On Tuesday, 31 July 2012, Katerina Kimmorley, an environmental economist from Australia boarded a plane that would take her to the UK to start a new job as a climate change consultant. After receiving a research grant, Katerina was sent to Bangalore for two months to research the needs and values of people using kerosene lanterns.
On her return journey from Bangalore to London, as the plane flew over Delhi, one of the largest cities in the world, Katerina saw the lights of the city going out beneath her. When she landed in London, she found out that she had flown over one of the world’s largest blackouts, that night 700 million people, 10% of the world’s population, had been plunged into darkness. The blackout made it to the front page of every media outlet in the UK but what struck her the most was not the headlines in the newspapers but rather the fact that no one seemed to realise that, in India, every single night over 390 million people live without electricity. Without access to electricity many turn to kerosene lanterns, a high carbon, expensive solution that has well-documented negative health impacts. All Katerina could think about were families she had spent two months working with.
Flying over that blackout was a defining moment for her. Katerina turned down a job in the UK and went back to India to work on a solution to offer sustainable light to urban families around India. She co-founded Pollinate Energy, an enterprise with a mission to change the lighting status quo in India by providing sustainable technology on payment plans to India’s urban poor.
Through a network of on-the-ground local entrepreneurs, called Pollinators, Pollinate Energy works with people who have migrated to the city for better income opportunities, but settle in urban slums and are trapped in a cycle of fuel poverty. Pollinators receive full training, a start-up stock loan and a smartphone with an app to manage their portfolio of customers. They go door-to-door offering sustainable energy products on short-term payment plans. Once customers save money and experience better quality of life they seek other products (like clean cookstoves and water filters), which the Pollinators also sell, ensuring long-term business viability.
To date, Pollinate Energy has served over 519 communities reaching almost 34,000 people by installing over 7000 solar systems. Not only have INR20m been saved, but also over 400,000 litres of kerosene and 959,793kg of CO2 emissions. Katerina’s grander vision is a world where everyone gets equal access to life changing sustainable technology. Thanks to Pollinate Energy, children in the slums of India will have the chance to do their homework and study hard. By providing affordable energy products, Pollinate Energy also offers these children equal opportunities, challenging the birth lottery forever.
The Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards is an international awards programme delivered in partnership with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and in collaboration with Ashoka, that rewards inspirational entrepreneurs aged 30 and under who have developed a product, service or application that helps make sustainable living commonplace.
This is an edited extract from an article that originally appeared on virgin.com.
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