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India's rapid industrialization and urbanization is a boon to the national economy but a serious challenge in terms of an unfettered rise in energy usage and GHG emissions.  So far, India's per capita energy consumption has remained one of the lowest in Asia, because of its vast rural populace with little access to energy infrastructure.

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Another sustainable company success story to take you into the weekend:  this one starts with a relatively simple concept.  Chinese industry is experiencing plenty of growth right now, and can in many ways be considered the engine driving the country's healthy economy.  But this rapid expansion has brought about significant inefficiencies - 58 percent of energy consumption in East Asia can be attributed to China, and much of this to the industrial sector.  Much of this consumption, up to 60 percent in some facilities, ends up being wasted energy.  Why not turn this incredible output of energy into cost savings?

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It is a familiar story: post-college volunteer (Peace Corps, etc.) returns from the developing world with a desire to help the community in which he or she has been staying. The subsequent projects are also familiar – they often involve selling local handicrafts to first-world markets, or aggregating donations of used computers and cell phones to send back to the community. I don't question the motivation behind such initiatives, and I applaud some of them for attempting to bolster the local economy or jump-start development with first-world technology. More often than not, however, these small projects operate much like typical top-down development projects; that is, they depend on human and physical capital that only the donor/benefactor can provide. In order for such projects to become truly sustainable, they must be able to stand on their own.

Peter Haas knows this story well, having spent years traveling to and volunteering in low-income communities, where well-intentioned development projects often failed without constant donor intervention. With his first-hand knowledge of the problem, Haas set off to find a solution, founding the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) in 2004. The AIDG web site describes exactly what it is they do:

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So much to read, so little time…but these activities are definitely worth a look-over.

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The Ashden Awards reward outstanding and innovative projects which tackle climate change and improve quality of life through the generation of sustainable energy at a local level. As you can imagine, the winners had some amazing ideas with the potential to drastically change the lives of the communities they are reaching out to.

Four awards were given in recognition of the way in which sustainable energy has been used to improve access to Light, to Food, to promote Enterprise and to improve Health and Welfare. An Africa Award was given in recognition of the urgent need to address the combined challenges of environmental degradation and lack of access to resources in the region. More general information on the awards can be found in the press release.

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Studies show that per-capita energy consumption is low in many emerging economies, where vast sections of the population may not have access to modern energy infrastructure. The World Bank reports that this is particularly the case in rural areas where access is often extremely costly for the government to provide. Many countries are looking for alternatives, including geo-thermal and solar powered generators. One company in Brazil, Enersud Indústria e Soluções Energéticas Ltda, is finding innovative ways to fill this gap through a high-growth business model.

Enersud manufactures low-capacity wind turbines that can be used for industrial or household purposes. The ability of its technology to provide solutions for rural residents (such as wind powered water pumps) has attracted plenty of attention, and even the Brazilian government is looking to partner with the company to expand its reach.

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I’ll come right out and say it: I have discovered a cure for childhood obesity.  But it’s not the kid’s meal equivalent of the Atkins or South Beach Diet.  Because serious problems require serious solutions, I suggest that we turn to Uganda and see how villagers power their cell phones, laptops, and televisions.  You see, American children are obese because they spend way too much time watching programs like “Pimp My Ride” and “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” while they chat on AIM and send text messages to their friends (And we wonder why they all have ADD!).  If we simply adopted the rural Ugandan model of energy production, we could still enjoy all the virtues of American culture—i.e. reality TV—while avoiding its vices, namely obesity.

So what are Ugandans doing that keeps them so lean and mean?  According to an article published last week in Voice of America, many Ugandans are now utilizing bicycles to power their computers.  With technology supplied by Inveneo, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco, which has been profiled in Nextbillion’s activity database, Ugandans can hook up their bicycles to a generator which powers a battery used in their computers.  About fifteen minutes of pedaling translates into up an hour of battery time on the computer.  

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Since covering the lighter side of sustainable enterprise in China last week, I thought it would be helpful to discuss a more practical effort underway to make social and environmental impacts a mainstream consideration among businesses in the quickly developing East Asian region. ASrIA has recently published a new clearing house for climate change information and strategy on their website.

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Feet are important to discussions of the BOP hypothesis. I’m not talking about feet as in the unit of length, but rather as those awkward appendages connected to your legs. From a base of the pyramid vantage point, which is the best foot forward?

I did some thinking about this, and decided that there are two ways to view feet through the BOP lens. The first is negative, and has to do with the penalty poor people are subject to by virtue of their poverty. We all know, for instance, that those lacking access to basic services (water, energy, healthcare) must walk long distances – a scene from the HBO movie "Yesterday," where the title character must make a day-long walk (twice) to visit a once-monthly health clinic, comes to mind for healthcare in particular.

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China has a huge impending energy problem.  While the US is by far the leader in GHG emissions worldwide, China - with its high growth and booming population - is quickly becoming the elephant in the room during discussions on global energy policy.  Issues of rising demand and environmentally-damaging energy sources are not merely confined to urban areas as the country's rural communities often find their production capabilities outstripping available infrastructure.  This phenomenon forces many families outside of cities to burn inefficient materials such as wood and straw for energy in the absence of alternatives.  Luckily the country's insatiable energy needs are often matched by its pool of entrepreneurial talent. 

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