How It Works
Billions of people don’t have access to clean energy. They:
- May spend up to 30% of their income on fuels like kerosene or charcoal
- May live in houses where the air quality is equivalent to smoking 70 cigarettes per day
- Cannot provide sufficient light for children to study at night
- Solar LED lighting is often cheaper on a lifecycle basis than kerosene
- Efficient stoves use half of the fuel required by traditional stoves
- The high upfront cost of these technologies prevents many low income people from adopting them, even though they end up paying more
- In some cases these products are not even marketed in poor communities because so few people can afford them.
When you purchase a Yurtcozy carbon credit, the funding is used in four ways:
- Training staff at a microfinance field partner in clean energy technologies, enabling them to develop energy-specific loan products with the right interest rates and loan terms that are affordable to microentrepreneurs.
- Educating local businesses and households about the clean energy alternatives, and the availability of finance that makes them affordable
- Supporting local businesses and technicians who install the energy systems and keep them working long into the future
- Reducing the interest or principal costs, reducing the overall cost of the system to the microentrepreneur.
It works.
These simple actions overcome the barriers which have historically kept many stuck in energy poverty. The results are clear:
- On the individual level we’ve presented some stories microentrepreneurs that have used clean energy to save money and improve their quality of life.
- On the global level:
- Over 130 Million microentrepreneurs access microfinance today (2007, State of Microcredit Summit).
- At 2 tonnes of carbon per household per year, these people could reduce over 260 Million tonnes of carbon emissions per year.
- While at the same time unlocking up to 30% of their incomes to reduce poverty.
Calculate My Carbon Footprint
Climate Change Impact
5914 microentrepreneurs helped so far.
3351.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions reduced.
2 community members took action.
316 people have joined the Yurtcozy community.
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