PGD Session 2-2
Session Theme: Dialogue: Building, Practical Collaborations, Maximizing the Strength of Asian Social Enterprise
Session Time: 9:00~11:30, Nov. 30
GREEN TECHNOLOGY FOR HELPING LOW-INCOME INDIVIDUALS
There are many victims of climate change all over the world, and the number is growing. In addition, climate change has had greater adverse effects on the socially, economically, and biologically disadvantaged populations; although they have contributed less to climate change. And so we should approach this issue with fairness and social justice. In the Parallel Group Session of the 2nd Social Entrepreneurs Summit held on November 30th, we looked at the efforts of some social entrepreneurs who utilize green technology to reduce the losses of the disadvantaged and to create jobs for them.
Tri Mumpuni, Executive Director of People Centered Business and Economic Institute (IBEKA), gave the first presentation for the Parallel Group Discussion 2-2. IBEKA has developed more than 60 power plants from renewable energy all over Indonesia. IBEKA supplies electricity by introducing micro hydro power plants in the remote areas where electricity is not available. This electricity produced by the power plant can be used to dry crops; or be sold and generates income for local communities. She emphasized the importance of community-based resource development by saying “A natural resource development by commercial investment tends to put priority on profits of capitalists over the needs of community residents.” She defined the aim of social enterprises as maximizing the interests of local communities and concluded her presentation by expressing her wish that all the people in the world have equal access to energy.
The next presentation was by Deepak Gadhia who has done pioneering work in introducing solar concentrator technology in India. Smoke in the kitchen due to cooking with firewood is the third largest killer in India. Women and children waste several hours per day collecting firewood. Because seventy percent of the Indian population lives in villages where firewood is the major source of cooking fires, solar cookers are much needed. However, the problem is that the very people (the poor), who need the technology, cannot afford it. Therefore “Gadhia Solar” has combined micro-financing and income generation so that the poor can get access this technology. The enterprise teaches the poor how to make bread and cook using the solar cookers. He is now devising a virtual cycle so that the villagers can sell the cooked items in markets and pay for their solar cookers.
Md. Ahsan Ullah Bhuiyan, assistant GM for Grameen Shakti founded by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, presented his three main programs: providing solar PV technology, biogas technology and improved cooking stoves in Bangladesh, where only 40% of the population has access to grid electricity. These programs have been so successful that more than 20,000 solar home systems have been installed per month. He said the keys to their success are: “reasonable price” and “effective financial mechanisms based on credit support & installments”.
Tony Knowles, Executive Director of SME Renewable Energy Ltd, Cambodia spoke on the SME-RE Bio-mass energy project. He said it is expensive to dispose of agricultural waste in Cambodia where agriculture is a major industry. If farmers generate electricity in a small off grid village using biomass gasification technology, they can save the cost to dispose agricultural waste and generate additional income in rice mills.
The biomass gasification technology is eco-friendly and substantially lowers the cost of electricity. The SME Renewable Energy Ltd. created a beneficial business model not only to farmers and rural rice mills but also to whole local communities. He said in his presentation that, “It is more important to read the needs of local communities than technology itself. A too high degree of technology can face greater difficulties in its actual installation.”
Another speaker on small scale power plants was Dae-Gyu Kim, President of Energy Farms. He said while green technology plays an important role in providing electricity to local areas on a small scale in the developing countries, it gives priority to substitute eco-friendly energy for existing electricity in a developed country such as Korea. Since ‘green growth’ has been discussed without any reflection on living style of over-consumption of energy, it is government-driven and big business-oriented and therefore only a large scale power plant is welcomed. Dae-Gyu Kim who seeks another way of living for a sustainable future through small scale power plants even in such a reality as Korea voiced his conviction, “The technology of small scale power plants is not marketable in a society characterized by massive consumption of energy like Korea. We will find a way to take part in the foreign aid movement run by government and major businesses.” He also said, “one of the reasons we, the Energy Farm and ATC, chose to take a ‘slow and old-fashioned’ approach in a ‘fast-paced and sophisticated’ society, is that we are ultimately concerned with the reduction of poverty in Asia. To make true this aim, we will put emphasis on building networks and cooperation with foreign institutes.”
