trigger end user involvement in the selected type of monitoring system for the context.

This project is meant to design a brand and communication platform for SDC to build a proper brand image and increase the awareness of the Sustainable Dance Floor as well as the brand SDC, by means of communicating a right brand essence and providing a better user experience to the target group.

A lot of different tools and methods for strategic product development are being used used in the West. Companies cannot exist without doing a sufficient ammount of marketing and branding activities. Customer needs are explored on a daily basis and brands are developing itself to extent from the broad range of companies offering similar services. Companies in SouthEast Asia are having difficulties with competing against big markets like China in terms of production and export figures. The region has to find other differentiators to gain o more competitive position. One of the possibilities for the local industries is to add value to their products by applying Sustainable Product Innovation (SPIN) in their new product development. The SPIN project therefore has the purpose to support local SMEs in Vietnam, Lao PDR and Cambodia with developing (new) products and implementing those products on (inter) national markets. One of the knowledge gaps of the local SMEs in Vietnam is the area of strategic approaches of product innovation. The main goal of the graduation project was to provide tools that will supplement the SPIN consultancy guide in order to create ‘successful’ products. This consultancy guide has to provide the SMEs a step-by-step guidance in developing their products and position those on the right markets. A lot of research has been done in Vietnam to gain insights on the context of the strategic modules. Sector organizations and local SMEs were interviewed in order to derive needs and wishes of the target group of the consultancy guide. The SPIN project continues on a previous project, called the CP4BP project. This project focussed on the production of the products only, but worked within the same context as the SPIN project. The CP4BP project has been evaluated on its results and structure in order to gain learning’s and guidelines for the development of the new consultancy guide. A SPIN knowledge transfer framework was developed in the beginning of the project by the SPIN project’s team to give some structure on the planning and activities of the project. This framework is based on Diehl (2010) and gives an overview on which levels the SPIN projects operates. Level 1 is considered to be the train of trainers sessions in which the trainees will be trained to work at the companies to implement the SPIN approach. Level 2 is considered to be the demonstration projects in which the SMEs will work with the trainers. Literature on existing methods and tools on branding and marketing were explored and analyzed on the possibilities of being useful for the SPIN content. Since the theory of the methods used for the strategic development modules had to be of an introduction level, basic theory on branding and marketing activities are being used to form the theory. During the synthesis phase the modules were developed and the collected theory was transformed in order to fit to the guide. Worksheets were developed to guide the user of the guide through the whole SPIN process in a step-by-step approach. Participatory design groups were used to discuss the content of the guide and to come up with solutions for some minor discussion parts. Hereafter the modules were tested during a train-of-trainer session (level 1), in which thirty trainers were trained to use the SPIN consultancy guide at SMEs during the so called ‘demonstration projects’ for implementing the SPIN methodologies. At an introduction weekend of the first demonstration project (level 2) for six tea companies the modules were also tested. The first results of the strategic development modules can be seen as positive. The users saw most exercises as easy to follow and the results of most exercises were acceptable. The evaluation of the results came up with a few remarks. Some minor changes were made on the structure and rephrasing some exercises and theory after the first round of tests, but the major part of the content stayed untouched. Recommendations on both short-term as long-term were suggested after the evaluation. Short-term recommendations were that the interaction between the theory in the guide and the worksheets should be improved. During the tests it was clear that the users did not use the worksheets and the guide at the same time, in order to stimulate this, improvements on the structure of the consultancy guide has to be made. There was also found that the concreteness of the answers in the worksheets can be of a higher level. Some changes in the description of the assignments and clearer goals of the exercises the user can stimulate the user to answer a more concrete and feasible way. Long-term recommendations can be to include the opportunities of the Internet to the consultancy guide. A suggestion is made in this report to make use of an interactive platform in which the users are able to share information and results of their cases with other users. Such a platform offers the possibility for trainers and SMEs to help each other and learn from colleagues in the same field. A straightforward design process with an extensive analysis phase characterizes this graduation project. The end result of this graduation project is a strategic development module with an introduction to branding and marketing activities that fits into the general SPIN consultancy guide.

Solar public lighting is an attractive way to provide public lighting in South Africa. This report presents the development of a sustainable way to do business for Philips in this new market. The business does not damage or deplete economic, social and eco-environmental resources. The Philips Light4Life business model addresses municipalities' maintenance issues and overcomes intensive price competition. The business model includes three elements: a revenue mechanism, value network and offer. The business model shows how Philips can achieve a key position in the value network by providing a customer oriented total lighting solution that is easy and accessible to implement and maintain. The revenue mechanism is usage fee based. It covers all costs related to provide public lighting.

Background: The emerging ‘green’ economy lets Heras, Dutch market leader in outside security, respond by re-considering its position in the market. To remain market leader, a company should invest in innovation to be one step ahead of the competition, in this case by implementing sustainability. Results: Field research, a life cycle assessment and creative sessions are conducted in order to reveal possibilities into three fields of interest where sustainability can be applied, (1) modularity, (2) production & (3) additional functions. After evaluation of the company, the customer and sustainable values a modular fencing system was developed that is composed of a fixed foundation, flexible main fence and a flexible add-on. The add-on further developed in this report describes an autonomous fine dust absorbing add-on. This add-on generates its own electricity by means of pv-panels, stores the energy in its batteries and uses it to make 30kVDC that creates a static electric field between the main fence and the high voltage wires. This field absorbs fine dust from the air, hence improving the air quality. Conclusions: The modular construction offers possibilities in a more sustainable life-cycle of the fence by applying fence-refurbishment and re-using the foundation. Second, a cost reduction of 9% for replacement projects is achieved. The fine dust absorbing add-on is recommended to place at industrial sites, coal-storage locations, harbours and highways, the main anthropogenic sources of fine dust emissions. More research must be done in applied voltage, static-electric-field distance and material optimization.

Energy is considered by the United Nations as central to sustainable development and poverty reduction affecting all its aspects - social, economic, and environmental - including livelihoods, access to water, agricultural productivity, health, population levels, education, and gender-related issues. As such, energy can be seen as a positive stimulus for sustainable development. However, it is expected that the world population will increase from 6 billion to 9 billion people in 2025. In parallel, a large part of the world population is moving from poverty to middle class. This combination of an increase of population and income may lead to a remarkable rise in purchase of consumer electronic products and consequently energy consumption. If changing efforts are not taken, the increase in residential energy consumption in emerging economies will bring the world to severe environmental and social problems such as greenhouse effect, lack of access to affordable energy resources and air pollution. If kept the usual track for growth, the environmental or economic crisis is still to come. To have a numerical reference, Lomborg (2007) states that the developing world that now responds annually for about 40% the global carbon emissions, is likely produce 75% by the end of the century. The main question addressed by this research project is “How to reduce the energy consumption of consumer products by residential consumers in emerging economies by means of product alterations (hardware) and change in consumer behaviour (software)”. From this perspective at first instance for BRICs, exemplified by Brazil and China (large emerging market economies), a literature research was carried out after the current and expected increase of residential energy consumption. In parallel, present actions to reduce energy consumption were mapped and critically analysed. The final outcome is a strategic conceptual framework that integrate the actors and drivers of consumption to design energy efficient products in promotion of energy efficient (hardware) and contextualized behaviour (software) in order to reduce residential electricity consumption in emerging economies.

This master thesis shows the process and results of a project for Dr Ten BV. Dr Ten’s redox technology is an alternative for the widely used lead-acid batteries. The technology can resist deep discharge and other battery usage scenarios that are common in East Africa but harmful to lead-acid batteries. The report proposes a feasible way to create a social impact. Financial profitability for all involved stakeholders is pursued in the generated business models. A limited environmental impact is secured by the redox battery’s lower impact materials and longer lifespan. Based on the analyses it was chosen to target rural businesses in Tanzania. More specifically an existing niche market that is currently using lead-acid batteries. During an exploratory field research valuable insights were generated in battery usage by businesses in rural Tanzania. It was decided to develop a new battery specifically for the mobile phone charge stations. The battery has been adapted to the phone charge stations by adding designated slots for mobile phone charging. The internal design has been altered to generate the necessary output current without additional energy losses.The resulting phone charge battery can be applied within the existing product-service system of lead-acid batteries and battery charge stations. Two ways of implementation are being proposed: one locally with a NGO and one nation-wide with a phone network operator. Two payment schemes are proposed that fit the rural business’s wishes and capabilities.

Refrigeration is an important factor when trying to improve rural live in developing countries. A refrigerator is important for a lot of aspects in order to improve the standards of life. The most well-known one is the preservation of food, but also preservation of medicines can be improved by the use of a fridge. The problem is that people in developing countries do not have access to an electricity infrastructure. Therefore a solution has to be identified, which makes effective use of an alternative energy source to empower the refrigerator. On top of this challenge one of the main problems that has to be tackled is the fact that most of these people are very poor. Therefore the initial product costs as well as the costs of use have to be as low as possible in order to develop an affordable solution. Because of the tropical monsoon climate, the region is very warm and moist. These circumstances on one hand favour the growth of bacteria that spoil food and medicine and on the other hand make it more difficult to create the desired cooling effect. This climate barrier needs to be conquered in order to achieve the best result. When designing a product for the rural population in Cambodia, the cultural beliefs and conventions should also be taken into account. These can be an obstacle when designing a product that originates in Europe. However when using them proper they can also become a design advantage which might convince the local people to accept and use the product.