Social Innovation Projects

Cambodia has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. And yet 80% of the Cambodian people depend on fuelwood for their daily cooking.

The NGO GERES has been working in Cambodia for over 15 years on how to reduce the amount of wood and charcoal used by Cambodians. One of their solutions is The New Lao Stove. This simple bucket stove has improved insulation and air flow, which reduces charcoal consumption by about 25% compared to a traditional charcoal cookstove. This in turn reduces carbon emissions while improving the lives of the stove users, who spend less time gathering wood, less money for charcoal and are exposed to much less smoke. Over 850,000 New Lao Stoves are now in use in Cambodia.

New Orleans residents are still struggling to rebuild after the destruction of Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike. By providing and installing free CFL light bulbs in low income areas, this project educates and empowers residents in their very personal fight against global warming. The ultimate goal is to replace 3 million bulbs, thus avoiding 18,000 million tonnes of emissions over the lifetime of the program. This roughly equates to taking 120,000 cars off the road for a whole year.

Low energy bulbs use on average 75% less energy than regular light bulbs. By replacing all the bulbs in a house (around 30 bulbs on average), over $650 can be saved over the lifetime of the new bulbs for some of the city’s most impoverished inhabitants.

This project installs of solar water heaters, compact fluorescent lighting, solar cookers, better fuels and electricity generation for low income households in Welbedacht, KwaZulu-Natal in eastern South Africa. These alternative energy supplies are more cost-effective, reduce grid-electricity consumption in the face of an unreliable, dirty energy supply, and decrease emission of greenhouse gases, while also improving the quality of life for residents.