The Charcoal Project

So, you wanna deploy cookstoves to every corner of the world? McKinsey & Co. has one word for you: networks

In a meeting this week with the folks from Acumen Fund, we were asked what was holding up the large-scale deployment of improved cookstove worldwide?

The truth is there is no simple answer. Take your pick: low levels of capital investments, tariff barriers, lack of incentive policies, fluctuation price of oil, poor social marketing, instability in the carbon credit market, absence of standards, etc.

Looking for solutions, the folks at McKinsey and Co. think stakeholders would do well to focus on networking and sharing resources.

Listen to the Harvard Business Review and they’ll tell you the US needs to spend more time investing in social entrepreneurs in the developing world and less playing the role of incubator.

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Haiti RFP stove announcement: Quick wins environmental health project with community benefits

We’ve received the following announcement: Dear Improved Stoves Working Group, In the framework of the Environmental Health Protection and Management platform, we would like to let you know that IOM (International Organization for Migration, not to be confused with Institute of Medicine of the National Academies) has funding available for quick wins environmental health project with community benefits to be started on July 1st and completed on September 1st. Budget is of $20 000 to max of $70 000 per project. Project submission details: Deadline for submission: June 30th by midnight. To be sent to sfernando@iom.int. Please copy Megan.Rapp@unep.org with any submissions. Good Continue reading

OK, UNDP, what’s the REAL plan to alleviate energy poverty?

OPINION We almost choked on our first Red Bull of the day when we opened up our social media apps and stumbled upon this tweet. How could we possibly not be excited by the influential David Roberts (Grist) tweeting about the UNDP’s call for greater attention to alleviating energy poverty as a key strategy to achieve the MDGs? But, like a puzzled puppy who’s favorite chew bone has been taken away for no reason, we were disappointed by what we read when we clicked on the link: it was yet another lofty paragraph written in “development-ese” leading to a bunch Continue reading

Now we’re cooking: USAID to grant some $20m for indoor air pollution over 5 years

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) seeks to award a five-year $100 million Cooperative Agreement, Supportive Environments for Healthy Households and Communities. Approximately 20 percent of the proposed work will focus on indoor air quality. The RFA lists “increased use of alternatives to cooking with biomass fuels using traditional stoves and/or increased use of housing improvements to improve indoor air quality” as a key environmental health intervention.

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Energy Obesity vs Energy Poverty: Will US Corporate CEO’s address them simultaneously?

Bill Gates last week joined the CEOs of GE, Bank of America, Xerox, Lockheed Martin, and others, in calling for the United States to modernize its energy systems with investments in cleaner, more energy efficient technologies.

What seemed especially eerie is how the group’s exhortation could easily have been uttered by the top CEOs of companies based in developing countries.

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