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Taking the ‘Green Leap’: How Linking BoP Business and Clean Tech Can Build an Inclusive Economy
In this era of environmental degradation and climate change, aiming to eradicate poverty before addressing the environment will simply not work. The challenge of our time, say Stuart Hart and Fernando Casado Cañeque, is to figure out how to commercialize new clean technologies, while extending the economic benefits to vulnerable communities – what they term a global “green leap.” They discuss this challenge in their new book, and share some key takeaways here. (NextBillion will be giving away a free chapter of the book in our e-newsletter, NextBillion Notes, all month.)
- Categories
- Energy, Entrepreneurship, Environment
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PAYGo Solar at a Crossroads: Why the Industry Must Choose Between Protecting Customers and Satisfying Investors
Over $500 million in investor financing has poured into off-grid solar in the past year. But while that's an exciting development for the sector, there is a downside. As BrightLife CEO Stefan Grundmann explains, PAYGo solar operators are facing heightened investor pressure to expand their reach and aggressively deliver greater sales. In response, many companies have taken new measures to boost business – some of which have led to troubling new risks for customers. Grundmann explores this issue, and how the industry and its investors should respond to it.
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As World Burns, Clean Energy Growth Stalls for First Time in Nearly Two Decades
“The world cannot afford to press ‘pause’ on the expansion of renewables and governments need to act quickly to correct this situation and enable a faster flow of new projects,” Fatih Birol, IEA’s executive director, said in a statement.
- Categories
- Energy
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Bridging the ‘Off-Grid/On-Grid’ Divide: How Grid Integration Can Build the Energy System of the Future
The cost of solar modules has dropped by over 80% since 2009, and it’s estimated that the world’s solar power capacity will triple by 2022, driven in part by off-grid energy. Yet without an effort to make connections between off-grid systems and national grids, the growing global movement toward mini-grid solutions cannot reach its potential, says Tatiana Bessarabova at Endeva. She explores how Endeva, SOLshare and other players in the energy sector are working to make grid integration a reality in Bangladesh.
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- Energy, Environment
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Ceramics in Global Development: How an Affordable, Overlooked Technology Could Spark a Micro-Scale Industrial Revolution
In the developing world, diseases caused by polluted air and contaminated water claim millions of lives. Yet initiatives to distribute clean cookstoves and water filters have often struggled to bring affordable solutions to poor communities. According to Reid Harvey at TAM Ceramics, both filters and cookstoves can be inexpensively produced with an unexpected technology: ceramics. He explores how a breakthrough in ceramic science and design, combined with a focus on local production and distribution, could boost entrepreneurship while delivering life-changing products to the poor.
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- Energy, Entrepreneurship
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Press release: Acumen Announces Nearly $70 Million Close of For-Profit Off-Grid Energy Fund through its subsidiary Acumen Capital Partners
KawiSafi aims to deliver clean, affordable energy to 10 million people, at least half of whom live in poverty, and displace more than one million tons of carbon dioxide in the next 10 years, to address energy poverty and help avert the current climate crisis. To date, KawiSafi has invested $21 million to impact 4.3 million people and avert 360 thousand tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
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Here’s why Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma and other investors are pouring billions into clean-tech ventures
The $1 billion Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, founded by Gates, Bezos and other philanthropists, has invested in 14 companies involved in everything from battery storage to fusion energy.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment, Investing
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Adapt or Die: Accelerating Growth Amid a Rapidly Changing Energy Landscape
The clean cooking sector has made incredible strides in the past decade, with bilateral organizations and the development community working together to create standardized environmental impact goals. Now the industry is facing a new set of scaling challenges, say Jessica Alderman and Ron Bills of Envirofit International. The two share advice for enterprises seeking to level up, including how to avoid mission creep.
- Categories
- Energy
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