Impact Area: Green technology

Environmental problems, poverty and poor health are closely linked. Impoverished people across Latin America, for example, have little choice but to heat and cook with wood stoves that pollute the air, encourage deforestation and cause respiratory illness.

People in poverty are also more likely to be affected by environmental challenges like climate change, which can cause more frequent and unpredictable adverse weather events.

GP is currently researching opportunities for investing in promising green technologies that--if made more accessible to people in poverty--could help address these critical concerns while improving their health and quality of life. We are also learning more about our current partners’ programs in this emerging field.

We have identified two particularly promising areas for investment:

• Solar-powered products: Products like solar panels and lights can reduce carbon emissions and energy costs and bring electricity to those who can’t afford it. Several of GP’s partners already manage pilot projects to help clients purchase and maintain solar-powered technologies to generate electricity.
• Clean cookstoves: Tens of millions of people in Latin America still cook with inefficient, open-air wood cookstoves that lead to dangerous levels of indoor air pollution particularly harmful to children. Clean, efficient cookstoves—which use alternative fuels and are designed for efficient burning—would reduce a significant source of local pollution while reducing carbon emissions, promoting better health and increasing productivity.

What next: GP is assessing which green technologies have the greatest economic, health and
environmental benefits and exploring the unique roles that our microfinance and cooperative partners can play in
designing specialized credit products to make these technologies accessible. We are also studying how
emerging carbon revenue markets might be tapped to fund progress and improve lives.