EnVenture Enterprises
Enventure Enterprises
Launching Community-Based Energy Cooperatives
Location: Bidibidi refugee settlement, Uganda
Host: Save the Children - Uganda
Developer: ENVenture - New Energy Nexus Uganda
Funding Secured: The pilot for this innovation received $15,000 USD from Response Innovation Lab.
Funding Needed: Scaling up to new communities requires between $15,000 and $30,000.
Website: www.enventureenterprises.org
Founded in 2014, ENVenture is an award-winning social enterprise that incubates and accelerates clean energy initiatives by establishing community-based cooperatives and supporting existing local organizations with financing, capacity building, and mobile technology. ENVenture recently merged with the international organization New Energy Nexus which formed New Energy Nexus Uganda. In Uganda, they have created 97 enterprises, sold over 16,000 products, and reached 87,000 + people. With the RIL support under the Green Innovation Fund, they piloted their model in a refugee settlement for the first time - they set up in Bidibidi settlement in 2019.
The Challenge
Refugee and host communities lack information on affordable clean-energy solutions and environmentally-friendly practices. Available clean technologies are often inaccessible due to the limited amount of suppliers and the high costs associated with available solutions.
The Solution
Founded in 2014, ENVenture is an award-winning social enterprise that incubates and accelerates clean energy initiatives by providing local organizations with financing, capacity building, and mobile technology. ENVenture establishes community-based cooperatives that increase access to renewable energy products in Uganda’s Bidibidi refugee settlement and other refugee communities. ENVenture creates energy-use transitions to low-cost clean energy by bringing affordable products, commonly found in urban areas, closer to refugee communities. Furthermore, they empower local groups to become the medium of this transition by becoming product-distributors that disseminate clean and affordable technology.
The energy cooperative founded in Bidibidi settlement promotes the use and uptake of clean energy technologies based on a desk research market study to evaluate the demand of four key technologies: 1) solar products 2) improved clean cookstoves 3) briquettes and 4) non-electric water filters. ENVenture recently merged with the international organization New Energy Nexus, forming New Energy Nexus Uganda.
Impact
Overview
Since its inception, ENVenture has created 97 enterprises, sold over 16,000 products, and reached over 87,000 people in Uganda.
ENVenture has supported the formation of Yoyo Youth Clean Energy Cooperation (YOYEC), consisting of 11 members (8 refugee and 3 host community members) who run two energy kiosks in Zone 3 of Bidibidi settlement with a mission to promote accessibility of clean energy household products for local communities.
ENVenture has provided a business toolkit to YOYEC to support them through financing and capacity building.
Financing comes in the form of an interest-free stock loan that includes products from vetted supplier-partner companies: cookstoves, solar lanterns, water filters, cooking bags, and briquettes.
Results:
Contracted a local briquette supplier who has reduced associated transportation costs and has invested in local businesses supported by another grantee, the Raising Gabdho Foundation.
Created partnerships with development/humanitarian actors would be critical to reach price alignment across suppliers and overcome current market distortions due to free goods distributed by humanitarian actors.
Next steps:
Grow the cooperation from 11 members to 22 members in two years
A vision to reach 5,000 end-users with the existing stock
Repayment of stock loan & investment in activities that can drive more business to the kiosks
Diversification of products at kiosks
