The Envirofit Women’s Empowerment Programme (WEP) was founded on the belief that women, as primary users of cookstoves, must be involved in both their design and distribution in order for stoves to be adopted and for women’s needs to be fully met. The WEP was first developed and funded in conjunction with the Global Alliance…
Nearly half the world’s population cooks with biomass. Open fire cooking represents the world’s largest environmental public health challenge contributing to climate change, deforestation, disability and mortality, while keeping families in the cycle of poverty to collect or purchase fuel for daily cooking. Household Air Pollution from open cooking fires kills 4.3 million people a…
When Shell Foundation was created in 2000, we set out to test a theory, largely unproven at the time, that market forces could be directed to deliver lasting socio-economic, health and environmental value to low-income communities – and that eradicating many of the world’s most entrenched development challenges could be financed predominantly from private capital.…
Nearly two billion people lack access to reliable and affordable modern energy – severely constraining their health, education and earning potential. Of this group, 60% live entirely without electricity for cooking, lighting and heating at home, for community services, or for improving the productivity of small businesses and farms. Accelerating Access to Energy outlines our…
Social Marketing in India captures our experiences, both good and bad, over several years of running social marketing campaigns to drive adoption of improved cookstoves; and the broader lessons we have drawn for marketing social-impact products more generally. Download the report (pdf, 2.6mb)
We have learned a lot about trying to achieve scale and sustainability over the past decade. We set about doing this in ways that were new at the time by pioneering an enterprise-based approach. We concentrated our efforts on tackling social and environmental issues in which the energy industry has a particular responsibility. We also…
In 2005 the confluence of advocacy, political serendipity and natural disaster has rapidly pushed the plight of the impoverished up the agenda of the wealthy as never before. The sharpness of the challenge being thrown down on behalf of the poor and the pressure on the rich to take action in response is unprecedented, as…