Our Approach

Innovation

Incubation

Implementation

Influence

Development Alternatives drives strategic change through ‘Innovation’ of eco-solutions, ‘Incubation’ of technical, institutional, and market solutions for ‘Implementation’ at scale and ‘Influence’ policies for sustainable development. The approach of 4 ‘Is’ across all the sectors that the organisation works on is designed to create positive impact both at micro level, i.e., in the lives of people and at macro-level, i.e., in policy action.

Innovation

Innovation for sustainability demands new benchmarks of performance in products, techniques, services, and social value creation that realise green and inclusive development outcomes across all communities, small enterprises, industries, and local and national governments. Transformation to sustainable societies will be led by innovative business models and institutional systems with distributed epicentres of local value creation and value retention. We design and foster innovative technology and enterprise solutions to shift towards low carbon, resource-efficient, and regenerative production systems creating positive impact on people’s lives and the environment.

Incubation

Mainstreaming innovative solutions requires the right scaling of technology packages and building capacities of the local institutional eco-system and enabling policy and regulatory environment. Our work focuses on incubating appropriate technical, institutional, and market solutions to foster livelihood resilience among small and marginal agricultural communities, enhance resource efficiency and circularity in construction, water, and waste management systems in human settlements, catalyse local economic actions through access to renewable energy, support small enterprise development, and build skills of the youth for job creation.

Implementation

We work with a wide spectrum of stakeholders to demonstrate viable and scalable development solutions that deliver eco-friendly building materials, affordable housing, safe water, sanitation and waste management services, natural resources management, and resilient agriculture models. These solutions are then taken to scale through building capacities of local communities, civil society partners, small entrepreneurs, local governments, and public institutions.

Influence

Enabling policy and market eco-systems are required to mainstream and scale-up good practice solutions. Evidence from practice, study of past trends, and future scenario forecasts are used to develop recommendations for informing policy design at state and national levels. Dialogues and debates on multi stakeholder knowledge sharing networks are a preferred mechanism to co-create shared narratives and advocate for green, inclusive, and resilient development models with policymakers and businesses. Public awareness and behaviour change campaigns are organised from time to time to inspire sustainable consumption, climate action, and participatory local self-governance.