Read the full article here
Jun
18
MEC Latest Stats
MEC has helped thirteen financial institutions, reaching over 8.5 million entrepreneurs in 10 countries get access to carbon funding for clean energy programs.
Apr
19
Connecting people – Yale Conference on Environment & Financing
This past Saturday (April 17th) at Yale’s University’s School of Management, MEC’s James Dailey spoke to a group of leading practicioners and experts on connecting financing with clean energy for people in low-resource settings. The Conference offered a chance to make new connections and discuss MEC’s innovative approach to partnerships with MFIs to achieve carbon financing.
The conversation explored emerging trends at the service delivery, financing, and policy levels. MEC’s leveraged approach to carbon financing to induce scale was notable at the Conference.
Mar
21
Scaling Solar Lighting in India
Now for a post from MEC fellow Jennifer, stationed in Lucknow, India:
On March 18th and 19th, Aryavant Gramin Bank (AGB) and Tata BP Solar, held a training program for over 200 facilitators, who are employees of AGB. These facilitators are responsible for advertising the solar lighting home system (SLHS) program, overseeing installation, as well as answering maintenance requests within 48 hours.
The high integrity of MEC’s carbon credits in the market (and to the carbon purchaser) really depends on the facilitator’s work in the field. For example, to register a household for carbon credits, MEC requires not only information about the system and loan size, but also its gps coordinates to identify its location where addresses can be very difficult to pin down. Furthermore, MEC requires each system to be monitored at least once every quarter. It is the facilitators that will carry these tasks out.
During the training program, I had the pleasure of teaching a few facilitators how to use our gps trackers. When we practiced in one village, I realized how well they knew each and every customer. I was not surprised to later learn that the facilitators were able to collect the longitude and latitude information of over 1000 households in the following two weeks. 27,000 households were able to join the SLHS program on the strength of MEC’s carbon program, and so it is our hope to start producing carbon revenues from all of them in the next coming months.
That’s about 135,000 people with access to clean energy!
Feb
25
MEC is Buckminster Fuller Challenge Semi-finalist
Each year a distinguished jury at Buckminster Fuller Challenge awards a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. MEC is excited to learn that we have been selected as a semi-finalist for 2010 based on our innovative approach to accelerating clean energy adoption in developing countries. The finalist will be announced in June 2010. More coverage at Facebook page for the Challenge.
Jan
20
Making a Difference for Yurt Owners in Mongolia
Yurtcozy’s new peer-to-peer carbon website, http://yurtcozy.org, is already helping families in Mongolia cut their fossil fuel use and live more comfortably at the same time. This week’s blog showcases three new Yurtcozy eco-entrepreneurs, who have improved their daily quality of life as a result of your carbon purchases.
Dashdavaa Myangan is a grandmother living with her son, who has lived in the city for the past 24 years. As fuel prices have increased over the last several years, she noticed that her fuel expenses had grown dramatically in the cold Mongolian winters. For this reason, she made the decision to buy an insulated yurt blanket.
Since purchasing the blanket, Dashdavaa has reported that her fuel expenses have greatly decreased, helping her to save her additional income in the winter months. In fact, she has liked the new ger insulation so much that she has recommended it to her friends.
Sosor Zundui is a grandmother that takes care of her two grandsons while they attend the local high school. She is retired and spends the bulk of her time leading the local elder’s Union in her community. She first found out about energy efficient products at a local community event where she decided to purchase an insulated yurt blanket and energy efficient stove for the benefit of the environment and to help her save fuel.
As a community leader she has recommended the eco products to the community elders and local administration to help promote the benefits gained by both the purchaser and environment. In her opinion, one of the easiest ways to decrease air pollution is through the spread of eco products.
Munkhjargal Dari is a mother of two daughters, one in kindergarten and one in elementary school. She had heard much about energy efficient products, and decided to take out a loan for a six-layer energy efficient yurt blanket. She liked the cleanness and warmth of the blanket and the smaller design and savings of the stove. After installing both products, she has experienced real fuel savings. By her calculation, she used to use 1 bag of fuel per day, but is now using two bags of fuel for every 3 days. Both she and her daughters have appreciated the ease at which they have stayed warmer this winter due to the use of their new eco products.
Please go to http://yurtcozy.org to help create more of these success stories! Spread the word: let your friends know how they can help too, and please don’t forget to become a fan of Yurtcozy on Facebook.
Yurtcozy is a brand owned by Microenergy Credits Corporation and licensed to Better World Credits, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Dec
11
Introducing a new way to help reduce climate change
People like you and me now have a new way to help reduce climate change – by helping families and small businesses in places like Mongolia and India get access to clean energy.
The way it works is quite simple. You or I log into the website and purchase a “carbon credit”-denominated in tons of CO2 emissions avoided. Those funds then enable microentrepreneurs to take a loan for a clean energy investment. The microentrepreneur pays back the loan in small installments—often less than what they previously paid for the dirty energy source. And the clean energy investment reduces pollution, helping to mitigate climate change.
In Mongolia, for example, low income people live in yurts, called gers. By purchasing an insulating “blanket” they can reduce by half the amount of coal they need to burn to stay warm in the winter. This creates a carbon emissions reduction—and it makes their home warmer and more economical. When you buy a carbon credit from a yurt dweller in Mongolia, those funds are used by the microfinance institution –a bank called XacBank–for education campaigns so that more ger owners can learn about the benefits of energy efficient blankets and the financing program that makes them affordable.
The website is called http://yurtcozy.org, and it will be announced at Copenhagen on December 17th.
Yurtcozy helps microentrepreneurs switch to clean energy. As in microfinance they take a loan to improve their quality of life and escape poverty. In this case the cost savings come from reduced expenditures on kerosene, coal, and wood. The products they purchase include solar lighting systems, improved stoves and biogas digesters.
When you purchase a carbon offset on the Yurtcozy site, you know who you are helping. In fact, you can see a map with the GPS location of each microentrepreneur who has purchased a clean energy system.
How does this relate to the cap and trade debate? The mechanism builds on the same principles of the Kyoto Protocol, and leverages partnerships with some of the original architects of the carbon markets including the non-profit, Environmental Defense and the carbon trading firm, EcoSecurities. Yurtcozy is different because it allows people to connect as individuals. Because the clean energy investors are all individual microentrepreneurs, you know exactly who you have helped and how.
Rather than establishing emissions caps, Yurtcozy relies on individuals and teams to set their targets for how much climate change they will reduce.
Dec
09
MicroEnergy Credits to attend Copenhagen Climate Change Conference Dec 16-17th
To meet with MicroEnergy Credits in Copenhagen email info@microenergycredits.com.
Dec
09
MicroEnergy Credits launches partnership with HSBC India and Spandana
MEC launched a partnership with HSBC in India and Spandana, a leading microfinance institution, to bring the benefits of the carbon markets to microentrepreneurs so they can adopt a clean energy path as they improve their quality of life. Several hundred microfinance clients attended the event on December 7th in Nagpur, as well as April Allderdice, CEO of MEC, Pamaja Reddy the CEO of Spandana and Naina Lal Kadwai, Country Head, HSBC India.
HSBC along with Spandana and MEC has embarked on a project to provide clean energy alternatives to clients of Spandana, a Hyderabad based microfinance institution MFI. MicroEnergy Credits is a US Based social enterprise and has worked with several MFIs globally to help them launch and scale clean energy programs. A grant from HSBC will enable Spandana to receive technical assistance from MicroEnergy Credits to develop and roll out a clean energy product portfolio suited to the needs of its clients. MEC will in turn link Spandana’s microfinance clients to the global carbon credit markets and enable them to trade carbon credits earned by adopting clean energy.
Speaking on the occasion, Naina Lal Kidwai, Group General Manager and Country Head, HSBC India said “We believe that this innovative approach will offer clean energy through renewable resources, helping to green the Indian economy. Early findings of a survey conducted in the Bhandara region are encouraging; these indicate a high response rate among rural women to accept new technologies for use of renewable energy resources. We see great potential to scale up this initiative, thereby creating greater impact across India.”
“I’m proud to partner with HSBC and Spandana in their effort to enable the microenterprise sector in India join the global effort to stop climate change and also bring the benefit from the carbon markets to micro entrepreneurs” said April Allderdice, CEO of MicroEnergy Credits Corp.
Ms. Padmaja Reddy, Founder, Spandana said “Through this partnership, we are able to offer affordable and environmentally-friendly lighting technologies to our clients. At Spandana, we are committed to enhancing the overall quality of our clients’ lives, and the solar torch light loan is one of many products that we consider to be essential and with the potential to improve the lives of our clients. The learning’s from this pilot have been useful for us as we explore the possibility of making available a wider range of financial and non-financial products and services to our clients.”
The project aims to impact around 1 million households. By the end of the Project Spandana staff will have the capacity to manage an energy product portfolio that is scalable on a sustainable basis. This will have the impact of making credit for clean energy access available to Spandana’s growing client base. Households that adopt these products will reduce dangers to health and burdens on women for biomass fuel collection, allowing them to pursue additional income-generating activity.
Dec
08
MEC Latest Stats
MEC has helped nine financial institutions, reaching over 6 million entrepreneurs globally, get access to carbon funding for clean energy programs.
MEC is currently working in Uganda, India, Sri Lanka, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mongolia. MEC’s partners include respected financial institutions such as Finca Uganda, Spandana, the Aryavart Gramin Bank, Prathama Bank and XacBank.
Financial institutions working with MEC have succeeded in offering their clients improved clean energy services such as solar lighting, and efficient cooking technologies.
