Green Bio Energy Ltd
Organization Details
Green Bio Energy(GBE) is an award-winning green business with a socially responsible strategy, which offers low-income Ugandan families and businesses access to cost-saving, eco-friendly, and safe energy solutions. GBE started producing and selling Briketi Charcoal Briquettes, the first brand of eco-friendly charcoal in Uganda, at the end of 2012, and started producing and selling its own brand of energy-efficient stoves, Briketi Eco Stoves, in July 2013 until the end of 2018. GBE also offers vocational training in briquettes production as well as machinery for the production of briquettes. These products are collaboratively and innovatively designed for GBE to achieve its three goals of social and environmental impact and economic sustainability. GBE’s vision is a world where everyone can access affordable, clean, and safe energy. Over the next years, GBE aims at modernizing its production plants, pursue its innovative path, and expand its model in the African region.
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Impact Story
What makes GBE stand out is its vision and application of innovation, which it calls “Briketism”, an approach that has guided all its decisions since the very beginning of its activity with the Briketi Charchaol Briquettes, and made the enterprise what it is today. It is first translating in its local content strategy: GBE exclusively uses local human and material resources all along its value chain. This vision also encompasses product development, for which GBE positions itself at the crossroad of the Western technological expertise and the local innovation capacity. Since its creation, GBE has followed a bottom-up approach, always including local communities in its design & testing process. GBE's diverse impact includes the impact of its products and processes, for example, each kilogram of briquettes sold additionally saves 25 kg of green trees, offsets 14.6 kg of CO2, and recycles 4.6 kg of waste. When GBE produced and distributed the Briketi Eco Stove: The stove allowed for significant financial savings to poor families: on average $107 over their 2-year lifespan (or 40% of the money usually spent on charcoal). The stoves also reduced the amount of noxious gases released, offsetting CO2 emissions by 4.905 tons over their lifespan and diminishing indoor air pollution. They finally reduced deforestation, saving 2.68 tons of green trees over their lifespan. Most significant of the social business impact is that women are by far the main beneficiaries of GBE’s products and services as cooking is mainly done by them. For its production and product distribution, GBE has built strong partnerships notably with charcoal retailers to recycle their charcoal dust, and with communities to process their organic waste. For the distribution of its products, GBE always favors its network of B-Points – independent women and youth micro-entrepreneurs that GBE trains to introduce and distribute its products in communities at the BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid).
