Green energy venture wins social entrepreneur Sh7m seed funding

GreenChar has been named as an Echoing Green’s Fellow, which comes with $80,000 (Sh7 million) seed capital funding.

GreenChar founder and CEO Tom Osborn, 18, made history becoming the youngest ever Echoing Green Fellow in their 27-year history, after trouncing almost 3,000 applicants from across the globe. The company produces charcoal briquettes from agricultural wastes and improved energy saving cookstoves.

The funding will provided over a period of two years. In addition, Osborn and his team will receive leadership and business development support, and a lifetime membership in the Echoing Green network that includes the founders of the One Acre Fund, a social enterprise based in Nairobi, which supplies smallholder farmers with the tools and financing.

Founded in 1987 by global growth equity firm General Atlantic, Echoing Green has invested more than $33 million (Sh2.9 billion) in innovative social enterprises. Speaking after receiving the fellowship, GreenChar co-founder Ian Oluoch said that they would use the funds to reach a wider market.

“It’s our job to find innovative clean household solutions and offer them to our target market. This fellowship will go a long way in helping us achieve this,” he said.

GreenChar’s briquettes are produced from organic wastes and are smokeless, helping curb deforestation as well as reduce the adverse health hazards associated with charcoal and firewood.

The wastes are gathered, burnt in a limited oxygen environment and then bound using charcoal presses and dried. The briquettes last longer and are cheaper than charcoal.

In their growth plan, the company hopes to include a mosquito repellent in the charcoal, something the founders hope will help reduce the high incidence of malaria in rural areas. GreenChar also hopes to inspire and empower the youth around the globe to think critically about the needs of their communities and strive to make a meaningful difference.

“We want young people to know that their ideas and passions are valid and that they can be agents of impact and change,” says GreenChar team member Yina Sun.
More than 90 per cent of Kenyan households use charcoal and firewood as their primary source of cooking energy.

Since it was established last year, the social enterprise has sold 4,000 kilogrammes of briquettes and more than 300 energy-saving stoves.

GreenChar founders say their initiative has so far saved trees and made a positive impact on lives of more than 1,000 Kenyans.