A social entrepreneurship initiative driven by IT companies, Microsoft and Frog, is designed to save energy, create jobs and build revenue in the form of carbon credits, and is set to be rolled out in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal.
The initiative was revealed yesterday at Microsoft's offices in Bryanston by manufacturer, Wonderbag, in partnership with Frog and Microsoft SA.
Wonderbag, owned by Natural Balance, joined forces with the Newcastle and Umzunduzi (Pietermaritzburg) municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, and Riebeek-Wes and Riebeek Kasteel in the Western Cape's Swartland district.
The project will offer residents fully-subsidised Wonderbag heat-retention cooking bags that can reduce the electricity they use for cooking by as much as 50%, according to the company.
As part of the project, field workers are recruited to use a mobile application on their cellphones, developed by Frog, to record details of all Wonderbag users and monitor how much energy they save.
This information is loaded onto a database hosted by Microsoft on its cloud Azure platform in its Western European data centre in Amsterdam.
Cellular connection
Cooking methods and time spent cooking are recorded and this is offset against the time and energy saved using the cooking bags, which enable sample surveys that quantify the carbon emission reductions.
The households using the cooking bags save money to spend on critical needs such as food, clothing and school supplies, while municipalities experience much-needed relief on their energy networks, says Wonderbag.
In addition, field agents receive an additional income while they continue to champion the cause, it notes.
“The first leg of this programme successfully forges a tripartite alliance between good environmental citizenry, better utilities revenue collection and UN-approved carbon footprint monitoring,” says Vis Naidoo, Citizenship Lead at Microsoft SA. “It also neatly positions municipalities as 'green' depots.”
According to Emile Rossouw, Frog senior business development manager, data is collected remotely via a mobile USSD application on a field agent's own GSM phone.
“From there, data is available via a Web interface to authorised Wonderbag representatives, sponsors and partners. Data is represented in various formats, from simple grouped lists to complex usage and carbon savings reports. Finally, findings are sent to the UN to receive carbon rebates,” says Rossouw.
Special focus
Newcastle mayor, Afzul Rehman, says he came to an agreement with Wonderbag to distribute the bags free of charge to citizens who have paid their municipal accounts for three months consecutively.
Rehman says: “Once the Wonderbags are in full use, our financially stressed citizens will use less power, putting much-needed money in their pockets, and giving our municipality the status of becoming an environmental leader in local government.”
Rehman believes the project will provide jobs to the community and will also incentivise people to pay their electricity bills.
“Local government, as it stands, is battling to survive and one of the main reasons for this is that it's struggling to collect money that's due, and this hampers service delivery. Currently, 40% of people in Newcastle are unemployed.”
The project will be rolled out in Newcastle for a minimum of one year. Rehman says the money generated from carbon credits, and money saved from residents will go towards improving infrastructure.
“The municipality is currently sitting on R600 million in outstanding debts, and there are those people who can afford to pay. It will be an education process to facilitate the success of the Wonderbag project,” said Rehman.
Valerie Flanagan, who heads up Wonderbag's strategy, says the initiative is a clean development mechanism project, which means that it's registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and puts SA at the forefront of audited household-level carbon reduction.
According to Flanagan, for every Wonderbag in use, a user can claim one tonne of carbon every two years, provided the field agents can prove who the users are, what energy source they use for cooking and for how many people.
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