Sustainability in Subsistence Marketplaces and Beyond: Addressing Challenges Through the Bottom-Up Approach

Subsistence marketplaces are likely to be most affected by environmental issues. Our work is grounded in more than two and a half decades of work with low-literate, low-income consumers, entrepreneurs, and marketplaces—i.e., subsistence marketplaces. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of key insights that have emerged at the intersection of sustainability and subsistence. Unique to our approach is being bottom-up, beginning at the micro-level behavioral understanding of subsistence marketplaces as they intersect with the environment, consumption, and conservation. This is in contrast to the customary vantage point in sustainability of being top-down. We bridge research, education, and practice, dubbing our approach symbiotic academic-social enterprise, distinct from action research. The interplay between subsistence and sustainability using a bottom-up vantage point leads to important new insights. The chapter is organized around two major sections—understanding subsistence marketplaces and sustainability, and addressing challenges through product design and development, business models, education, academic-social enterprise, and sustainable development goals.