SELCO
A social enterprise established in 1995, provides sustainable energy solutions and services to under-served households and businesses. It was conceived in an effort to dispel three myths associated with sustainable technology and the rural sector as a target customer base:
- Poor people cannot afford sustainable technologies
- Poor people cannot maintain sustainable technologies
- Social ventures cannot be run as commercial entities
SELCO's current product offerings include solar PV lighting systems, water heating systems, cook stoves and other customized products to meet specific needs. SELCO currently employs about 295 employees in in Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar and Tamil Nadu spread across 40 energy service centers. Since 1995, we have sold, serviced and financed over 1,50,000 solar systems to our customersSELCO's investors, all social, include E+Co,The Lemelson Foundation and The Good Energies Foundation.
The Small Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund (S3IDF)
A non-profit organization that addresses poverty alleviation in developing countries through two mission objectives:
- To employ its Social Merchant Bank Approach (SMBA) in India to build micro-, small-, and medium-scale enterprises that positively impact the poor and the environment
- To promote, disseminate, and transfer the SMBA to achieve a broader and greater impact within poor communities by enabling other development institutions to leverage both philanthropic and development capital to facilitate local commercial co-financing for micro-, small-, and medium-scale enterprises that explicitly benefit the poor.
S3IDF-India was established by S3IDF-US in 2003 in order to apply and verify its innovative SMB approach for developing a portfolio of small-scale sustainable infrastructure investments. Over the past 8 years, in India, S3IDF has helped develop 185 projects (project investments ranging from $ 1000 to $ 20,000) providing sustainable infrastructure services with local job creation and additional livelihood options. These projects directly or indirectly benefit in excess of around one hundred thousand people (as a result of being users of infrastructure services, or having enhanced income). Via a revolving fund, this portfolio has achieved leverage in excess of 2.5 i.e. for every dollar invested by S3IDF approximately $ 2.5 was invested by local financial institutions, raised through development capital or as local equity. In order to develop these projects, S3IDF has worked in partnership with 12 financial institutions, 29 technology suppliers and over 20 grass-root level organizations.