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Kenyan Teenagers Build $126 Exhaust Filter From Maize Cobs and Coconut Shells
Fredrick Njoroge Kariuki and Miron Onsarigo call their invention HewaSafi, Swahili for "clean air". It is designed to fit onto matatus, the privately owned minibuses that carry millions of passengers across Kenya's cities every day and are among the country's biggest sources of urban air pollution.
- Categories
- Energy, Transportation
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Analysis: The AI Sustainability Paradox
AI is being sold as a tool to solve sustainability’s hardest data problems, from Scope 3 emissions to climate-risk intelligence. But the infrastructure behind that intelligence — data centers, water use, energy demand, chips, grids, and community consent — is becoming its own sustainability test. Drawing on conversations at Trellis Impact 26, Ming Wong explores what AI’s physical footprint means for impact investors, corporate sustainability leaders, and the communities being asked to host the next generation of digital infrastructure.
- Categories
- Energy, Investing, Technology
- Region
- Global
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Making Waste Pay: The Keys to Sustaining Paying Customers in Solid Waste Management
Despite growing discourse around the revenue potential of waste to wealth — i.e., reimagining waste as a valuable resource — profitability in municipal solid waste management remains low in India and other low- and middle-income countries. As Vishwanath Varma, Archana Masih, Diksha Rana and Ashish Kapil at Waste Warriors Society argue, this challenge has led to a growing focus on collecting user fees from households — yet that goal is easier said than done. They share analysis based on Waste Warriors Society’s user fee records and customer surveys, which reveals key insights on how to retain paying customers in solid waste management and other user fee-based models of social entrepreneurship.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise, WASH
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The Blind Spot in the EU’s New Deforestation Regulations: Laws and Satellites Don’t Save Forests — People Do
The European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) represents an ambitious legislative effort to protect our planet’s remaining forests. But Priscillia Moulin at MosaiX highlights a potential flaw in the regulations: To meet the EUDR's data requirements and prove that their supply chains are deforestation-free, major commodity buyers are turning to remote sensing and satellite AI — and if these technologies detect any tree-cover loss, the path of least resistance is often to permanently exclude that supplier. She argues that this creates the illusion of compliance while pushing vulnerable small farmers into the grey market, as satellite algorithms can identify changes in forest cover but cannot determine intent or causality, or assess other complex realities on the ground. She proposes three ways companies can comply with the EUDR without freezing smallholders out of the EU's premium, regulated markets.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment
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Analysis: Green Crime Goes Global
Environmental crime has become so extensive that it is reshaping the global policy agenda, evolving from a niche concern to an urgent topic of international diplomacy.
- Categories
- Environment, Finance, Technology
- Region
- Global
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Analysis: Why Nuclear Power Is Moving Back Into the Global Development Agenda
Nuclear power is moving back into the development-finance debate as the IAEA and World Bank Group deepen cooperation on reliable, low-carbon electricity. The shift comes as emerging economies face rising power demand, widening investment needs and growing pressure to expand energy access without locking in higher emissions.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Global
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Analysis: Building AI on African Terms
AI promises new opportunities for African businesses, but it also risks deepening technological dependency.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Africa’s Second-Richest Billionaire Takes Full Control of Major Private Hospital Network in $947 Million Deal
South African billionaire Johann Rupert has strengthened his grip on the country’s private healthcare industry after investment holding company Remgro completed its $947 million (R15.56 billion) acquisition of full ownership of Mediclinic Southern Africa.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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