World Bank 2009 Global Development Marketplace

The World Bank's 2009 Global Development Marketplace is now accepting proposals on Climate Adaptation.

Visit their website at www.developmentmarketplace.org, available in English, French and Spanish.

The Development Marketplace is a competitive grant program administered by the World Bank. The 2009 global competition is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and additional DM partners. It aims to identify 20 to 25 innovative, early-stage projects addressing climate adaptation. The DM is a unique opportunity to turn your idea into reality; if selected your project could receive up to US$200,000 in grant funding for implementation over two years.

The competition focuses on three sub-themes:
1) Resilience of Indigenous Peoples' Communities to Climate Risks
2) Climate Risk Management with Multiple Benefits
3) Climate Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management

Who can apply? Non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, foundations, academia and development agencies based in the country of implementation may apply without additional partners. All other groups must partner with at least one organization; the type of partnership varies across types of applicants. Individuals cannot apply. Click here for more details on partnerships and eligibility criteria or check the guidelines, available in English, Spanish and French.

How to apply? All proposals must be submitted online. Proposals must be submitted through the DM online application form available on the DM website. Only proposals received before May 18, 2009 6 p.m. EST (22:00 GMT) will be considered.

How will the proposals be selected? Proposals will be selected through a rigorous selection process. Click here for information on the selection process and assessment criteria.

Questions? Please contact dminfo@worldbank.org

The application deadline is May 18, 2009 at 6:00 p.m. EST (22:00 GMT).

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Costing the Earth: A Burning Solution

Dick Bradford, of Barnsley MBC (an Ashden Award winner), and Mike Pepler, Technical Manager at the Awards (and also a woodland manager) were both interviewed for the recent episode of Radio 4's Costing the Earth programme, "A Burning Solution", which talks about the use of biomass fuel.

It’s repeated on Thursday 16th April 2009 at 13:30 and you can listen online here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jm3l3

This is also in the news, as the Environment Agency’s recent “Biomass: Carbon sink or carbon sinner” report has been mentioned, although in the main BBC news it is reported with the headline “Biomass 'worse than fossil fuels'”, when in fact the report only said this was the case if nitrogen fertilisers were used to grow trees and/or the biomass was moved a long distance - neither of which Dick or Mike do in their work with wood fuel.

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UK wind farm investment cut

Some concerning news out last week, reported in both The Times:

Britain’s ambition to become a global leader in renewable energy suffered a major setback last night when the world’s biggest investor in wind power said that it was slashing its investment programme.

The announcement comes less than two months after ministers backed a string of huge gas-fired power stations, prompting concern that the Government cannot fulfil its promise of a green energy revolution.

Iberdrola Renewables’ decision to cut its investment in Britain by more than 40 per cent, or £300 million — enough to build a wind farm powering 200,000 homes — is the latest obstacle to Gordon Brown’s target of generating 35 per cent of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Lifting it to that level from the current 5 per cent would cost an estimated £100 billion. But wind energy investments have collapsed as funding dries up in the credit crunch and the price of oil, gas and coal has fallen. Delays obtaining access to the national grid and planning permission have compounded the industry’s woes.

and The Telegraph:

It came a day after Ed Miliband, the Climate Change Minister, angered rural campaigners by saying opposition to wind farms is as socially unacceptable as failing to stop at a zebra crossing.

His comments were made at the screening of a new climate change documentary, The Age Of Stupid, in London.

He said: "The Government needs to be saying, 'It is socially unacceptable to be against wind turbines in your area – like not wearing your seat belt or driving past a zebra crossing'.''

His comments came as a report by a coalition of countryside campaigners said the expansion of wind farms threatened some of Britain's most scenic countryside.

However, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds this week called for a vast increase in the number of wind farms in the UK after a study found far more could be built without damaging wildlife.

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Ashden Awards channel launches on Green TV

The popular environment video website, Green.tv, has now launched a channel specific to the Ashden Awards. Films will be added gradually over the next few weeks, you can view the channel here:
http://www.green.tv/ashden_awards

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Power to the People

Simon Brammer, UK programme manager for the Ashden Awards, was recently interviewed for an article in The Independent:

More than a few eager job hunters will have been cheered by Gordon Brown's announcement earlier this month that the green pound is set to create 400,000 jobs over the coming years. The Prime Minister spoke of a "green new deal" which would rebuild the global economy on low-carbon lines, investing in the sort of environmentally responsible technologies that have been championed for years by organisations, such as the Ashden Awards in its work with sustainable energy projects in the UK and abroad.

As its UK programme manager, Simon Brammer is responsible for liaising with the businesses, charities and local authorities who've won one of the Ashden Awards' annual grants of up to £30,000 to develop and maintain existing renewable energy projects.

Read the full story here

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LCBP support for solar runs out

A recent report from the Renewable Energy Association says:

The Renewable Energy Association, representing the renewables industry, expressed astonishment and concern at the closure of Stream 2 support for PV under the Low Carbon Building Programme (LCBP).

Only four days after the Government laid out plans for a low-carbon revolution, at the launch of its new low-carbon industrial strategy, it announced that the funding stream for the most popular technology, solar power, had run out. No applications made since the 26 February are permissible and the whole stream is due to end in June.

In December last year an extra £7 million was allocated to the PV stream of the LCBP to tide it over until the programme closed. However this funding had all been allocated by the 26 February 2009. A further £12 – 15 million still remains in the LCBP budget and at the present rate of spend it is predicted that £8 million will remain unspent by the end of the programme. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) have said that Phase 2 will not be extended and any remaining funds will be sent back to the Treasury.

The REA recommends the immediate reallocation of remaining LCBP funds on a first come, first served basis so all microgeneration technologies can gain maximum benefit.

Read the full story here

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British scientist gets serious on making the energy numbers add up

David MacKay, author of “Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air” is a number-cruncher par excellence and is spending much of his personal energy using the power of figures to get people thinking about what plans we should be making as a country for delivering our energy needs. Yesterday at Allington House, London, he number-crunched his way through many detailed scenarios for how the UK could achieve sustainability through a combination of renewable energies, energy efficiency, reducing energy consumption and expanding other sources of energy. The thrust of his approach seems to be to assess realistically what can be achieved, how much people will be prepared to change, and then persuade the government and other implementers to get on and do what’s needed.

What was his conclusion? In a nutshell, “It would be very difficult to live on renewables, at least as we currently live”. He argued strongly that renewables like PV, solar water heating, biomass and wind power would have to be at country-scale to be able to make a significant impact. Wind power, for example would have to include massive offshore and onshore farms covering a large proportion of the country as well as vast underwater ones in the North Sea to make a real difference. Most of his favoured solutions were fairly obvious and widely touted – insulation, turning down thermostats, reading energy meters and using heat pumps (air source and ground source). Others were more contentious - electrifying transport, importing electricity from solar farms the size of Germany in North African deserts, and possibly expanding nuclear power stations. His ideas are likely to polarise audiences into those that see his approach as refreshingly realistic and others who are not happy with any role for nuclear power. Mackay doesn't necessarily advocate a strong role for nuclear, but wants those who reject it to make sure their numbers for energy supply still add up.

MacKay, a physics professor at Cambridge University gave his presentation at the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts office in London, where the Ashden Awards is based. Find out more and download the book for free and at www.withouthotair.com

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Ringmer College Races Ahead with Green Initiatives

Ringmer Community College in Sussex has been busy since winning an award from us in June 2008. They were recently awarded with a 4th green flag for their impressive energy-saving activities in the College, led by the well-named eco coordinator Stephen Green. Other plans that include a sponsored green car race are making the school an inspiring model for others to follow.

Receiving green flag status is the highest Eco Schools accolade a British school can win, "This is the 4th year running for us. Our success was largely down to simple but effective measures like vigilant energy monitoring and energy saving around the school" says Stephen Green.

Thanks to prize money from the Ashden Awards, students can now closely track the energy use of the College’s ground source heat pump with an easy to view monitor in the Sixth Form building entrance and science labs.

The growing profile the college has enjoyed since winning the Award, has also helped Ringmer secure new support from the County Council which will enable them to install a new biomass boiler later this year. This will burn wood chip, a sustainable fuel. The college will then be able to boast yet another renewable energy source to add to its solar panel display, wind turbine and ground source heat pump.

The College was recently chosen as a pilot school by the County Council to work with researchers on new insulation measures. To make this crucial energy measure more engaging for the pupils, they plan to use Perspex panels in the ceiling to show different types of traditional and modern insulation – from sheep’s wool to high tech fabrics - and even use human hair from a sponsored hair cut!

On June 6th the College will hold a fun-packed Green Car Grand Prix with several local primary schools. Using electric cars supplied by Green Power Goblin Cars, the children will make and drive the cars themselves to test their endurance and technical prowess, and learn about fuel efficiency, efficient driving habits etc. Some of the Ashden prize money is going to this exciting event, with an Ashden trophy going to the winner.

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Professor Muhammad Yunus video

Last week the Ashden Awards hosted a lecture by Professor Muhammad Yunus, here's the video of the event, starting with an introduction by Sarah Butler Sloss, Executive Chair of the Awards, and a short film.

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Inspiring words from the guru of microcredit, Professor Muhammad Yunus

On Thursday night we were lucky enough to have a lecture from the guru of microcredit, Professor Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank. He is a phenomenal, creative individual with the ability to come up with a life-changing idea a minute it seems. He has now developed his years of experience and knowledge into a concept he calls “social business” to address the problems of the poor. In the lecture, given in his intimate, conversational style, he spoke convincingly about the need for an urgent change in the world’s financial systems to promote lending to the credit-worthy poor, and spread the values of social business. The lecture hall at the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington was packed with people from all walks of life and all ages, with a great turnout of young people. Unlike many lectures, where papers shuffle and yawns are stifled, the atmosphere was quite electric, as the audience seemed to hang on every quiet and inspired word, each containing real resonance at this time of anxiety and uncertainty.

I first came across Professor Yunus’ work when working for the Panos Institute back in the 1980’s and we published a book called Banking the Unbankable, containing a chapter about his work in Bangladesh. Twenty years on, the Grameen Bank has spread microfinance to over 7 million people, offering small loans without collateral that are hugely improving the lives of poor women and their families in Bangladesh. Professor Yunus gave a moving description of his visit to a “Grameen woman”, one of his first lenders, and her daughter who is going to university thanks to his efforts. He commented sadly on the fact that this woman herself could have been where her daughter is now, if it were not for a system that stopped poor people from progressing and taking charge of their lives. He gently encourages all the children of these Grameen women to go out in the world and start up their own social businesses, instead of relying on others to give them work. I’m sure for many people in the audience he was lighting the spark of an idea…

Refreshingly, Professor Yunus sees the global financial crisis that we are constantly told will ruin lives and cause chaos, as an opportunity as well as challenge – an opportunity to bring about major changes in banking, the economic system and society. “The financial, environmental and food crises are all interrelated and are all driven by selfishness. We must seize this opportunity to come up with an alternative financial system, based on trust and selflessness. The poor are suffering from financial apartheid. They make up two-thirds of the world’s population but are currently excluded from the system. The real issue is not whether the poor are credit-worthy but whether banks are people-worthy” Professor Yunus told us.

We heard how the Grameen enterprises now number over 30 covering solar energy, mobile phones, water, health and many others, all driven by social motives. We at the Ashden Awards are very familiar with the member of the Grameen family that is expanding sustainable energy - Grameen Shakti. Last year they and their committed leader, Dipal Barua, won the Ashden Outstanding Achievement Award for incredible work installing solar home systems, biogas plants and improved stoves across Bangladesh. When they first won an award in 2006 for their solar energy programme and Dipal came to London to receive the prize, he was inspired by other winners using biogas and improved cooking stoves and decided to go back and do the same in Bangladesh. Two years later they’ve installed 220,000 solar home systems, 6,000 biogas plants and produced 23,000 improved stoves!

It was great to hear that the Grameen programmes so far are unaffected by the financial crisis - “While the financial world collapses all around us, our schemes are thriving - so who is really credit-worthy?” he remarked.

If you’re interested in these ideas, make sure you read Professor Yunus’ book which is now in paperback, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism where he puts forward his vision of a future where many embrace the idea of social business, business with a conscience that is not founded on the profit motive, but the motive to help others. “I think every problem can be turned into a social business. Each one is the development of a seed, and it can be replicated to change the world instead of to make money.”


Juliet Heller, Ashden Awards

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The Big Energy Shift

Government is setting ambitious targets for renewable energy, heat and energy savings. To achieve these targets, a significant step change will be needed in the way we heat our homes and offices and take up energy savings measures.

The Ashden Awards has been working alongside a wide range of stakeholders and the Department for Energy and Climate Change who are now working with households and communities, businesses and the public sector to work up options for delivering 'the big shift'. There are many options that are being tested from financial ones such as feed-in tariffs to establishing community wide areas projects to legislative sticks such as the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) set out in the Climate Change Bill.

Earlier this week the Ashden Awards participated in the public sector stakeholder event which brought together public sector organisations as wide as primary care trusts, local authorities, government department or schools. The mood of the event reflected the urgency that is increasingly being felt by Government to deliver against carbon reduction targets and highlighted a number of key issues that are blocking the action needed in the public sector. These include skills and capacity issues such as the need for strong leadership and energy champions within organisation, supply chain issues such as developing the capacity of delivery organisations and helping them to scale up to meet demand and strategic issues such as whether there is a need to extending zero emissions targets to existing public building stock.

Of course there are already shining beacons in the UK whether they be local authorities, schools, charities or businesses already delivering effective sustainable energy solutions; they are called Ashden Award winners. So we were there to share winners’ success stories and to demonstrate the some are already leading the way.

Visit the website at www.bigenergyshift.org.uk

Simon Brammer, Ashden Awards

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Ashden Awards past winner gets Zayed Future Energy Prize

Grameen Shakti, who won an Ashden Outstanding Achievement Award in 2008, have now been awarded the inaugural Zayed Future Energy Prize. Dipal Barua accepted the prize of $1.5m, saying:

“It is a great honour to receive this recognition inspired by the vision of HH the late Sheikh Zayed, I consider myself a global Ambassador of the Prize, and would like to carry forward the message of environmental sensitivity that is being championed by the leadership of Abu Dhabi.”

You can read more on the press release section of the Zayed website.

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Ashden Awards Winter Receeption

Last week we held a Winter Reception at the Royal Society of Arts. Jonathon Porritt CBE, who is an Ashden Awards trustee and chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission, spoke at the event.
He gave us his analysis of the energy situation in the UK, referring to the effects of recession and the "new green deal" brought in by President Obama.

As well as Jonathon's presentation, there was plenty of opportunity for networking, with investors, funders, past winners and Ashden Awards Circle members present.
There were also displays of some of our winners' technologies, including scale models such as this sawdust-fuelled stove from KSG:
and this treadle pump from IDE India:

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Coverage of our event at Intelligence Squared

Treehugger.com has reported on the Intelligence Squared event we were involved with on 25th January:

"Can Asia go green? (and if it doesn't has the world had it?)" was a fascinating discussion amongst four women (finally!) from Asian countries. Malini Mehra, from India, Christine Loh, from Hong Kong (a Time magazine Hero of the Environment), Svati Bhogle, Indian and winner of an Ashden Award for Sustainability and Isabel Hilton, editor of China Dialogue each examined their respective country's status and future.

Svati, pictured below with Ben Dixon of the Ashden Awards, won the Energy Champion award in 2008 for her work with wood stoves for businesses in India.
We had several displays set up for the event, including scale models of some of the technology used by our international winners:and the infamous "energy bike" from Global Action Plan (a 2008 UK winner):

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Ashden Awards winners in the Independent

A couple of articles featuring Ashden Awards winners have been published in the Independent recently. The first is about how Zara Solar has brought solar PV lighting to Tanzania:

Developing solar power in Africa is being eagerly pursued by international organisations including the World Bank and the United Nations and a host of smaller NGOs such as the UK’s Ashden Awards, a sustainable energy initiative whose support was the catalyst for the spread of the technology through northern Tanzania. In 2007 Ashden awarded £30,000 to a local solar entrepreneur, Mohamedrafik Parpia, to expand his fledgling business and investigate ways of helping the very poorest Tanzanians access the systems. In just three years, Parpia’s business Zara Solar has fitted nearly 4,000 systems, providing electricity to a much greater number. Click here for the full story

The second is also based on Tanzanian organisations, this time the Kisangani Smith Group, who have developed domestic stoves that can burn waste sawdust, and MRHP, who use crop waste to fire bricks:

The stoves are made from a sheet of metal which is lined with clay. Sawdust or other agricultural residues are then used as fuel. Cooking with biomass in this way dates back to the discovery of fire, but that does not make it primitive. “I kept watching the carpenters throw away sawdust,” says Reuben Mtitu, whose grandfather set up the blacksmith workshop he now runs to provide skills and employment for local young people. “I wondered why they wasted so much, and started to think of ways we could put it to good use instead.” Click here for the full story

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Getting your message out with social media

The Big Green Challenge has just started writing a series of blog posts on how to use social media to get your message out to the world.

Vicki Costello introduces the series:

The web today can offer enormous possibility for supporting citizen-led action on social and environmental issues. From sites such as freecycle and liftshare, which provide a service to help people create specific change, to groups of people getting together through networking sites such Facebook to campaign on a particular issue.
...

Over the next 6-8 weeks, Headshift’s Robin Hamman will guest blog for Big Green Challenge to help tell you how. He’ll be talking about how to make the most of blogs, photos, maps, video and groups; tying it all together and keeping it going.

Robin has been working with the Big Green Challenge Finalists to help them make the most of social media, and we want to share some this training, through the Big Green Challenge blog, to help many more community-led projects benefit from online social media tools.

You can read the full introduction here.

The first post of the series is here, and future posts will appear on the Big Green Challenge blog.

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Carbon price crash

Carbon trading is often seen as a mechanism to fund development of sustainable energy solutions, particularly in developing countries, but the effects of recession around the world are hitting the price, potentially cutting funds for some projects. The BBC reports:

It [the EU carbon trading scheme] seemed like a market solution to global warming in Europe, but initially many of these permits were given away for nothing.

Now, as recession bites, industries like steel, cement and glass may be polluting less, but only because they're producing less. So companies are desperately selling off the carbon credits they no longer need to bolster their faltering balance sheets. That has led to a big drop in the market value of carbon permits, and as the right to pollute becomes cheaper, there is less incentive for companies to stop polluting.

Read the full story here.

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AID Foundation joins Clinton Global Initative

AID Foundation International (AIDFI), who won an Ashden Award for their work with ram pumps to supply water to remote villages in the Philippines, have joined the Clinton Global Initiative:
Auke Idzenga, one of the founders of AIDFI was personally invited to attend the Clinton Global Initiatives-Asia held in Hong Kong from December 2-3, 2008.

President Clinton travelled to Hong Kong to join several hundred Asian leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds to further strengthen social and global responsibility in Asia, and move toward the benefits achieved through collaboration.

This meeting was similar in format to the Annual Meetings in New York. The meeting focused on three primary areas of discussion: education, energy & climate change, and public health. As an integral part of membership, each CGI Asia participant made a Commitment to Action—a new, specific, and measurable initiative that addresses a social, economic, or environmental problem of the member’s choosing.

The commitment made by AIDFI:

Supplying Water to the Uplands - Spreading the Technology
The Alternative Indigenous Development Inc. (AIDFI) commits to a two-year program that would establish self-sustaining ram pump manufacturing and installation capacity in Colombia, Indonesia and Madagascar, and scale-up its existing program of hydraulic ram pump installations in upland communities in the Philippines. The program seeks to address the problem of a lack of easy access to water in rural communities in these countries. Lack of water leads to poor hygiene and sanitation, and limits agricultural activities. In addition to providing access to water, the program will establish a self-sustaining manufacturing, installation and maintenance capacity in each of these countries.

This commitment program would follow the technology transfer approach that AIDFI implemented with good effect in Afghanistan. It will be rolled out sequentially across the specified countries to allow learning from each country to be incorporated in subsequent activities. In addition, to scale up its existing operations in the Philippines, AIDFI will provide training and guidance of installation teams from other provinces, hold conferences for installation teams to share their knowledge and experience between communities and monitor the work of the installation teams to maintain quality standards.

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Svati Bhogle interviewed by Energia

Svati Bhogle, of TIDE, won the Energy Champion Ashden Award in 2008 for TIDE's work with biomass stoves. She has recently been interviewed by Energia for the Asian Gender and Energy Network Newsletter, and when asked about the future of the stoves she said:

We have demonstrated that stoves have been accepted by end-users, which has significantly reduced firewood consumption and created profit for entrepreneurs and end users. However, we estimate that so far we have reached out to just about 5% of the potential users of our stoves. The future direction for us is to reach out to a large percentage of potential users. We need to develop dissemination strategies that are market-driven and focused on achieving scale. This involves new activities in product design so that stoves are made in production centres either installed or assembled on site, in market development and removing financial barriers that would inhibit the adoption of stoves in large quantity.

You can read the full article on page 7 of the newsletter, which can be downloaded here.

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Nepal struggles with electricity shortages

Nepal has huge hydropower resources, and the Centre for Rural Technology won an Ashden Award in 2007 for their work upgrading water mills. However, in recent weeks there have been daily power cuts of 12-14 hours, due to low water levels in rivers. The bad news is that the government is turning to fossil fuels to fill the gap, according to this BBC news article:

Declaring the national power crisis recently, it [the government] brought out a work plan consisting of emergency, short and long-term measures. Installation of the diesel-powered plants was considered to be part of the emergency work plan.

But energy experts say this approach is wrong, especially for a nation with access to so much potential hydropower.

"The decision by the government to bring in 200MW of diesel generation is indeed a step backwards," says Biksh Pandey, a director of Winrock International, a clean energy specialist organisation.

"While the world is moving from dirty to clean energy, Nepal would be going in the other direction."

Criticism from a number of areas led to speculation that the government might change its mind on the diesel decision. But Water Resources Minister Bishnu Poudel did not give the impression of someone about to change their mind. "After the last announcement of the measures to deal with load shedding, we have not made any new decision," he told the BBC.

This suggests that the government is sticking to its plans; one of which is to switch from renewable energy sources to a growing dependence on fossil fuels.

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