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By Dianne George
Valente
UVic Business faculty member Michael Valente’s passion for sustainability pervades his life, even to the books on his bedside table. One of the titles currently piled near his pillow is The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly. It highlights the complexity of sustainable development in poor countries that is traditionally underestimated by industrialized countries.
“Easterly makes the point that traditional foreign aid approaches, which attempt to alleviate poverty in developing countries, are not working,” says Valente. “As a business researcher, I was captivated by the growing number of businesses that were picking up some of the slack left by public institutions and having a positive impact on sustainable development. Yet I felt there was something blatantly missing in the management field that researched how companies were able to do this,” he says.
“Given the immense growth of industry in the last 150 years, I thought it would be tremendously compelling if we understood how to leverage the power of business to create social and environmental value.”
That thought inspired Valente’s research into sub-Saharan Africa and the challenges it faces in arising out of poverty. As part of the work he was doing with his thesis advisor and the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank that promotes sustainable private sector investment in developing countries, Valente had access to a number of success stories.
“Africa represents an extreme example of social and environmental degradation. So, understanding how a business is able to survive profitably in this situation while alleviating poverty and reversing negative impacts on the environment should help inform businesses around the world how to succeed through this approach.”
Valente’s research took him to Africa where he examined a number of for-profit operations including Honey Care Africa (HCA), a Kenyan company credited with helping to substantially increase the income of local farmers. By establishing a network of farmers and beekeepers, providing training and a guaranteed market for the honey, HCA found a way to be profitable while supporting the goals of non-governmental organizations and rural communities.
“It is a model where the product is purchased direct from the farmer, eliminating the many intermediaries and thus returning the margins back to the farmers.
“Honey Care is a good example of a for-profit company that is making inroads in the global marketplace while successfully building the capacity of local farmers, not to mention increasing pollination in the very arid regions of Kenya,” he says.
Valente, who joined the Faculty of Business at the start of the semester, teaches business sustainability and sustainable development to BCom students as part of their core classes.
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