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Achieving Sustainable Energy for All Hinges on International Cooperation and Leadership
This year was designated the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All by the UN General Assembly to raise awareness and promote the three objectives: clean energy access, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. 2012 is also the year of the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, to be held in late June. The moment is ripe for action, and lofty goals have been set, but where to begin?
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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Plug and Play: Energy Access at the BoP
In India, almost 290 million people lack access to electricity, according to the 2011 survey by the International Energy Agency. While people in the developed world have access to light with the simple flip of a switch, people in rural India and other parts of the developing world struggle at the base of the energy access ladder. Improving energy access for the bottom of the pyramid is a steep challenge – as the poor ascend this ladder, they move from using traditional fuels like wood and kerosene towards universal access –what most of the developed world takes for granted.
- Categories
- Energy
- Tags
- renewable energy, solar
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Symbiosis Project to Help Light Up Village Homes
PUNE: Students from the Social Entrepreneurship and Consulting Cell of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management ( SIBM) have come up with a project to provide low-cost lighting units to rural households without electricity.
- Categories
- Energy, Impact Assessment
- Region
- South Asia
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A Wish for Sharing: Why Social Entrepreneurs Don’t Need A Bottled Genie to Gain
More often than not, entrepreneurs who share the same mission – ending energy poverty, hesitate to share resources, even if we all benefit. What are we afraid of? Is it the fear that all our hard work simply paved the way for someone else to get credit for lifting a billion villagers out of energy poverty? Or maybe it’s the bucks we were planning to make while perusing our lofty goal?
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Citi Leads Investment in SJF’s New Fund
he team at SJF Ventures had to undergo federal background checks, submit fingerprints and provide 20 references each in order to obtain a license from the Small Business Administration for its new nationally focused impact investment fund, SJF Ventures III LP.The fund could be a potential new funding source for some start-ups with a social good focus.
- Categories
- Energy
- Tags
- renewable energy
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ADB Plans to Invest $100M in Environment Fund
The Asian Development Bank is expected to invest about $100 million in a multinational fund that will be put up to boost investments in environment-related technologies and projects in developing countries like the Philippines.
- Categories
- Energy, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Welcoming the ‘Zeronauts’: Pushing Problems Toward Zero
John Elkington, who coined the phrase "triple bottom line," is jumpstarting a new dialogue. In an upcoming book, The Zeronauts: Breaking the Sustainability Barrier, he details 50 enterprises and their entrepreneurial champions who are all working towards zero: zero pollution, zero poverty, zero pandemics, zero population growth and zero nuclear proliferation.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
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Solar-Powered Micro Grids Change Lives of Indian Villagers
In Uttar Pradesh, one of India's poorest states, a pair of US-born entrepreneurs is creating a new model for energy delivery to villages far from the grid. The founders of Mera Gao Power build and operate solar-powered micro grids to provide low-cost lighting and mobile phone charging to village houses, giving many rural people access to both light and power for the first time in their lives.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- South Asia