MicroEnery Credits’ technology was on display recently at the Tropical Disease conference in Washington DC on November 20th. We licensed our unique SMS intelligent gateway to a major Health Systems organization as part of an effort to track anti-Malaria medicines administered in Malawi. Because our “last mile technology” solves a common problem for operational programs in developing countries, MEC is able to leverage its investments in SMS-Web integration. SMS, or text messaging, can be used where there is no internet connection to interact with a web application.
Oct
11
MicroEnergy Credits Presents at ForoMic Microfinance Conference Arequipa
MEC presents at the Peru ForoMic Microfinance Conference
Jun
11
Latin America and Caribbean MicroCredit Summit
Plenary Session of the MicroCredit Summit
MEC presents at the Microcredit Summit in Cartagena with Muhammad Yunus and others.
On June 10th over 60 participants crowded in a small room in Cartagena Colombia for an intimate conversation with a Nobel Peace Prize winner about microfinance and the environment.
Microfinance and the environment had been a panel session topic at each of the past three Microcredit Summits, thanks to the leadership of the non-profit organization Green Microfinance. The attendance at this session of the Latin America and Caribbean Regional MicroCredit Summit reflected a growing momentum and interest in the environment among the microfinance community.
Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus chaired the panel—lending his endorsement to the notion that microfinance does have a relationship to the environment. In fact he made the point that microfinance is merely the reason we are all together, but that protecting the environment must be a key factor in any endeavor.
That Muhammad Yunus is a strong environmental advocate comes as no surprise to me; I met him when I moved to Bangladesh in 1996 to help the Grameen Bank start its renewable energy enterprise, Grameen Shakti. For over a decade the Grameen Bank has made significant investments in bringing affordable clean energy technologies to its clients including solar home systems, biogas digesters, and efficient stoves.
Bill Yager of Green Microfinance kicked off the panel with a presentation that explained in clear terms and moving visuals the severity of the global environmental crisis, as well as concrete examples of green technologies that are affordable solutions.
Gabriel Solorzano, from Banex, Nicaragua, followed with a challenging presentation, that used humor to shake the participants out of complacency, and ask real questions about unforeseen consequences of loans which are approved every day. For example, what is the chemical content of the pesticides used by a farmer with a microloan? How safe are the scaffoldings used by a small construction SME? He also shared an important regional initiative to establish environmental standards for microfinance banks.
April Allderdice followed up with an introduction to the MicroEnergy Credits’ Microfinance Carbon Program, which allows Microfinance Banks to receive revenues from the carbon markets when they lend for clean energy.
The audience was enthusiastic with questions ranging from the technical: “can you use jatropha biodiesel engines for agricultural coops?”, to market-oriented: “what clean energy options exist for urban markets.”
An overarching theme of the questions was a focus on the tactical rather than philosophical—the audience at this MicroCredit Summit seems poised to take action, and now they want to know how.
Jun
02
Partnership with HSBC in India
MicroEnergy Credits, HSBC in India form partnership to expand clean energy market
MicroEnergy Credits (MEC) and HSBC in India have formed a partnership to provide solutions to Microfinance Institutions and communities to tap into emerging opportunities in global carbon credit markets, through adapting to renewable energy.
Household access to electricity for productive purposes (industry, irrigation and commercial activities), and for human development purposes (education and health facilities) all contribute to economic development and poverty reduction. Lack of access to or interruptions to electric grid service in developing countries are constantly affecting businesses, education, agriculture and other activities which cannot function without power.
In addition, recurring illnesses such as chest and upper respiratory illnesses have been attributed to smoke caused by current cooking technologies and fuels. Studies have shown that substituting cleaner cooking fuels such as LPG or biogas digesters can halve infant mortality rate and greatly reduce chronic lung disease and cancer in women and children.
MEC and HSBC in India will work together to identify obstacles faced by Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) to initiate clean energy programs, develop and implement solutions. This partnership will expand the scope of MFIs to access carbon credit markets, by launching their energy programs expeditiously and efficiently, which will result in improved environmental and economic conditions for rural poor communities in India.
“I’m proud to partner with HSBC and support the microenterprise sector to join the global effort to stop climate change and benefit from the carbon markets” said April Allderdice, CEO of MicroEnergy Credits Corp.
Added Puneet Chaddha, Managing Director and Head, Commercial Banking, HSBC India, “This partnership embodies HSBC’s commitment to assist in improving the living conditions of the financially excluded population in a sustainable manner. This effort will also have a positive impact on climate change. ”
Both MEC and HSBC have been spearheading global clean energy initiatives. MEC is the recognized leader in solutions-based carbon trading market. Using internet and mobile phone technology MEC aggregates carbon offsets from the clients of Microfinance Institutions and sells them to the carbon markets, enabling better and cleaner energy choices for the market at the bottom of the pyramid. HSBC was the first bank to demonstrate global carbon neutrality in 2005. HSBC too is a signatory to the Equator Principles and ensures that all its lending activities do not lead to projects that harm the environment, and actively promotes activities which help the environment
Apr
12
Clean Development Mechanism for Bottom of the Pyramid
Co-founder April Allderdice is interviewed March 4, 2009 by Aileen Nowlan for Next Billion, in an article about Clean Development Mechanism for Bottom of the Pyramid.
More posts moving over from http://microenergycredits.blogspot.com/
Contact MicroEnergy Credits at info @ microenergycredit DOT com.
Feb
23
Schools in Uganda are Solar Enterprises
While working in Uganda for the past two weeks, I visited the Aunt Agnes Infant School which recently purchased a solar photovoltaic system and is part of FINCA Uganda’s Microfinance Carbon Portfolio.
In Uganda where many schools are private, a school owner is a microenterprise, and a microfinance loan can help them make investments in infrastructure which increase their profitability while improving the quality of education for local children
In this video, a teacher describes how the system enabled the students, or “learners,” to improve their performance, increase their motivation, and how word of mouth about the system led to increased enrollments.
Dec
16
More MFIs enlist in Microfinance-Carbon Program
MEC’s pipeline is growing. Our most recent partner is XacBank in Mongolia, who found us through the Energy Links Podcast, an initiative of ACCION’s Center For Financial Inclusion, and USAID’s FIELD program. You can listen to our podcast here.
XacBank is a well established microfinance institution with over 100,000 clients. The temperature now in Ulan Bator is -44° F. XacBank’s clean energy project manager shared with me stories of clients that are burning plastic audio cassette cases for heat. Simple clean technologies such as efficient cookstoves and insulating blankets for yurts can significantly reduce the consumption of heating fuels, saving the clients money and improving the environment. MEC is looking forward to our partnership with XacBank, where the carbon revenues we provide will help XacBank link their clients to these clean tech products.
Nov
08
MEC presents at Web 2.0 Summit
MEC presented at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. The theme of the panel was location aware applications for mobile devices. This was a great chance to think big thoughts about how trends in technology adoption have enabled our social enterprise, and in turn how applications like ours may impact markets in the future.
Although telecom economics make it unlikely that there will be mass-adoption of location based services like Miloki or Citysense in the markets that MEC serves, the fact remains that GPS enabled cellphones have now been commercialized and are available in most countries. Some enterprises (like ours) will leverage them, creating a potential for broad ripple effects throughout BOP populations. For example, with our system, one loan officer may use a GPS device to provide location data for a thousand small clean energy investments.
In addition to our application, newly available cell phone technologies are creating surprising social and economic opportunities for the BOP. A good example is MPESA in Kenya which now has 4 million account holders compared to a total of 5 million deposit accounts in the whole banking sector of the country. Other applications are helping people earn income with their cellphone, like CellBazaar, which is “Craig’s list” on your cell phone in Bangladesh, and Txt Eagle, which lets individuals do jobs such as translation over their cell phone.
The cell phone age (there are now over 3.2 billion cell phone subscriptions—nearly half the population of the planet) creates an opportunity to intelligently harvest the data that can make the BOP investment grade.
My interview from Web 2.0 is posted here.
Oct
20
SoCap 2008 Creating Value
The Social Capital Markets Conference in San Francisco September 2008 was an opportunity for MEC to meet up with other entrepreneurs working at the intersection of business and human progress. Coming in the midst of a growing financial crisis, many commented that the strong attendance was an indication that from the crisis could come a new way of organizing our financial markets. By measuring social and environmental impact, we would improve capitalism. My personal take on the Social Capital movement is that by attempting to bring the rigors of measurement to the benefits that accrue to people and society, the movement is fundamentally about bringing balance back to markets and capitalisms.
My ethics professor at Notre Dame business undergraduate studies (Hock) in the 1980s often commented that “creating the customer for the longterm” was an eroding value in modern American business, with long term catastrophic tendencies for capitalism. Thus, stable earnings occur when business leaders take the long view. Creating the customer means to me seeing the potential of each individual regardless of the accident of where they were born and finding ways to make them part of your financial future.
MEC recognizes that measuring the benefits of clean energy for people, planet, and society is vital for ensuring that mission remains linked to that long term “create the customer” ethic.
I got a lot out of the SoCap conference, and look forward to keeping in touch with this hopeful group of people.
