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Phase: Fellows

CaribShare Biogas

We harness organic waste from Caribbean hotels and small pig farms to produce clean energy in a manner that strengthens rural livelihoods.

Photo of Carol Lue
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CaribShare Biogas is a social enterprise and registered charity in Jamaica turning organic waste from hotels and small pig farms into biogas (type of biofuel) and fertilizer for sale. Our mission is to deliver clean energy from organic waste in a manner that strengthens rural livelihoods.

Our “Waste to Cash” program collects organic from hotels and small pig farms for free. Sharing up to 50% of our surplus revenues, participating farmers receive generous cash rewards as meaningful income to help support their livelihoods. 

Our “Waste to Energy” program supplies biogas to companies looking to self-generate electricity at a lower cost than purchasing from the grid.

Our “Waste to Fertilizer” program offers organic fertilizer at a highly discounted price to motivate farmers to switch from synthetic fertilizers, producing healthier foods and building climate resilience.

Through our programs, we are helping to solve the challenges of renewable energy, climate change, and rural poverty in Jamaica and the Caribbean.  We will be recycling and diverting tremendous quantities of organic waste from landfills to produce clean energy, and are thrilled about using it as a valuable resource for rural development. We plan to develop several biogas plants in Jamaica and other Caribbean countries to broaden our socio-economic impact across the region.

Describe your team

Our team consists of three directors including myself (Carol Lue) dedicated to CaribShare’s success. As the Founder and Executive Director, I have a multidisciplinary background in business, sustainability, and international development. Michael Archer and Richard May, the other directors are experts in renewable energy and civil engineering. We also have 6 young and vibrant recruits for our operating staff of which 2 are women and 3 are recent high school graduates. All are looking to improve the well-being of their communities as we are gearing to start operations in Mar/Apr 2016. Located on a hill overlooking the beautiful coast of Montego Bay, Jamaica; our pilot biogas plant offers a fun and enjoyable environment for working and having regular jerk barbecues.

Why are you excited about this OpenIDEO fellowship?

I am excited for the OpenIDEO fellowship so that CaribShare can master the art of story-telling and sharing our social impact. In this way, we will be better able to attract the right partnerships and resources globally to grow and deliver our mission.

In what ways might the OpenIDEO community support you?

• Building and activating an online community that supports our social mission of strengthening rural livelihoods. Follow and like us on: https://www.facebook.com/caribsharebio • Assisting with developing CaribShare as a social enterprise brand championing the value of organic waste to society in the Caribbean. • Embedding innovation into our operations and entire process flow from waste collection to energy generation.

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Photo of Lesa R. Walker MD, MPH

CaribShare Biogas What an exciting project! Congratulations Carol on your selection as an OpenIDEO Climate Innovator Fellow!

I am on the Compassion Games team in OpenIDEO. Our proposal is in the Beneficiary Feedback phase of the OpenIDEO challenge "How might we address urgent global challenges at the intersections of peace, prosperity, and planet in radically new ways?" Here is a link to our proposal: https://challenges.openideo.com/challenge/bridgebuilder/beneficiary-feedback/compassion-games-survival-of-the-kindest.

In the spirit of OpenIDEO collaboration, I am exploring connecting with you and the other Climate Innovator Fellows via the OpenIDEO platform to gain your feedback on our project proposal. The Compassion Games mobilize people to take individual and collective compassionate action to promote peace, prosperity, and sustainability for the planet. We have several global “coopetitions” during various times of the year to energize people to take action. Every April, we have an Earth Week coopetition! We gather reports on our global Compassion Report Map from people all over the world to share actions they took or activities they were involved in to care for the Earth from April 22-30.

As a Climate Innovator Fellow, we know you are constantly involved in taking action for the well-being of the planet. We want your help and expertise to provide feedback on the Compassion Games. It’s simple to do this.

We are requesting you to do 2 things: 1) Please post a comment BY MAY 10th via OpenIDEO at the link above to let us know what you think of our proposal- what you like, what could be improved, suggestions for improvement; 2) if you have time, check out our website (http://compassiongames.org/) and post a report on the Compassion Report map (https://s3.amazonaws.com/compassionreports/index.html) to tell us about your actions/activities to care for the Earth from April 22-30, 2017. If you want to enter a team name on your report, you can use “OpenIDEO Climate Innovators”. This is optional. You may choose to enter another team name or leave the team name blank. Posting a report is a way to share your work with others around the world.

Thanks so much! We value your input! We need your feedback by May 10th so we can consider it during the Beneficiary Feedback phase of our challenge. It is great that OpenIDEO gives us the opportunity to connect with each other to create a better world!

Lesa

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