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Pulling Back the Curtain on a Social Enterprise Merger: Practicalities and Surprises as Two Companies Become One
When Pollinate Energy began executing its recent merger with a former competitor, Empower Generation, some stakeholders doubted they would succeed. But as its CEO Alexie Seller describes, though the two companies were based in different countries, their models and missions were similar. Even so, they faced multiple challenges – and more than a few surprises – in the merger process. In this revealing post, Seller explores what has worked, and what hasn’t, as the companies have combined.
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- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Electrifying Transportation: Can This Innovative Financing Model Make Electric Buses a Global Reality?
Electrifying transportation at scale is critical to fighting climate change and urban pollution. And with their affordable battery costs and lower fuel and maintenance expenses, transit buses present an excellent business case for electrification. So what is preventing the rapid deployment of electric buses worldwide? Clean Energy Works founder Holmes Hummel discusses the main barrier to adoption – and an innovative financing solution that could turn things around.
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- Energy, Environment, Investing, Transportation
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Affordable, Scalable, Overlooked: Evaporative Cooling Can Fight Food Loss – Why isn’t the Development Sector Embracing It?
Food loss due to lack of effective storage is a global problem: In sub-Saharan Africa alone, approximately 23 percent of available food is lost or wasted. There’s increasing interest in an innovative yet old-school solution to the problem: evaporative cooling. But though the technology can be adopted with minimal training, low up-front costs and no electricity, it is not widely used. MIT D-Lab research engineer Eric Verploegen explores five ways to increase the effective production, dissemination and usage of this technology.
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- Agriculture, Energy, Technology
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Financing the Energy Access Revolution: Three Technologies That Are Driving Africa’s Momentum
Technology has become central to the energy access story in Africa. It’s an essential part of all the key stages of an enterprise’s work – from raising the initial capital and financing the equipment, to designing and delivering the final product itself. And the new possibilities opened up by technology are increasingly seen as potential game-changers, in a region where some 590 million Africans – around 50 percent of the population – are still without access to electricity. Ben Good, the CEO of Energy 4 Impact, explores three areas in which tech-driven approaches – from crowdfunding to cryptocurrency – are making an impact.
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- Energy, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Running Out of Gas: Can This Innovative Solar and Battery Electric Generator Fight Energy Poverty – And Climate Change?
The electric generator market is predicted to grow to US $27 billion by 2023. But as the industry grows, so too will the need for fuel to power it – a major challenge in a world struggling to reduce carbon emissions and climate change. Portable Electric believes it has found a solution: a portable generator that can be powered by solar and wind to provide completely renewable, mobile energy – at three times the efficiency of traditional generators. The company's founder, Mark Rabin discusses the technology, and its uses in everything from micro-grids to disaster relief.
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- Energy, Technology
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Navigating Change: A Step-By-Step Approach to Revising a Social Enterprise Business Plan
By 2018, EarthSpark International had already built two micro-grids in Haiti, sold around 18,000 clean energy products, and invented the leading meter for micro-grids, which sold 40,000 units in 22 countries. The company seemed to be primed for a successful future. But EarthSpark faced significant problems, both in terms of profitability and social impact. To achieve its mission, it needed to make major changes to its model. Social business pioneer Eric Carlson describes how the company revised its business plan, using the paradigm from his new book, Building A Successful Social Venture.
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- Energy, Social Enterprise
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How to Build an Impact Industry: Four Strategies from the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
Almost 3 billion people worldwide cook with materials that are inefficient, unsustainable and polluting. Since 2010, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves has sought to make clean stoves and fuels commonplace across the developing world, by building an industry that could deliver this vision. Colm Fay and Ted London at the William Davidson Institute share insights from the Alliance's efforts to catalyze this new industry, breaking down four key stages of acceleration and their lessons for other impact-based accelerators.
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- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Refrigeration Off the Grid: An Innovative Solution to Food Spoilage for the Billions Without Electricity
Home refrigerators, essential appliances in much of the world, remain out of reach to over one billion people who, as social entrepreneur Quang Truong puts it, must plan their lives around eating rather than vice versa. Without access to reliable grid energy, families are not just inconvenienced – they’re also contributing to climate change as their rotting foods emit greenhouse gasses. In this post, part of our “Offline Innovation” series, Truong puts the spotlight on his Fenik Yuma cooler, which solves this dilemma through low-tech evaporative cooling.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise, Technology