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CleanCapital Closes $4 Million Series A To Make Institutional Investors See Green
“By streamlining the acquisition of high quality, clean energy projects, CleanCapital is able to pass through the benefits to its investors,” said Patelli in a release.
- Categories
- Environment, Investing
- Tags
- impact investing
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The Race to Solar-Power Africa
The spread of cell phones in the region has made it possible for residents to pay daily or weekly bills using mobile money, and now the hope is that, just as cell phones bypassed the network of telephone lines, solar panels will enable many rural consumers to bypass the electric grid. From Ghana, I travelled to Ivory Coast, and then to Tanzania, and along the way I encountered a variety of new solar ventures, most of them American-led. Some, such as Ghana’s Black Star Energy, which had electrified Daban, install solar microgrids, small-scale versions of the giant grid Americans are familiar with. Others, such as Off-Grid Electric, in Tanzania and Ivory Coast, market home-based solar systems that run on a panel installed on each individual house.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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New finance for old (technology) problems? Saving the planet with better cook stoves
Research attempting to answer this question has mainly focused on the cook’s household, finding that factors such as income, education, and access to credit limit adoption and sustained use. But this demand-driven narrative ignores the other side of the equation: the producers and distributors. Increasing awareness by both practitioners and the policy community has led to growing calls for a new focus on stove supply barriers and innovative policy tools to increase ICS sales.
- Categories
- Environment, Technology
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The world’s first solar-powered refugee camp
As part of its Brighter Lives for Refugees campaign, the IKEA Foundation began offering solar lamps to residents in Azraq, which became essential for everything from cooking and studying, to safe access to water and sanitation. Yet the lamps, though essential, only illuminated the broader challenge of life without a consistent power grid.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Region
- North Africa & Near East
- Tags
- refugees, renewable energy, solar
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These Indian Entrepreneurs Upcycle Religious Flowers Into Useful Products
Because the flowers have been used for worship, they’re sacred, and therefore can’t be just sent to landfill, explains Ankit Agarwal, an Indian entrepreneur. Hindu temples often throw the spent flowers into the River Ganges, a venerated waterway. But this just exacerbates the Ganges’s legendary pollution: The flowers are sprayed with pesticides and other chemicals that leach into the environment.
- Categories
- Environment
- Region
- South Asia
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Climate Change Has Made Heat Waves Much More Deadly, Mainly for the Poor
A study published in Science Advances shows that as average summer temperatures in India rose 0.5 oC from 1960 until 2009, the chance of a heat wave causing more than 100 deaths more than doubled. As the authors write, their work is far from theoretical: heat waves in 2010, 2013, and 2015 each killed thousands of people across the country.
- Categories
- Environment
- Region
- South Asia
- Tags
- climate change
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As Colombia’s FARC disarms, rebels enlisted to fight deforestation
Colombia is home to a swathe of rainforest roughly the size of Germany and England combined. It is in war-torn areas like Caqueta where deforestation is on the rise following the FARC demobilisation, and where Colombia - in partnership with Norway - is focusing efforts to halt forest loss with a scheme that offers former fighters training and jobs as forest guardians. As FARC fighters abandon their jungle strongholds, once no-go conflict areas are opening up for business.
- Categories
- Environment
- Region
- Latin America
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Clean Energy Investments Do Not Always Mean a Clean Human Rights Record
Investing in renewable energy seems like a savvy, progressive investor’s ideal scenario. Public policy, popular demand and shifting technologies are all converging to create a potentially high-growth, high-return industry that benefits the environment. But in the transition to renewables, are investors overlooking any issues? Who truly benefits from these investments? Who gets left behind?
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing
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